‘Tis the season… for Christian conferences. As I tweeted the other day, it seems like there’s been a Christian leadership or ministry/tech conference going on every day since Labor Day. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to participate in the Willow Creek Leadership Summit, the Lutheran Educators Conference, Catalyst, and Cultivate this year. But thousands of other people who would have loved to be a part of these conferences could not because of the time and cost of travel.
While at Cultivate, Neal Locke saw one of my tweets from the conference and emailed me about the growing trend in virtual conferences. Take a look at this this video showing a virtual conference…
Pretty wild huh? Could you see yourself participating in a virtual conference like this?
Right now I think virtual conferences are a ways from becoming mainstream because virtual worlds are still a ways away from becoming mainstream. So, while virtual conferences may reduce the barriers of time and money they introduce new barriers of competency and comfort with the virtual world.
But the number of people engaged in virtual worlds like Second Life continues to grow.
Twenty years ago it would have been crazy to think you could get 10,000 people to sign up for an Internet-only, live streamed Christian leadership conference, but now that most Americans have high speed Internet access and view video online on a daily basis, the Leadership Network was able to pull that off with The Nines conference.
Could it be that in 20 years (or less), the Internet will no longer be primarily a 2 dimensional experience viewing flat text, images, and media, but a 3 dimensional experience?
Co-founder & CEO, OurChurch.Com
Paul has been the CEO of OurChurch.Com since its founding in 1996, combining his passion for faith and technology to lead the organization.
An accomplished writer, Paul has authored over 2,000 articles on faith and technology, featured on platforms like ChurchLeaders.com, The JoyFM, and his personal blog, LiveIntentionally.org.
Beyond his professional achievements, Paul serves as an elder at Journey Community Church and is deeply engaged in his community through his involvement with the Florida Sheriffs Youth Ranch and the Safety Harbor Chamber of Commerce. He is a contributing author of the book Outspoken! Conversations on Church Communication.
6 Comments
Paul — thanks for posting on this. I think you're right that virtual conferences are still a ways from becoming mainstream. But I'd answer your final question by saying, yes, the internet will go from primarily 2d to primarily 3d in quite a bit less time than 20 years.
I think the "web designers" of today will become the "virtual world environment and event designers" of tomorrow (borrowed from Ray Kurzweil on that idea).
But I also think that the current economic downturn will help spur a growth movement in virtual conferences right now — Unfortunately businesses intent on saving money will probably lead the way here, not churches (who are generally slow adopters). That said, Doug Estes new book "SimChurch" highlights the increasing number of virtual faith communities, and real world churches with "internet campuses" — so maybe the church isn't that far behind.
But be it church conferences or business conferences, you've also hit on a key point in this post: competency and comfort with virtual worlds are the biggest hurdles to adoption. I think this is where tech-savvy organizations can work wonders. My experience with Second Life has been that when people join and explore in isolation, they tend to get frustrated with the experience, stuck, or even bored.
But on the other hand, when people come into virtual worlds with a fixed purpose, are met in-world by other people (represented by avatars) who walk them through a quick training session…the competency and comfort barriers fade quickly. I imagine this is exactly what Virtualis did for their event.
For a Christian conference, providing this sort of virtual world "welcome wagon" orientation would have another advantage. In addition to overcoming the barriers mentioned above, it would be an opportunity to practice just the sort of hospitality and welcome that many of our churches suffer from a lack of.
That said, I think what we'll most likely begin to see in the near future of Christian conferences is a hybrid arrangement — real world conferences that develop virtual world equivalents, allowing people who can't make the trip to participate and interact with those who do.
Paul — since my response to your post broke the golden rule of blogging (comments shouldn't be longer than the original post) I decided to turn it into a post over on my blog as well, and have in turn linked it back here:
Virtual Conferences: Future or Far Fetched?
Thanks again for tackling this question — Also love your post about Willow Creek/Saddleback vs. LifeChurch.TV and Northpoint!
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Neal, thanks for your comments.
“My experience with Second Life has been that when people join and explore in isolation, they tend to get frustrated with the experience, stuck, or even bored.”
That was my experience when I tried out Second Life last week for the first time. I found it to be frustrating and then I got bored as I couldn’t find anyone who would interact with me. Having a Second Life “Welcome Wagon” would be extremely helpful.
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