What do you mean… “Digital Transformation”?
It has been an interesting five months since COVID-19 hit Singapore…
“Hey Guillaume, did you buy masks for the team? Did you put tape everywhere to prevent people from being too close? Did you buy a laser thermometer? How did you manage your team A and team B cycles? Is there enough hydro-gel for all the employees? Do we allow employees to eat in the pantry? This guy just coughed, what do we do? …”. Ugh…
This new era has forced us to keep our distances with our colleagues, friends and family. While we read everywhere that we live in a connected world, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out we are more and more alone. I don’t think this is going to be easy until the virus is gone. It will take a lot of time for the communities around the world to go back to their real social life.
In the meantime, with #ChabLab we sell the new way of doing events: DIGITAL. But as an entrepreneur, it is important to clarify the “why?”.
Why? I want to bring our clients back to real-life interactions and real physical events. Do I like spending hours in front of a computer: the answer is “NO!” Do we have a choice: the answer is also “NO”. We need to adapt, to deal with it.
Finding a purpose is a lifelong journey as an entrepreneur. I would say that the purpose of Chab Lab is to connect employees or clients and try to make those video conference more meaningful, interacting and valuable.
We have decided to introduce ourselves as integrators. We put in place digital transformation strategies for our clients. We create experiences where employees or clients engage with brands. If you are on circuit breaker/confinement or beyond that point, there is still a need for virtual events. Reinventing ourselves wasn’t an easy thing. But, it worked. Today we have a pipe of business, we engage in conversations with C levels from all around the world. Some of the topics are so interesting that we converse way beyond the initial PowerPoint presentations… They challenge their own organisations most of the time by agreeing that the Digital Transformation is a wave to catch now. Not so easy to move large organisations to adopt new tools and a new way of thinking.
When we were managing Live events before COVID-19, we were specialists of emotions. How to generate the right emotion, with the right client at the right time… The magic tool was: experience. Today it is the same thing, but we have to do it online. The venue is now a platform, the registration counter is now a mini website, the plenary is a streaming feed and your event planner is now a #DigitalEventManager, voila!
Last week I posted a poll on my LinkedIn about the digital transformation and happiness.
An impressive 80% agrees that it is difficult to generate happiness with their team or clients via digital engagement. This is exactly the centre of the debate. It is not whether a virtual interaction can entirely replace physical interaction. But if the emotions you feel via a real interaction can be felt using digital tools. Generating emotions between the people and the brands have been the speciality of Chab Events since 2013. Our duty is to prove that it is possible in 2020 to generate emotions for the same clients via virtual or hybrid solutions.
Guillaume Chabrières, Founder and C.E.O. of Chab Events.