How simplyIC remodeled its event by focusing on delegate experience.

By Lisa Pantelli

simplyIC is Europe’s largest digital workplace festival for those working in internal communications, HR, and enterprise communications technology.

As a business that sits at the intersection of internal communications and technology when COVID-19 hit the UK, cancelling the event didn’t feel like the right option. However turning this into a virtual event was the only option if we wanted to go ahead – but an event of this scale and with the few weeks available to us – it meant despite months of planning, we had to rethink our approach.

In Stephen Waddington’s recent article ‘5 Tips for Running Virtual Events at Scale’, he highlights five learnings from the virtual communications events which have taken place in recent weeks:

Community
Experience
Content
Scale
Production

From our own experiences, these all resonate however I would offer one more to the mix: technology. Here I share how these learnings applied to simplyIC live.

Delivering a masterclass in virtual events

Community

We wanted an event which would capture the elements of our in-person event that our attendees enjoy. We ended up choosing to partner with Zapnito. The platform enabled us to create rooms for specific content or communities (e.g. simplycommunity members had their own lounge with exclusive access to the recordings after the event) and video panels for break-out sessions. Attendees could also search the directory for people who had expertise in a field or who were facing similar challenges to network and share stories.

Experience

Attendee experience is critical. We approached simplyIC live as a virtual ‘city’. We assumed may not want to watch for the duration so wanted to provide them with other areas which they could explore, each of which was related to the event. As well as the functionality detailed above, sponsors had their own virtual room so they could demo their software and provide support to attendees who were looking for solutions for their organisations.

Content

The beauty of virtual events is you can attract speakers from anywhere in the globe without the cost and logistics to manage. It also means you can be razor-focussed on the type of content and speakers you want to join on the day. Our speaker list included a knight, a CEO and a professor.

Scale

There are really no limits as to how you can scale events with the right technology. This is where the breakout sessions really came into their own.

Production

We were so determined to produce a broadcast-quality event. Learnings were taken from the world of radio and television to bring simplyIC to life. This included:

Enlisting a specialist production partner (Kinura) so the team could focus on building the community elements
Short, interactive speaker slots – these were kept to 15 minutes max. including Q&A
Presenters you wanted to watch - Marc Wright and Jenni Field are full of energy and kept the event pacey
Frequent breaks to make sure people were comfortable and had time too check-in with work/ kids/ get the dinner ready

Technology

None of the above is possible without the right technology in place. Do your research based on your objectives in mind. If there’s no solution to fit your needs, can any be combined? Don’t feel you have to default to enterprise technology if it doesn’t give you what you need. We ended up fusing three platforms together to get what we want.

The results

We had over 700 people from across the globe sign-up to the event. 56% of these were new to simply-communicate and we had an 86% attendance rate. Attendees spent an average of two hours online with us and we had 3,320 votes on polls we had on rotation (think a more dynamic version of the Eurovision voting system!).

What did we learn?

On-boarding is critical: Issues with browsers not working, incorrect log-in details or lost log-in details kept one of the team busy for the first hour of the event. Attendees were given access to the site 24 hours in advance to familiarise themselves, but, as we know, not everyone reads instructions!
Interaction and networking is possible in a virtual environment: the live Q&A and polls worked really well (we used sli.do as we could embed the screen next to the live feed) but next time there will be an increased focus on supporting people with networking. Planning the break-out sessions in advance and better mapping of attendees so we can connect them with people they’ll want to speak to. It’s more work for us, but the experience for the attendee will be richer.
Think about the learning opportunities: I’ve always been interested in how we learn and in the relationship between communications and learning. Often large internal events have very little impact measures (which always has baffled me) so we were keen to make sure we drew on science to optimise the learning opportunities and experience during an online event.
Speed and agility: we were able to create and produce this event in about three weeks whereas a normal lead time for a face-to-face event is at least 4 months. Of course, we wouldn’t recommend it is done quite so fast but virtual experiences do allow you to respond to a moving agenda.

About Lisa Pantelli

Lisa is Head of Content and Community at simply communicate. You can connect with Lisa via LinkedIn or Twitter.

Build virtual experiences, not virtual events