As a guitar player, I get to jam on a lot of digital gear. I’ve noticed that the high-end stuff always tries to recreate those older analog sounds—solid-state amps that have tube amp tone, and guitars that sound like they were pulled out of Les Paul’s attic. It’s as if the best digital technology is trying to help music recapture something that was lost.

Communications at events is like that too.  We’re using increasingly sophisticated digital technology to go backwards, and recreate something extremely analog—talking.  The best technology is now restoring the simple act of talking that had been destroyed by the sheer physical scale of events. The real advantages seem to be not what interactive and collaborative technologies are adding to events but what they’re taking away—the barriers to talking.

This was crystalized when InVision developed a custom social media app for a tech client’s partner event. The business owners and CXOs in the audience were competitors who had every reason to not talk to each other. But as soon as they got the app in their hands they started posting heavily, followed by meeting with one another face to face. Presenters were transformed from tiny figures on stage to individuals who would quickly and candidly answer questions—and follow up. The barriers to talking had been removed.

Our desire to talk and connect is so strong that we’ve enacted laws to keep people from killing themselves by using cell phones or texting while driving. That desire has also created a need for events to provide better ways for people to connect, just as they do in every other aspect of their lives. Those glowing phone and tablet screens in the audience aren’t symbols of rudeness. They’re visible proof of attendees trying to bring the art of conversation back in.