Industry Insider Readers Weigh In: Live or Virtual?

When the pandemic began in 2020, public- and private-sector organizations scrambled and adapted to protocols on social distancing, masking, virtual events and video calls. Many shifted to 100 percent remote work.

This year, organizations began returning to live, in-person events, including Industry Insider — California and parent company e.Republic. The advantages of in-person events are the networking and the personal connections, while the advantages to virtual gatherings are convenience and efficiency.

This month, we polled our members about whether you preferred in-person events or virtual presentations. And you’ve spoken:

• 52.1 percent of respondents prefer a live event at a venue in Sacramento.
• 40.8 percent prefer a virtual format webinar that’s recorded and available for later viewing.
• 7 percent had no preference.

We also asked respondents which public-sector departments, agencies or leaders they’d like to hear from. The top five public departments were:

1. The California Department of Technology (CDT)
2. The California Department of Transportation
3. The Employment Development Department
4. The California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES)
5. The California Public Employees’ Retirement System
   

The two most-requested government tech leaders were state Chief Information Officer Liana Bailey-Crimmins, who’s also director of CDT, and Adam Dondro, agency information officer for the California Health and Human Services Agency and director of the Office of Systems Integration.