We’re defining “virtual events” for our purposes as …
- Multi-location – at least some of the participants are geographically separated.
- Live interaction – the most important things happening are happening simultaneously in real time, even if some elements are pre-recorded or are being recorded for later consumption.
- Group interaction – not only is there more than one person connected, but at least some of the locations include multiple participants in one space.
In order to go beyond the current practices, we want the architectures and scenarios to have some common elements:
- Multi-channel – there is more than one simultaneous line of communication between the locations.
- Multi-level – the architecture explicitly allows for different types of participation and different roles for participants, and for communications at that level between different location (e.g. audience to audience).
- Multi-modal – there is more than one type of interaction or experience, e.g. tactile plus visual, video plus SMS.
This description of the project is a starting point, and the project itself will evolve as an example of “virtualized” innovation and concept development.