Playing It Safe
The pandemic has taught our industry agility like nothing else we’ve seen in our lifetime. Fittingly, it’s time once again to update our plans for events, which have been on-again / off-again as it relates to face-to-face or digital.
When the year began, all heck was breaking loose, with the dark of winter creating issues everywhere. Then spring brought the vaccine, the hope of herd immunity, and with it our plans for F2F events began to bloom. We decided we’d do the Outsell Signature Event digitally but move our Outsell Leadership Community meetings to September and do those F2F. That way, we could bring our clients together to still enjoy the warmth of summer.
Then the delta variant emerged. The new variant now represents 85% of the cases in the US and a significant portion in the UK. With it have come more breakthrough cases and mask mandates going back into place.
Here in California, most counties (including our largest) have indoor mask mandates. We were only a month in from masks being lifted when the mandate came roaring back. I predict that this will be the case in the UK in another 30 days. So, for now, our plans are that we’ll meet F2F in the UK, where there has been overwhelming interest and where distance is less of an issue. Here in the US, many clients have also expressed interest, but when it came to booking, they said “no.” Without a quorum, our US councils are meeting digitally this year.
We’re turning the entire last third of 2021 into the Outsell Signature Experience — all about innovation, which we’ve all had to focus on. We’ll hold digital meetings in September, October, November, and December all on one theme, with a variety of speakers and programming. We’ll try to do some F2F meetings in the UK (fingers crossed), and what you know of as the Outsell Signature Event will still be in November, but this year, it will be part of this series that takes us through the year and preps leaders for 2022. And if the COVID gods are kind, we will host a social event in the US this year in lieu of our F2F meetings — roof-top terrace, anyone?
When it comes to F2F, our best current plan is to hold our event F2F next June, where we’ll combine community meetings with a conference. We’re moving the event up because there’s no way any of us want to wait until November 2022. We have members who, thankfully, are using the Outsell Leadership Community Platform to problem-solve and network. We have Zoom. We really, really want to get together F2F, but we don’t want to do anything that leads to us later unraveling plans or breaking contracts.
In Las Vegas two days ago, there were 2,500 people at a convention from all over the world. No one was wearing masks — well, let’s just say that the vast majority weren’t. You can’t tell me every one of those people was vaccinated. The streets were jammed and restaurants full like there was no tomorrow, with nary a mask in view. I, for one, don’t want to contribute to super-spreader events, make people wear masks when we finally do get together, or deal with attestations or on-site testing. It’s not the right thing to do in this environment, and when it came time to vote, our clients said the same. Many are hosting events, but we will not be doing so this year. I wish it were different, but I don’t see this delta variant getting any better anytime soon. So, we’re taking it one step at a time and looking forward to seeing you when we are finally able.
At least we aren’t sheltering in place — now that’s progress.