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DOING THIS TOGETHER ACROSS TIME ZONES AND GEOGRAPHY: A PERSONAL PROCESS ONE NEXT TO EACH OTHER As the YCI Forum is focused on building global connections and relationships within the cohort, it was important that all participants take part in the program at the same time. As such, all main sessions took place between 2pm – 5.30pm CET (Salzburg time). Due to the global nature of the group and the various time zones in which participants were based, the timing of the sessions was inconvenient for some participants, particularly those on the west coast of Canada for whom sessions started at 4am or people in Asia for whom sessions ended at 1.30am.
For the smaller sharing and pocket sessions, the program team tried to stick to consistent scheduling of sessions to avoid any confusion. This meant running the 13 pocket sessions workshops concurrently on different Zoom accounts, which was a logistical challenge but worked well in terms of participant experience. Participants were able to select a small group sharing session at a time that worked with their schedule; these were offered at six different times, ranging from 9am CET to 2am (+1 day) CET. This meant that groups were geographically mixed and that people had the flexibility to choose a morning, afternoon or evening session depending what worked with their existing schedule. For this to happen, it was important to have a globally diverse facilitation team who were distributed across different time zones. Not requiring people to travel to Salzburg also had the added benefit that the program could take place around the personal commitments of participants in a more flexible way. Some YCIs participated with their babies on their laps (or their cats on their heads); were able to care for parents who got sick during the program; could still attend hospital appointments; or could take the program with them on their smartphone on their commute to work. The program faced the paradox of virtual convening. On one hand, participants didn’t meet in-person and that can make it challenging to build interpersonal connections. On the other hand, with most people participating from their homes or workplaces, there were humanizing opportunities to have glimpses into the lives of others. There is value in this virtual model. Vulnerability “ was easier for me sitting at home in my pajamas! ”
