Welcoming the return of industry conferences

The calendar tells us the halfway point of winter has just passed. While much of the nation may continue to endure arctic blasts and heavy snows in the weeks ahead, the noticeably longer days since the start of the year are a sure sign that warmer, sunnier days are not too far away.

In a metaphorical sense, the same can be said about the COVID-19 pandemic: It’s far from over, but the arrival of vaccines are the medical equivalent of snowdrops or crocuses, signaling the tentative beginnings of a reawakening.

Betting that conditions will improve and restrictions be lessened in coming months, a sprinkling of fintech companies and others in and around the financial advice business have announced a resumption of live conferences to be held later in the year. We applaud their efforts and hope that a full range of live events returns as quickly as safety concerns allow.

CHIEF TAKEAWAY

In the interests of full disclosure, InvestmentNews has a financial stake in a return of live industry events. (Although if you are a subscriber and receive our emails and notifications, it should come as no surprise that we produce many conferences, summits and other events.) 

Aside from the business interests of conference promoters, however, the resumption of in-person industry get-togethers, regardless of who puts them on, is a true positive for advisers, the industry in general and ultimately, the individuals and families the industry serves. 

Education, of course, is the chief takeaway from conferences. With the pandemic turbocharging the growth of videoconferencing, virtual conferences have come to fill the need for expert information and insights. Like others, InvestmentNews has produced many of these virtual events, and they have been very well received.

SERENDIPITY

But the value of live, in-person events goes far beyond the factual information imparted by presentations and break-out sessions. In large part, it can be summed up in one word: serendipity. 

Whether it’s on the plane getting to a conference, at the hotel where you’re staying, on a lunch line at the event, over a drink, waiting for a session to begin or in countless other random moments, you never know whom you will meet, what you might unexpectedly learn or what solution you might discover from a stranger you just met who had a similar problem. 

Unexpected, unplanned and uncharted personal interactions are what make conferences so valuable. 

In fact, on a small scale, conferences replicate the dynamism and creativity of a city, where a mix of people are concentrated in a compact physical space and can connect informally in ways that the go-it-alone nature of wide open spaces — as desirable and necessary as they are — simply can’t match. 

So let’s continue meeting virtually, because the ability to share ideas and learn in an almost-physical environment is a technological gift not to be minimized. And when live, in-person events come back in full, let’s celebrate.