The Virtual 2020 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference: Uncommon Thinking for Uncommon Times

EDUCAUSE has long worked to advance higher education by lifting up "uncommon thinking for the common good," and right now, the uncommon has become the norm. Trends that we might have previously measured in years can now be tracked by headlines that change from day to day. College and university staff and leaders have done more, in less time, than anyone would have thought possible just six months ago, and yet we still face daunting uncertainties about fall—and beyond. Fall is when higher education institutions typically welcome thousands of students to campus and also when EDUCAUSE welcomes our community to our annual conference.

This year our annual conference will be held completely online. The virtual 2020 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference will be, as always, a great celebration of our community. Even though we know you all love the energy that is generated by thousands of colleagues gathered together in one place, we want your conference experience to be both engaging and safe. So we've gone to great lengths to create a virtual conference that continues to offer "the best thinking in higher ed IT."

We plan to set a new standard for virtual higher education conferences. Instead of trying to replicate a face-to-face experience online, we're bringing you the best of "being there" in person and the best of joining from a distance. I'm confident that you'll have more opportunities than ever to learn from and connect with colleagues and that you'll enjoy the experience at both a lower cost and a lower stress level (without the travel challenges).

You'll immediately see the kind of depth and breadth that you've come to expect from EDUCAUSE annual conferences, but sessions won't amount to a concatenation of talking heads. Instead, we're investing in a state-of-the-art virtual conference platform to bring you more than 250 sessions in a mixture of live-streamed, "simulive," and on-demand formats (many of which you will be able to access through January 2021). You'll have the opportunity to dig into the sessions and then also enjoy virtual networking and mentoring opportunities, along with a special "Community Day" that will bring together community groups to connect before the conference begins.

We know that making connections is what draws us all together and that being online increases the possible connections exponentially—unbound from space, place, and (in some cases) synchronous schedules. We are offering multiple avenues to engage, including mentoring and matchmaking, product explorations, deep dives with exhibitors, live-chatting with presenters during sessions, and easy ways to expand professional networks outside of the conference (e.g., with LinkedIn connections through our virtual platform).

We're trying some other new things, creating virtual "learning labs" in place of traditional face-to-face pre-conference workshops. Participants will spend time with subject-matter experts and colleagues as a way to learn more about a specific topic of interest and how to apply what they learned after the conference. We're adding "experience summits": detailed explorations and immersive activities with today's thought leaders around specific themes including diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), teaching and learning, cybersecurity and privacy, and enterprise/analytics.

We know many attendees register for the EDUCAUSE annual conference for professional development, and I suspect this year will be no exception. Higher ed IT staff face shared and significant challenges in the coming year due to the current pandemic, and our programming will address the issues and opportunities before us. We are offering sessions that will provide insights, best practices, and real-world solutions related to Covid-19, facilitating information sharing beneficial to all institutions, large or small. In addition, we'll be highlighting myriad ways that you can help advance your career through mentoring, career coaching, microlearning, networking, and building your brand.

We also know that our conference exhibit hall is an important part of the EDUCAUSE annual conference experience, offering an unparalleled opportunity to explore offerings from a critical mass of higher education suppliers. We're particularly excited about our virtual exhibit hall experience. You'll be able to view product demos, arrange virtual 1:1 conversations, hold scheduled business meetings, learn more from industry partners in their virtual booths, and even collect digital swag (if you're into that sort of thing).

EDUCAUSE is changing as an association, and our virtual annual conference for 2020 is a powerful expression of that change. Like you, we've made decisions to deal with our new financial realities, but our vision isn't being defined by our budget. Our goal is to serve our community better than ever in tough times. We're becoming more responsive, agile, focused, and collaborative, and we think you're going to see all these attributes on display at our virtual annual conference in October 2020.

John O'Brien is President and CEO of EDUCAUSE.