Some lessons I learned from running five days of remote workshops…

1. Even more breaks than you think you need. Ten minutes every hour. Gaps between days, too. I couldn’t stomach the grisly prospect of Mon–Fri, so we ran Tue/Wed → Fri → Mon/Tue. A blessing.

2. Use a proper microphone. My voice gave out on day 1 because I hadn’t plugged in and had to use my videocall voice. No problems once I dug the Røde out.

3. Use the clock for prompt time-keeping – ‘see you all at 11:05’ – and restart on the dot, so attendees know you mean it.

4. Be alert to, and accommodate, chat: my group fell into a great habit of using it for non-interrupting questions.

5. Child-lock everything in Miro. Lock and hide boards, pre-drag stickies. That thing’s only usable en masse if you sharply reduce degrees of available freedom.

6. Set and enforce a rule that any camera-visible cats must be introduced to the group. We stopped three times, I think. Best decision we made.

Anyway, it reminded me of Twitch streaming, except with a visible audience / less outright fun / better pay.

In all, I think our sessions went damn well. Would still far rather have done them in person, but we overcame much of my scepticism. A great group goes a long way.