In-Person Away Virtual Events, LLC ~ The Beginning

         

 In late August 2005, my home and job were destroyed by hurricane Katrina. Because of that devastation, I was forced to relocate to St. Louis, Missouri to rebuild and restart my life. While many family members originally geographically dispersed by the storm were subsequently able to return to New Orleans, my daughter and I were not. It was her senior year of high school and her school along with most others in New Orleans had been closed indefinitely. She was forced to complete her final year of high school in St. Louis.

            Like most New Orleanians who found themselves in the same situation, we had resigned ourselves to making do with what we had when it came to communicating and visiting family. We would use the traditional forms of communication to stay in touch with our family and prioritize the events that would qualify for a physical return visit. It was understood that we would not be able to make every wedding, funeral, or celebration and we had to be okay with that. Life as we had known it from that perspective had changed.

            This attitude and acceptance worked for a while. However, in December of 2014, I learned that I was going to be a grandmother for the very first time, and the complacent acceptance of being separated from family would have to change. Anyone and everyone who wanted to be a part of this new life celebration would be able to do so, and I was committed to making that happen.

            My background is in instructional design. This skill and knowledge allows me to create instructional materials and courses designed to promote fun engagement while being informative. During a moment of private contemplation, it dawned on me that if I can do this effectively in the business and educational arenas, surely, I could do something in the social arena. It was then that I began to explore the many ways to create virtual synchronous activities and identify technology and other platforms to implement this innovative idea. 

The result was a “virtual baby shower” for my daughter. Guests attended via the  physical venue and online. I reconfigured baby shower games normally played in person to be played electronically by those attending in person and virtually. If they had a mobile device equipped with a camera and mic, and access to a reliable internet connection, guests could participate in a synchronous fashion from wherever they were physically. In addition, there was a visual element which allowed virtual guests to see my daughter along with the guests attending in person and vice versa. Virtual guests could watch her open the gifts in real time, see the other guests who were attending in the physical venue, and interact with them and my daughter. Everyone could win prizes as well, and it did not matter if they were there in person or attending virtually.



Virtual guest playing mommy measurement game

After successfully completing this event, I realized the situation could not be unique to me. There had to be others who found themselves in similar circumstances—wanting to visit or celebrate with family but prevented from doing so due to distance, timing, finances, or some other impediment. Why should anyone miss out on an opportunity to celebrate with family and friends just because of geographical separation when technology can bring us as close as the distance between a reliable internet connection and mobile device or computer? For some time now doctors and hospitals have used this technology to connect with their geographically disbursed patients, businesses in corporate America have used it to connect to their geographically disbursed employees, universities and other learning institutions have used it to connect with geographically disbursed students, so why can’t families use this same technology, in a more loosely structured yet interactive and synchronous format, to connect with geographically disbursed family members for celebrations and other social events?

As I began to consider the possibility of other event types and the attendance challenges people would face, templates for funerals, weddings, bridal showers, birthday parties and the like started developing in my head. Soon, I began seeking the various equipment, processes, people, and software to deliver high quality experiences and In-Person Away Virtual Events, LLC was born.