Q: Are there different considerations involved for arranging purely virtual meetings, hybrid meetings or in-person meetings?

A: The biggest differences between in-person and virtual meetings (assuming the technology works well in the latter) are the difficulty in picking up body language cues, and the small time lags that can lead to (unintentional) talking over others in the virtual world. Allowances need to be made for these problems.

Hybrid meetings can be more problematic, as those in the room often carry on ‘as normal’ and forget to take account of their virtual colleagues. The chair therefore needs to pay special attention to the virtual attendees and ensure they can make full contributions.