The Work World Gone Virtual

Who would have thought even a month ago that the entire working world would have to be remote? It's a concept that many employers have resisted for years, but has forcibly become a reality because of the Coronavirus pandemic.

So where to for the meeting and events industry?

Many organisations have taken en masse to widely available platforms for small meetings and broadcast meetings such as Zoom and hangouts. Zoom webinar and GotoWebinar are popular for more significant town hall-style broadcasts. 

There are other options and bolt-ons to consider too. The event tech community has been rapidly prototyping event apps and audience response functionality onto broadcast platforms, such as Slido embedding Zoom into their platform. Cvent is also offering Reg-Integration with Webex, Zoom and GoToWebinar amongst others, and experimenting with a CrowdCompass app with webinar functionality using Zoom with a concept called "second screening". 

Then there are companies like On24, iVent and inxpo that have been promoting virtual conferences and exhibitions for years. As well as handling the webcast presentations, they also provide platforms for exhibitors and visitors to meet and network. It will be interesting to see how this form of commerce develops over the next six months. 

Crystal, however, has decided to take a different approach. We know that the webinar requirement is covered, and we know small teams can collaborate via hangouts or zoom meetings. But what about platforms that can facilitate a meeting of between 20-100 people? We want to support meetings when the goal isn't just to share information but to engage in dialogue. To meet this requirement, we have taken everything that we learnt through the years of deploying our Collaborate platform for in-person meetings and transposed it onto a virtual setting. We are proud to present our new virtual collaboration platform: JAM.