Virtual Meetings & Events

Helping Convene clients host successful meetings and events online with a customizable experience.

Background

Convene was well-known for hosting in-person meetings and events of all sizes, but had to shut down all of its operations due to COVID-19. Since our business strategy pivoted from selling spaces and packages to host in-person meetings, my team was tasked with building out the MVP for our virtual meetings and events platform in around four months. Due to sparse resourcing on our design team, I had to lead project to launch.

Problem

Companies needed a way to continue hosting meetings and events with Convene. Our band-aid solution was to host everything using another streaming software while we built the MVP. We knew that this was missing key features that were important to our clients, and we saw an opportunity to build out a more robust experience that would also enhance our in person meetings and events once we were able to open our properties again.

Team

Myself (Designer)
Kathleen Cunningham (Product Manager)
Engineering

Outcomes

Since launch, the virtual platform created $1M+ in revenue. Companies were able to host virtual meetings and events with their own branding for up to 1,000+ attendees. Over 100 events were booked in the first 3 months with events scheduled well into June 2021. By the end of 2020, we successfully hosted more than 70 meetings.

Event Types & User needs

To learn more about the product space and our user needs we audited dozens of virtual meetings products, and conducted internal interviews with our sales, and production team, and external interviews with people who are attending virtual meetings and events.

At convene we host both large and small scale meetings. Typically they fall into either internal or external meeting types:

• Internal: Town Halls, AGMs and Sales Kick Offs generally have an objective that is tied to learning, the seamless delivery of content and ability to participate through asking questions. These are normally attended by internal folks: Employees, board members etc. These are less likely to have sponsor/exhibitors.

• External: These could be conferences and trade shows where an organizing company invites participants external to their organization to attend. Often there are sponsor and exhibitors at these types of events.

Within these types of events our users have different motives, pain points, and goals:

Goals

From this research we were able to start formulating our goals for the platform:

Customizable

In the same way we let clients transform our spaces and make them their own, they should be able to do this virtually as well.

Make it Engaging

Networking opportunities need to be present. Attendees should be able to engage with one another, vendors, and presenters throughout the event.

Hospitality

Companies love working with us because of our hospitality. We wanted to make sure that when they’re hosting events virtually they’re still supported every step of the way.

Simple and Secure

Clients need to feel that they can trust sensitive information being shared virtually. Attendees need to be able to move through login and registration seamlessly.

Mapping the attendee experience

After working through the flows we identified that there are three main stages throughout the experience:

Pre Event
The event site serves as a landing page for our clients to promote their event and allow their attendees to register.

Day of Event
Clients sign on using their email, and are brought to the landing page. Here they can view the agenda and join the main stage or breakout.

Post Event
Once the meeting is over the site will remain up for a certain amount of time depending on what was specified with sales. In the future this will hold the recordings for each session.

Pre-Event

The homepage helps clients promote the events and allows attendees to register. Attendees can view the agenda and learn more about speakers, sponsors, and details for the event.

Day of Event

Attendees log-in using their registered email & a one time use authentication code. Attendees are able to join sessions on the mainstage through the agenda and engage with polls and Q&As throughout the presentation,

Designing the eventsite

To create a customizable experience I designed a system of responsive modules that our clients can use for their website as needed. This was the best way to accommodate different meeting types and sizes. To build out the website our implementation team spins up a new site on our backend, and collects the necessary assets from our clients. Any imagery, colors, content, and specifications are then uploaded to the template, and reviews begin with clients to get their approval before the day of the event.

Clients can build out their programs using the agenda to include sessions, breaks, and happy hours, and attach external resources through the collateral module. Sponsor and speaker modules allow attendees to connect with vendors, and learn more about the hosts, panelists, and presenters.

Attendees can network throughout events through chat, and stay engaged during sessions using polls & Q&A.

Client Event Websites

Examples of how Convene clients have used branding, imagery, and color scheme to make the site their own.