Episode 717: In Person, Online, or a Blend?/第717集：面對面、線上，還是混合在一起？

 第717集：面對面、線上，還是混合在一起？

從1985年到2020年，BNI嚴格是一個面對面的網絡組織。在2020年1月至2020年3月期間，BNI做了一個令人難以置信的轉折，將9700個BNI分會過渡到在線會議。 BNI現在有超過10,000個分會，全部在線上開會。

隨著與COVID有關的限制在世界許多地方放寬，問題變成了 "BNI的下一步是什麼？BNI會議的未來是什麼？"

這個問題的答案仍在討論之中。為了拉開序幕，BNI對世界各地的2300名會員進行了調查，詢問他們更喜歡哪種方案。

1. 僅限本人出席，
2. 僅限線上，或
3. 線上會議和面對面會議的混合。

結果呢？只有三分之一的受訪成員希望回到只有現場的會議，但有50%的人喜歡現場和在線的混合形式。 (只有16%的人選擇在線會議，是最不受歡迎的選擇）。

目前還沒有任何決定，所以請在評論中分享你的想法，說明這對你的分會有什麼作用。

第717集的完整文字記錄

Priscilla:

大家好，歡迎回到BNI官方播客。我是Priscilla Rice，我從加利福尼亞州伯克利的Live Oak錄音室為您帶來。今天與我通電話的是BNI的創始人和首席願景官，Dr. Ivan Misner。你好， Ivan，你好，你在哪裡？

Ivan:

嗯，我還在環遊世界。 我在奧斯丁的總公司跟你說話。 但我一直在環遊世界，去中國香港、秘魯和印度，還有更多的地方。 Zoom的一個優點是我可以看到很多活動； 我參加了很多BNI活動。

Priscilla:

是啊，這太棒了。我喜歡這樣。那麼，告訴我們一點關於我們在這裡討論的內容。

Ivan:

是的。因此，讓我給你一個背景故事，然後我再談談人際交往中的人際關係，在線，或混合。 2017年我坐在BNI高級領導會議的後面。這群人正在討論該組織的未來。他們想，你知道，展望未來，看看可能有什麼樣的機會和挑戰。

他們是BNI董事，一小群被選中的董事，小組中有人看著我說，"嘿，你是首席願景官，你對公司的未來有何看法？" 而這是在2017年。所以我站在房間裡，大膽地說，由於混合現實、3D技術、全息技術的進步，我認為網絡的未來可能是在線的。

雖然我認為這可能會引起注意--但它卻引起了人們的注意。我得到的反駁是 "不可能！不可能！"。不可能！ " 那是對我的聲明的壓倒性的聲音。因此，除了房間裡的幾個千禧一代外，幾乎是完全反駁的。

其中一個對我說“真的嗎？”一個不相信的人問道。 “真的嗎？你是世界上最大的人際網絡組織的創始人，你真的認為我們會轉向線上！？”然後有人說，“永遠不會！那永遠不會發生。”他接著說，“我不敢相信你真的會這麼想。”

因此，我在那天重新學到了一個寶貴的教訓，那就是當你有一個大膽的願景時，作為一項規則，不要直接把它說出來。相反，要讓人們輕鬆進入這個願景。人們一開始並不接受大規模的變化，他們需要盡可能地被緩和到這種變化中。

我寫了一個部落格，我想我們在上面做了一個播客，《猫在屋頂上》。 我做過這播客了嗎？

Priscilla:

是的

Ivan:

因此，請看《屋頂上的貓》的播客或我做的《屋頂上的貓》的博客，我們會試著把這兩個鏈接放在這裡。

Ivan:

因此，一旦我認識到我的錯誤，我在接下來的一年中所做的就是開始在公司活動中談論中斷，以及公司在提供服務時如何變得自滿，以及他們有時如何看不到火車向他們駛來的軌道。正如我在以前的播客中所說的那樣，我談到了Kodak 、Sears和 Blockbuster，作為公司在運營中變得自滿會發生什麼的例子。

所以我曾希望這些故事能讓董事們，最終讓會員們思考中斷問題。我寫了一篇關於顛覆的文章。我們會試著在這個播客腳本中放一個鏈接，指向我在《企業家》上寫的關於破壞的文章。

而我當時一直在談論這個問題，已經一年多了。然後在2018年12月，我又為《企業家》寫了一篇文章，講述我看到網絡組織即將發生的變化，就像我一年前建議的那樣，當我提出來時引起瞭如此大的反響。而我在提出這個概念一年多後重新提出，因為我覺得更有效地奠定基礎真的很重要，為什麼我認為這即將到來，你可以看到我在《企業家》雜誌上的文章中做出的正式預測，我們也會附上這個鏈接。

看看這個，因為我是在2018年寫的，它在entrepreneur.com上，我談到了在線將變得至關重要。隨著時間的推移，我把我組織中的人提到這兩篇文章，幫助他們為我當時認為即將到來的事情做好心理準備。當然，我看到這種發展是因為技術的出現，而不是病毒，但我還是看到了它的到來。

2020年1月中旬，我參加了一次策劃活動，當時我們正在進行一次由Geolab創始人Kian Gohar領導的演習。 這是他的“登月演習”，今年是2020年1月，他要求我們為當年我們希望在組織內接受的東西製定一個願景。

我的願景是，到2020年底，我們公司的管理層，高級管理層，將看到一個不可避免的事實，即網絡的未來將是，至少部分是在線。現在，那是2020年1月。我不知道的是，在那個月底我們將在中國和其他一些國家完全接受這個願景，然後逐漸擴大。

現在，這需要歸功於我們的首席執行官格雷厄姆·威米勒（Graham Weihmiller），他環顧四周，發現新冠病毒將成為組織中一個比其他人想像的更大的問題。 正如我所說，到1月底我們已經實現了亞洲轉型。 到2月，我們在歐洲大部分地區進行了轉型，到2020年3月，他、特許經營商、會員和全球支持團隊已經將整個組織轉型為線上。

而這並不是一個小成就。在2020年1月，該公司有9700個網絡小組，每週都要親自開會。到2020年3月，我們有超過9700個小組每週在線上開會，這是一個巨大的轉折。

從那時起，該公司又增加了 500 或 600 多個分會，使我們的小組總數在全球範圍內超過 10,000 個章分會。幾乎所有這些團體在 2020 年的大部分時間裡都在線上開會。 幾年前對大多數人來說似乎完全不可理解的事情，在我預測的兩年內，甚至兩年半內成為常態。

因此，這將我引向本次播客的主題。現在公司內部的問題是--"未來的會議將如何發展？" 而在之前的播客中，我談到了很多--要有耐心，深呼吸。希望比恐懼更有力量。 BNI是恐懼之海中的希望之燈。

我們明白這一點。這是一個重要的問題，這個問題的答案還沒有解決。但它正在討論中。我將分享的不是BNI政策--而是談話要點。這個過程已經開始，對來自世界各地的2,300多名會員進行了調查，詢問他們是否希望他們的網絡會議是:

1. 僅限本人出席
2. 僅限線上，或
3. 融合了在線和面對面的會議。

現在，我將與你們分享結果。實際上，我將在這裡包括一個圖形，一個PNG或JPG的圖形，我將與你分享的數據。

正如您在該圖中的結果中看到的那樣，本次調查中有三分之一的會員希望完全回到“面對面”會議。超過 16% 的人希望堅持“僅限在線上會議”。因此，三分之一的人表示僅面對面會議，16% 的人表示僅在線上會議，而且驚人的、驚人的（考慮到兩年前的態度）近 51% 的接受調查的會員支持面對面會議和線上會議的結合。

現在，就在幾年前——對於組織中的大多數領導者來說是不可想像的，現在對於組織接受調查的三分之二的人來說是可能的。

由於技術的不斷進步，轉向線上網絡會議是不可避免的。我想重複一遍。由於技術的進步，在我看來，轉向線上網絡會議是不可避免的。Covid 的傳播只是加速了即將到來的破壞。

我為這個組織感到難以置信的驕傲，因為我們沒有讓這種干擾關閉我們。相反，我們正視它，這是一個公司應該做的。這也是一個公司的客戶應該做的。這是我們組織的當地董事應該做的，也是他們所做的。這是你們這些會員應該做的，也是已經做的。我相信我們可以引領顛覆，也可以被顛覆。這是企業家在21世紀必須接受的口號，以在21世紀生存。對於網絡團體來說，這意味著現在是時候接受不可避免地過渡到某種形式的線上會議了。

現在，你得聽聽我的話。 我並不是說，“我們都在線上。”我是說我確實相信混合方法——這可能是實現這一點的最佳時機，也可能是混合方法的最佳時機。 對於大多數商務人士來說，在安全的情况下，與他人見面並握手，在線上是沒有對等的。 我同意這一點。

這就是為什麼我認為一個過渡，即上會議和現場會議的混合變化是很好的。對於那些位於有下雪天的城市的BNI分會來說，這是“懸而未決的成果”，這很容易，是的……我同意這一點。

但是，即使對於世界各地的其他分會來說，我認為一些混合版本很可能會出現在我們的未來。這並不意味著你們不會回到面對面的會議中去。你可能會。但請關注技術，因為事情正在發生變化。這就是我的信息，Priscilla。有什麼想法嗎？

Priscilla:

是的，我們在小組裡一直在思考這個問題。我認為理想的關係是三次線上會議和一個面對面的會議。在一次面對面的會議上，你會製造一種節日氣氛，你知道的，比如，你可以有一個聚餐或其他什麼，使之，你知道的，真的很特別。

Ivan:

嗯，我喜歡三加一的想法。 再說一遍，這不是公司的政策。 我喜歡這個主意。 我不確定我會不會讓它過得像個節日。 事實上，我會嘗試定期召開BNI會議。 那將是我的建議。

Priscilla:

嗯，當然，我的意思是，我不是假設你們不會有一個定期會議。

Ivan:

如果你在做一個定期的會議，你知道，它可能會在一個餐廳裡，但它很可能會改變，也許有一點時間，在會議結束後有一些時間讓人們多交流一點。但我認為，你知道，如果我是一個分會的會員，我想這就是我所傾向的，你知道，三個在線和一個面對面的。這樣做的好處之一是，隨著公司的發展和越來越成功，他們會旅行，如果他們仍然可以參加大部分的會議，如果該分會正在旅行（線上會議）。

我知道我們已經過了時間，但我感謝你的建議。我也喜歡這個想法。請大家記住，這不是政策。這是一個討論。要有耐心。

Priscilla:

好的

Ivan:

我們會挺過去的。 我為你們所有人感到驕傲，也為我們如何度過這場新冠病毒的瘋狂而感到驕傲。 我們會沒事的。 EGBOK——一切都會好起來的，我保證。 交還給你， Priscilla。

Priscilla:

好的，非常感謝你，Ivan。嗯，這就是本週的內容。我想讓你知道這個播客是由 www.misneraudioprograms.com 贊助的。

這些播客將為你提供工具和靈感，有力地提高你的BNI經驗，幫助你促進你的業務。因此，請查看www.misneraudioprograms.com，並使用促銷代碼IVAN50，所有播客中享受50%的折扣[該代碼在有限時間內有效]。所有的收益都將捐給BNI基金會。 非常感謝你的聆聽。 我是Priscilla Rice，我們期待著你下週再次加入我們，觀看另一集激動人心的BNI官方播客。

Episode 717: In Person, Online, or a Blend?

July 28, 2021 by Ivan Misner 17 Comments

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Synopsis

From 1985 until 2020, BNI was strictly an in-person networking organization. Between January 2020 and March 2020, BNI made an incredible pivot and transitioned 9700 BNI chapters to meeting online. BNI now has more than 10,000 chapters, all meeting online.

With COVID-related restrictions easing up in many parts of the world, the question becomes “What’s next for BNI? What is the future of BNI meetings?”

The answer to that question is still under discussion. To kick it off, BNI surveyed 2300 members around the world, asking which option they preferred:

1. In-Person Only,
2. Online Only, or
3. A Blend of Online and In Person Meetings.

Results of the survey about future BNI meetings.

The results? Only a third of members surveyed want to go back to in-person only meetings, but 50% prefer a blend of in-person and online. (Online-only was the least popular option at 16%.)

Nothing has been decided yet, so please share your thoughts about how this could work for your chapter in the comments.

The Official BNI Podcast is sponsored by Misner Audio Programs.

Complete Transcript of Episode 717

Priscilla:
Hello everybody, and welcome back to The Official BNI Podcast. I’m Priscilla Rice, and I’m coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkeley, California. And I’m joined on the phone today by the Founder and the Chief Visionary Officer of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner. Hello Ivan, how are you and where are you?

Ivan:
Well, I’m still Zooming around the world. I’m talking to you from my home office in Austin. But I’ve been Zooming around the world to Hong Kong China, Peru, and India, and many more to come. The one nice thing about Zoom is I get to see a lot of events; I get to attend a lot of BNI events.

Priscilla:
Yeah, that’s so great. I love that. So tell us a little bit about what we’re discussing here.

Ivan:

Yeah. So let me give you a little backstory, and then I’ll talk about the Networking In-Person, Online, or a Blend. In 2017, I was sitting in the back of a senior leadership meeting for BNI. And this group was talking about the future of the organization. And they wanted to, you know, look ahead to see what kind of opportunities and challenges there might be. They were BNI Directors, a small group of select directors, and someone from the group looked over at me and said, “Hey, you’re the Chief Visionary Officer, what do you see for the future of the company?” And this was in 2017. So I stood in the room and I boldly said that because of advancements in mixed reality, 3D technologies, holographic technologies, I thought that the future of networking was likely to be online. And while I thought that might raise a few eyebrows – instead it raised voices. The pushback I got was “No way! No way!” That was the overwhelming chorus of voices in response to my proclamation. So the pushback was almost complete, with the exception of a couple of millennials that were in the room.

One of them said to me, not the millennials, the others, “Really?” asked this one guy who was incredulous. “Really? You’re the Founder of the world’s largest in-person networking organization, and you honestly think that we’ll transition to online!?” And then somebody else said, “Never! That’s never gonna happen.” He went on to say, “I can’t believe that you would actually think that.”

So I re-learned a valuable lesson that day, and that is that when you have a bold vision, as a rule, as a rule, don’t just blurt it out. Instead, ease people into that vision. People aren’t receptive to massive change at first, they need to be eased into that change whenever possible.

I have done a blog, and I think we did a podcast on it, The Cat’s On the Roof. Did I do a podcast on that yet?

Priscilla:
Yeah.

Ivan:

So look for the podcast on The Cat’s On the Roof or the blog I did The Cat’s On the Roof, and we’ll try and put a link in for both of those here.

Ivan:
So once I recognized the error of my ways by just blurting it out, what I did over the next year was to begin to talk at company events about disruption, and how companies could become complacent in their delivery of services and how they could sometimes not see the train coming down the track at them. And I spoke, as I know I have in previous podcasts, about Kodak and Sears and Blockbuster as examples of what happens if a company becomes complacent with their operations. So I had hoped that these stories would get Directors and eventually Members thinking about disruption. I wrote an article about disruption. We’ll try and put a link in this podcast transcript to the article I wrote at Entrepreneur about disruption.

And I’d been talking about it, then, for over a year. Then in December of 2018, I wrote another article for Entrepreneur about the change that I saw coming in networking organizations, like the one I suggested a year earlier that caused such a vocal reaction when I brought it up. And I re-introduced this concept more than a year after I blurted it out because I felt that it was really important to lay the groundwork more effectively about why I think this is coming, and you can see the formal prediction that I made in an article on Entrepreneur, we’ll include that link as well.

Take a look at that, because I wrote that in 2018, it is on entrepreneur.com, and I talked about how online was going to become critical. Over time, I referred people in my organization to these two articles to help them prepare mentally for what I believed was coming back then. And granted, I saw this development because of the emergence of technology, not a virus, but I saw it coming, nonetheless.

In mid-January of 2020, I was at a mastermind event where we were doing an exercise led by Kian Gohar, who is the Founder of Geolab. And it was his “Moonshot Exercise”, and this is January 2020, and he asked us to create a vision of what we wanted to be embraced within our organization that year. And my vision was that by the end of 2020, that the management, the senior management of our company, would see the inevitable fact that the future of networking would be, at least in part, online. Now, that was January 2020. Little did I know that at the end of that month, we would fully embrace that vision, in China and some other countries, and then gradually, we expanded that.

Now credit for this needs to go to our CEO, Graham Weihmiller, he was looking around a corner and he saw that Covid was going to be a far bigger problem in the organization than anyone else thought it would be. And by the end of January, as I said, we transitioned Asia. By February, we transitioned much of Europe and by March of 2020, he, the franchisees, members, and the Global Support Team had transitioned the entire organization to online. And this was no small feat. In January 2020, the company had 9,700 networking groups that were meeting in-person every week. By March of 2020, we had over 9,700 groups meeting online every week, and this was a pivot of monumental proportions.

Since that time, the company has added more than 500 or 600 additional chapters, bringing the total number of our groups to well over 10,000 chapters world-wide. And virtually all of these groups were meeting online for most of 2020. What seemed completely unfathomable to most people just a couple of years earlier, became the norm within two years, well of two and a half years, of my prediction.

So that leads me to the topic of this podcast. The question now within the company is – “What does the future hold for meetings going forward?” And in previous podcasts I talked a lot about – Be patient, take a deep breath. Hope is more powerful than fear. BNI is a beacon of hope in a sea of fear.

We get that. It’s an important question and the answer to that question has not been settled. But it is under discussion. What I’m going to share is NOT BNI policy – it’s talking points. This process has begun with a survey of over 2,300 Members from around the world, asking them if they would like their networking meetings to be:

1. In Person Only,
2. Online Only, or
3. A Blend of Online and In Person Meetings.

Now, I’m going to share the results with you. And I’m going to actually include a graphic here, a PNG or a JPG graphic of the data that I’m about to share with you.

As you can see in the results in that graphic, one third of the members of this survey wanted to go back completely to “In-Person” meetings. Over 16% wanted to stick with “Online Meetings Only”. So, one third said In Person Meetings Only, 16% said Online Meetings Only, and a whopping, whopping (considering the attitude just two years prior) almost 51% of the members surveyed were in favor of a blend of meeting both in-person and online.

Now, just a few years ago – what was unthinkable to most leaders in the organization, was now very possible for two thirds of the people surveyed by the organization.

Because of the continuous advancements in technology, the move to online networking meetings was inevitable. I want to repeat that. Because of advancements in technology, the move to online networking meetings was, in my opinion, inevitable. The spread of Covid simply expedited the imminent disruption that lay ahead.

And I am so incredibly proud of this organization because we did not allow that disruption to shut us down. Instead, we faced it head on, which is what a company should do. It’s what the clients of a company should do. It’s what the local Directors of our organization should have done and did. It’s what you, the Members, should have done, and did. I believe we can lead the disruption or we can be disrupted. That is the mantra that entrepreneurs must embrace to survive in the 21st century. For networking groups, that means that it is time to embrace the inevitable transition to some variation of meetings online.

Now, you’ve got to hear my message. I’m not saying, “We’re all moving online.” I’m saying that I do believe that a blended approach – it might be the perfect time for that, might be the perfect time for a blended approach. For most business people meeting in-person and shaking someone’s hand, when it’s safe for us to do that again, has no online equivalent. And I agree with that.

That’s why I think a transition, that is a blended variation of meeting online and meeting in-person is brilliant. And it’s ‘low hanging fruit’ for BNI chapters that are in cities that have snow days, that’s an easy, yes. But even for other chapters around the world, I think some blended version is likely to be in our future. That doesn’t mean you’re not going to go back to meeting in-person. You may. But keep your eye on the technology because things are changing. That’s my message, Priscilla. Any thoughts?

Priscilla:
Yeah, well, we’ve been thinking about it in our group. And I think the ideal relationship would be three online meetings and one in-person. And on the one in-person, you would make kind of festive, you know, like, you could have a potluck or whatever and make it, you know, just really special.

Ivan:
Well, I love the idea of three and one. Again, that’s not company policy. I love that idea. I’m not sure I’d make it festive. I would, in fact, try to have a regular BNI meeting. That would be my suggestion.

Priscilla:
Well, of course, I mean, I’m not assuming you wouldn’t have a regular meeting.

Ivan:
If you’re doing a regular meeting, you know, it’s probably going to be in a restaurant, but it’s likely to change, maybe have a little longer, have some time after the meeting for people to network a little bit longer. But I think, you know, if I were a member of a chapter, I think that’s what I’d be leaning towards is, you know, three online and one in-person. One of the benefits of that is that as companies grow and get more successful, they travel and if they can still attend most of the meetings, if the chapter is traveling (meeting online). I know we’re over time, but I appreciate your suggestion. And I like that idea. Remember everyone, this is not policy. This is a discussion. Be patient.

Priscilla:
Right.

Ivan:
We’ll get through this. I am so proud of all of you and how we made it through this COVID craziness. We will be okay. EGBOK – Everything’s Gonna Be Okay, I promise. Back to you, Priscilla.

Priscilla:
Okay, thank you so much, Ivan. That was great. Well, that’s it for this week. I’d like you to know that this podcast is sponsored by www.misneraudioprograms.com. These audio programs will provide you with the tools and the inspiration to powerfully enhance your BNI experience and help you boost your business. So check out the great material available to you at www.misneraudioprograms.com and use the promo code IVAN50 for 50% off all the audio programs [this code is good for a limited time]. And all the proceeds are going to go to the BNI Foundation. So thank you so much for listening. This is Priscilla Rice and we look forward to having you join us again next week for another exciting episode of The Official BNI Podcast.

https://www.bnipodcast.com/2021/07/28/episode-717-in-person-online-or-a-blend/