http://www.smartertechnology.com/

http://librarianinblack.typepad.com/librarianinblack/2008/02/pla-virtual-con.html

Rather than simply record Live Conference sessions, Company X planned to make a unique and substantial Virtual Conference Experience. They began six weeks before the conference, emailed all Live Conference speakers (speakers already scheduled to speak a the confernce in Las Vegas) and asked them to give shorter, more interactive versions of their Live Conference sessions via webcast at some other point during the conference. Over 40 enthusiastically said yes. Beverly Smith was one of those speakers. On May 1, Beverly Smith gave her session on “Best Practices” to Live Conference attendees in Las Vegas. On May 3, Beverly arrived at her scheduled time at the Virtual Conference session room (just a few doors down from where she gave her Live session a few days earlier) and was greeted by a Webcast Producer. The Producer thanked her for participating in the event, offered her a drink, took Beverly’s Powerpoint slides (which were on a USB drive) and they both sat down in front of the Virtual Conference computer. Then the Producer logged into the webcast, loaded Beverly’s slides, and began playing music through the computer. There was 10 minutes left until Beverly was scheduled to start her session.

As the music played, attendees from around the world began logging into the webcast. When they logged in, they were greeted with music playing through their computer speakers and a welcoming Powerpoint slide indicating that Beverly’s “Best Practices” session would start promptly at the top of the hour. When the time came, the Producer turned down the music, introduced Beverly, and then Beverly began her presentation. While Beverly was presenting, the Virtual Conference attendees were interacting with Beverly and with each other. They heard Beverly’s voice through their computer, watched the Powerpoint slides on the screen, and chatted away with other attendees in the Chat Box. Beverly focused on giving a polished presentation, but also relied on the Producer to help her keep track of questions and comments from the attendees. At various points during the session she asked the attendees for feedback and polled them for their opinion on certain topics. At the top of the hour, Beverly ended the shorter, more interactive version of her Live presentation, thanked the Producer, grabbed another drink, and was off to the rest of the conference. 15 minutes later, another Virtual Conference Speaker showed up for his own Virtual Conference session, and the process started over.

Beverly was completely prepared for her Virtual Conference session. She knew where to go, when to be there, and what she was going to do when she got there. She was honored that she was asked to be a part of an experience that exposed her to a whole new audience that she otherwise would have not been able to engage.

Beverly’s session was recorded and made available for all Virtual Conference attendees to view if they happened to miss it. Company X also videotaped 15 Live Conference sessions (video synched with Powerpoint) and made those available, too. There were also Virtual Conference sessions by exhibitors and vendors from the Live Conference. All in all, over 60 hours of content were captured at the  Company X Virtual Conference. Both Virtual and Live Conference attendees had access to the content for 30 days.

Networking between Virtual Conference attendees took place at the Virtual Conference Orientation session, during conference calls at the end of each conference day, and online in a LinkedIn group.

Read more

Read more

Read more