Miro…. For In-person Talks and Workshops?
The global community has largely decided that in-person events are now safe again. Over the past couple of months, I’ve been to two in-person conferences in the UK and one in Portugal. And in the next two months I’ll be attending in-person events in Budapest and Amsterdam.
My participation at these conferences is a mixture of talks and workshops. But what tools will I use? Pre-pandemic I was a MacOS Keynote fanboy, but during the pandemic I had eyes for only Miro. Yet, with in-person on the menu again, surely this is the end of Miro?
Based on my experiences so far, it’s 100% Miro all the way. I’ve used Miro exclusively for my in-person workshops and talks, and I plan to for all upcoming events. I find it easier to use, and it brings additional possibilities that aren’t otherwise possible…. albeit a few annoyances, too.
Miro for In-person Workshops?
At NDC Porto 2022, I teamed up with Maxime Sanglan-Charlier to run our 2 hour software architecture-themed workshop. Previously we had run this workshop remotely using Miro.
We discussed how to run the workshop in-person a few times and decided to go with Miro, in addition to giving people wall space and flip charts.
The workshop involves reviewing pre-made canvases and identifying design problems and suggesting improvements. Even with the canvases at maximum size on the big screen, it was still hard for people to read some of the text, and impossible for those at the back of the room.
What Went Well?
Here’s where Miro is a game changer. Using their laptops, tablets, and smartphones, everybody in the room was able to access the Miro board and zoom in and out of the canvases and see exactly what they wanted to in perfect detail at their own leisure.
The big screen at the front was just nice ambiance at that point.
Seated at their tables in small groups, attendees could also add sticky notes onto the shared canvas so everyone’s feedback and ideas was all visible in the same place.
Would these things have been possible without Miro? Technically yes, realistically, not really.
It would have probably involved printing things out on A4 paper, which would be a huge preparation effort and would remove all flexibility to make changes and refinements.
Did Anything Not Go Well?
We hung paper up on the walls all around the room so that each group had a physical space they could use as well. But not a single post-it was put on the walls or scribble drawn with pens.
It’s a shame not to use physical space when in-person, so I think we definitely need to encourage more of this in future workshops. I envision it will result in some content in the physical space and some in the virtual space. Hopefully that can be solved by taking picture and uploading to the Miro board, but I still expect to face some challenges figuring out how to do that well.
Another issue we noticed was that not everybody had a tablet or laptop, and those people resorted to their smartphones. It looked like it was a reasonable experience, but not great on a screen that small, and difficult to point at something as you’re discussing in a small group.
Our workshop was mostly viewing content and adding some comments with stickies. Normally, this is not the case and workshops involve attendees creating a lot of content with sticky notes, shapes, text, emojis and all the content candy Miro has to offer. Smartphones definitely won’t be suitable for that.
In the short-term, I’ll be making an effort to communicate up front as much as possible the importance of bringing a laptop or tablet. In future, I hope that conferences can provide devices and take the hassle away from workshop facilitators.
Miro for In-person Talks?
For in-person workshops, there is some logic behind the idea of using a virtual whiteboard. But for in-person talks? It sounds a bit like using general scissors to cut your hair. Technically, it works.
But sometimes, unexpected combos are the best, like putting pineapple on pizza. And using Miro for in-person talks is surprisingly good too.
The Good Bits
Being able to see slides laid out on a board gives it a shape and some depth. Maybe I can’t describe how I feel, but it’s just so different to a flat list of slides that all the popular presentation tools use.
I organise my talks into sections. Usually a 45 minute talk has an intro, 3 main sections, and a wrap up section. On my Miro board, each of those is a horizontal row.
Moving around between slides is elegant with the ability to zoom in and out and whizz around. To some people it might be nothing, but to me it just feels more spacious and alive. I generally feel more productive and creative when putting the deck together.
A lot of the content I use in workshops, I also use in talks, and vice-versa. So having all my content in one tool makes sharing easier. This is definitely a big plus point for me.
When it comes to presenting, I normally export to PDF the night before so I have an offline copy if needed. I’ve presented a PDF using the MacOS PDF viewer to audiences of a few hundred, and it’s great even on big screens.
The Dodgy Bits
Using Miro for something it wasn’t fully designed for means you have to accept that some of the nice things you are used to are no longer available.
The biggest concern I have is the order of slides. How your slides are laid out on the Miro board does not automatically correspond to the order they appear in presentation mode. You have to open the slides window and manually order the slides.
In the slides window you can insert a new frame after an existing frame, so you’re not completely reinventing the wheel. But if you just create a new frame directly on the board, it’s going to be added at the end of the list, irrespective of where it lives on the board.
The system I use is to number my slides using the format {section number}.{slide number}. Example 0.4 is section 0 slide 4. Using this format, I can scroll through the frames window and ensure all slides are in numerical order.
All of this pain would disappear if Miro created a simple option to automatically re-order slides based on the slides name. If that feature existed, all you would need to do is ensure each slide has the correct number and the ordering would be completely taken care of.
I’ve requested this feature on Miro’s public wishlist.
The thing that will annoy most people is the lack of templates. Whenever you create a new frame you need to copy an existing frame or copy the content from an existing frame.
In some of my slides decks there are subtle differences in positioning, size, and colour of content because each slide is hand-crafted. It’s not ideal, but to be honest, it doesn’t bother me that much. I can imagine that for other people this might be a bigger problem.
In a Few Months, The Picture May be Different….
Three events in, and Miro for in-person is a slam dunk for me. The next few months, though, may take the story in a different direction as I have the chance to do more varied workshops and multi-day workshops.
Right now I find it hard to believe something dramatic will change my mind and that I’ll completely abandon Miro. Although, I am expecting that as in-person events really start to take off, everyone will be experimenting with new in-person concepts and digital tools. And maybe someone else will have an even better approach.
What’s changed for you about in-person events compared to pre-pandemic times? And if you’ve been an attendee, what has your experience been of in-person sessions that used digital tools like Miro?
