The End is in Sight We were greatly encouraged by last week’s announcement that there is now a route out of the darkness and into the light, and it is cheering to know that we have just a few more obstacles remaining before we can – finally! –

The End is in Sight We were greatly encouraged by last week’s announcement that there is now a route out of the darkness and into the light, and it is cheering to know that we have just a few more obstacles remaining before we can – finally! – get there. Our industry desperately needed this news, and despite our optimism and patience it sometimes felt like there really was no end in sight. But we are nearly there, and now we can move on to the question everyone needs to be asking: what next? We are an innately social animal and we’ve been kept apart for so long it hurts, so it seems reasonable to expect a rush of planning followed by a calendar brimming with physical live events across the second half of this year (we’re glad to report that our phones are already ringing). The sheer exhilaration of being together again, of seeing friendly faces, of shaking hands and working together in the same room, will mean that many of 2020’s hastily-embraced technologies and tools may be forgotten in favour of that most human of activities – the face-to-face, physical, social experience.

But let’s not neglect those tools entirely. They made us better at what we do. They taught us new skills (one of the hidden blessings of the COVID-19 era), and they made our services smarter, more flexible, further reaching, and in many cases mor

But let’s not neglect those tools entirely. They made us better at what we do. They taught us new skills (one of the hidden blessings of the COVID-19 era), and they made our services smarter, more flexible, further reaching, and in many cases more affordable for our clients. To forget about them would be a folly. To pretend they never existed would be dishonest. The emergence of off-the-peg virtual technologies enabled us to develop hybrid events and experiences, creating economies of scale and greater security against contingencies, and we should factor this in whenever we are invited to respond to a client brief. It will make our responses more innovative and more sensitive to the needs of clients and their audiences. Things may be about to get better (fingers crossed) but they are unlikely to be the same as they were before the pandemic struck – so it’s on all of us to show that we are keeping up and thinking ahead, that we have come through these dark days with new insights, new skills, and the ability to deploy them in pursuit of better client outcomes. 02.03.21 < Back to news

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