On February 12 2020, the GSMA announced the cancellation of Mobile World Congress 2020 following weeks of speculation about the viability of the event amidst the Covid-19 crisis, and some high profile withdrawals from firms such as Amazon, Ericsson, LG and Sony.

IBC recently joined a list of cancelled and postponed events that already included the NAB Show, SXSW, E3, Google I/O and The Farnborough International Airshow. Everything has changed.

Trade shows and conferences are the drumbeat of the technology industry’s communications calendar, driving news, product development cycles and customer engagement. As the major events that were once galvanizing forces for whole industries disappeared, the accepted wisdom on market and audience priorities has been turned on its head. Carefully laid plans for every aspect of communications have had to be rapidly re-assessed.

As the world tentatively looks to the future, there’s a natural re-alignment of priorities and an emphasis on working out what the “new normal” might be. In that spirit, we asked leading technology journalists and analysts for their views on how technology companies have been communicating during the Covid-19 pandemic and what they want more/less of in future. The results reveal important insights that will help technology communicators plan their next steps.

The research identifies: