Be it Zoom, Webex, Go To Meeting, Teams or whatever, a remote platform smells as… sweet? This certainly seems to be the new normal, and necessity being the mother of invention (or creation), I believe we are going to be doing these remote meetings more and more often, well into the future. COVID-19 has shown us that we can and should do it. We can save time, money and resources.
Last week, I was very happy to deliver the keynote lecture at GEOWEEK 2020. The event was organized by the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú). I delivered the keynote presentation: Practical Thoughts Regarding Filtered Tailings.
I believe that the conference was very well organized and run. My sincere congratulations to everyone in the organization who contributed.
This was the first time that I have delivered a speech in this way. It felt different. There was no sense of immediate feedback. There were neither eyes upon me, nor eyes looking at their smartphone. There were no sounds of shuffling chairs, not late-comers. There was no laughter at my attempts at humor.
I’ll have to get used to that. We all will.
There was also an almost non-stop appearance of banners across my presentation slides, obscuring their words, and announcing that this person and that person had joined the meeting, and was awaiting being admitted into the room.
I’ll have to get better at not using my slides for a crutch.
This is truly the way of the future. Let’s learn to embrace it.