Comms Connect Melbourne cancelled; online courses booming

This year’s Comms Connect Melbourne conference has been cancelled due to the continued uncertainty and health concerns resulting from the COVID-19 situation.

In an announcement sent out on Tuesday, 21 July, the organisers said that “Our highest priority as event organisers is the health and safety of our exhibitors, visitors, speakers, contractors and staff, and at this stage, despite our best efforts, we do not believe that the conditions are right to run Comms Connect Melbourne 2020 [in person].

“We haven’t taken this decision lightly and know there are multiple stakeholders that hoped we would run this year; however, we know this is right for our customers and all those that participate, and the safest decision to make at this point.”

The next Comms Connect Melbourne is scheduled for November 2021.

The move follows the earlier cancellation of Comms Connect Sydney 2020 and the postponement of this year’s Comms Connect New Zealand to May 2021.

Despite these disappointments, the good news is that the Comms Connect team has been busy putting together a raft of online courses, webinars and other virtual events, the details for which can be found at the revamped Comms Connect website.

These online events have been going for a couple of months now, and have proven to be very popular… especially the Microwave Radio Masterclass, which has had to be scheduled for a second time due to demand.

Importantly, the virtual courses and workshops give industry members who live in far-flung places — and who therefore might not have been able to attend the physical Comms Connect events — a chance to participate and learn from some of Australia’s top communications experts.

Here are some of the virtual events coming up in the next few months:

• July 30 — Turning black spots into bright spots
• August 13 — Microwave Radio Masterclass
• August 19 — Unifying mission-critical communications: Standards, AI and machine learning
• September 2 — Radio Communications 101
• September 15 — Leading up and across: Influencing skills for technical leaders
• November 24 — Critical Conversations for technical people
• February 8, 2021 — Managing technical teams
   

We’ll bring you further updates and news of extra online events as they are announced.

Image courtesy Comms Connect.