Bon Newsletter Issue 4: Better Virtual Gatherings

Hi there! ✋ Welcome to Bon's monthly newsletter capturing the transformative impact of programs around the world. This month, we are thinking about Zoom fatigue and exploring how we might make virtual gatherings more effective and - dare we say it? - enjoyable!

- Chris Batchelder

100 Seconds on Programs

In-person gatherings are back, but virtual meetings will be with us for the foreseeable future. Rather than simply powering through Zoom fatigue, we are opening our facilitator's toolkit to find new ways to hold better virtual gatherings!

Virtual classrooms have been a hallmark of education technology since we first started following the space in the late 2000s. Indisputably, the potential for educators to connect with students in remote classrooms has ushered in new opportunities for youth in underserved communities across the globe. And yet, as so many of us have experienced over the past year, video conferences are not only emotionally draining, they can also exacerbate unconscious bias. So what is it about video conferences? And, more importantly, can we make them better?

An imperfect reflection. Human conversation is an intricate art that relies on our brain's ability to parse the myriad tonal, gestural, postural and emotional cues that we give and receive when speaking to each other. Video conferencing platforms support most of these cues, but as a facsimile of in-person conversation, they fall short. As the anthropologist Dr. Susan D. Blum notes, "All the communicative signs that embodied humans rely on are thinned, flattened, made more effortful or entirely impossible. Yet we interpret them anyway." The result of this imperfect reflection is mental and emotional fatigue.

Take time to connect. To counteract the flattening effect of video conferencing, create opportunities for participants to get to know each other as embodied individuals. As program leaders, we routinely use icebreakers to quickly establish a sense of shared purpose and trust among program participants. In a virtual setting, we become fully reliant on icebreakers to establish fellowship. We are excited to try these seven activities, recommended by the New York Times Teaching Project, to build community in the classroom. Or, if you're looking for a more out-of-the-box icebreaker, you might consider hiring a herd of goats!

Keep it real. Another way to facilitate a shared experience, and inject a dose of "realness" into the world of video conferencing, is to invite participants to bring craft supplies to a meeting and then work together actively to build something during the call. Participants will end the call with a physical object in hand, irrefutable evidence that the interaction really did take place! The Bon team also regularly uses Miro, an online collaborative whiteboard platform, to facilitate remote brainstorming sessions. Hello, virtual post-it notes!

Video conferencing will never be a true reflection of the classroom, but by being intentional about creating connections among participants using facilitation techniques and digital tools, we can design meaningful learning opportunities from (virtually) anywhere 🏖️!

We'd love to hear from you! Do you suffer from Zoom fatigue? What do you do to stay engaged and connected on Zoom? Drop us a line and let us know!

What We're Up To

• Eid Mubarak to our friends who are celebrating!

What's Inspiring Us...

• Hosting elegant Zoom meetings: It is possible to host better Zoom meetings! When you practice proper Zoom etiquette and make an extra effort to communicate well, you can be confident in making a good impression, especially given some of the limitations and pitfalls of digital communications. From wardrobe to lighting, the etiquette experts at Emily Post share insightful tips for hosts and participants for a more elegant Zoom experience. Read more here!
• Living with less impact: Did you know that switching off your camera during video conferences can help the planet, too? By cutting out the energy required to stream live video, you can reduce your carbon footprint by up to 96%! Insights like these are what motivated interstory members Max Mahmoud Wardeh and Sarah Hutton to found LessImpact.org, a platform dedicated to gathering data on the environmental impact of technology and raising awareness for potential solutions. What an inspiring project!

News from interstory

interstory is a global professional network created and supported by Bon Education that connects people building programs for a better world.

Get to know our global community! Each month on interstory, we feature one of our inspiring members who is leading programs and impacting social change around the world. Discover stories like:

• Why is Dr. Shahirah Mahmood on a mission to bring better data science to the non-profit sector?
• How is Max Mahmoud Wardeh using digital platforms to build open knowledge communities to address immense global challenges?
• What drives Sarah Cady Hutton to help amplify youth voices advocating for change and make the world a better place?

To read stories like these (and more!) and become a member of our community, sign up at interstory.com. Membership is free!

“Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee and just as hard to sleep after.”

― Anne Morrow Lindbergh, author and aviator

The End