Innovation Day is a traditional annual event for Deutsche Telekom IT Solutions Russia. In April, colleagues from all over Deutsche Telekom come to St. Petersburg to listen to reports on innovations, to get to know each other, in general, to have a great time enjoying the April St. Petersburg sun and the view of the Neva from Vasilyevsky Island.
This year, everything was supposed to go according to plan: the event was scheduled for April 28, preparations began almost six months earlier, the site was rented, and some foreign colleagues were already making a visa and buying tickets to Russia. But when, a month before day X, we sat home, it became clear that the project would have to be put on hold. At first, we naively hoped for May or June, but the statistics only grew, there was no hint of opening the borders. Therefore, in order not to abandon the event at all, we decided: let it be online, and planned Innovation Day for September.
In addition to various technical issues that we just had to solve and which I will talk about a little later, it was very important to maintain the atmosphere despite the transition to online. InnoDay is an event for people and about people, which was prepared every year with special love and care. Communication, exchange of experience, ideas, new acquaintances - for this people flew to Innovation Day, and it was necessary to keep it online as much as possible.
This is how Innovation Day was held in 2019.In
addition, when we first started preparing, online events were a novelty, but closer to September it became clear that people were frankly tired of online and wanted face-to-face meetings. To make an impersonal conference, where people would include the necessary report and set the background for the preparation of dinner - this was definitely not our option.
How it worked
In order to maximize the transfer of the atmosphere of Innovation Day online, we decided, first of all, to make the event entirely live. Everything should happen here and now - if the viewer can still watch the recording of one meetup without being distracted, then hardly anyone will master the whole event, consisting of pre-made videos.
Yes, the live broadcast was fraught with pitfalls - from time to time some viewers had problems with sound, a couple of times the director's whisper leaked into the air ... a real, live event. In addition, the live broadcast made it possible for the speaker to answer the audience's questions in real time.
For a day, the large conference room in our office in St. Petersburg was turned into a real film set with a chroma key, lights, cameras and a studio for guests - this was the main of three scenes. On this site there were two presenters, as well as live performances of speakers, who were interviewed after the presentations.
Two adjacent meeting rooms were also equipped for small studios, where the stage moderators were located.
The main technical difficulty was the restrictions on the part of foreign colleagues. Since the reports were about real projects - confidential information and all that - the speakers and participants could only connect from work computers. Work computers, especially foreign ones = very limited list of approved programs. In the meantime, we are inviting students and some customers to Innovation Day to access this broadcast.
It was decided to make a separate landing page, where the reports were divided into three streams (three scenes), and the participant, having chosen the topic of the report from the interactive schedule, fell into the desired stream. The speakers were connected to the broadcast via Cisco Webex, a conferencing tool familiar in our company, and Facecast was used as a player.
In order to involve the audience in what was happening, each scene had its own chat with the administrator, where it was possible to ask questions to the speakers about the reports, clarify organizational points and just communicate.
Also, between the blocks of reports in each stream, the presenters held pitch sessions, where speakers were connected and briefly talked about the topic of their report. If the participant did not decide in advance with the sessions that he wanted to attend, at the pitch he could get an idea of each speaker and report. Sometimes it became decisive when choosing - the speaker's charisma or the alluring British accent during the pitch session made you forget about everything.
After each presentation, the speaker and attendees could go to the Webex room to chat in person and share their thoughts. We did not pin great hopes on this option, but after each session, colleagues from different countries came into the rooms who wanted to meet the speaker and talk.
One of the tasks that we set ourselves at the beginning was to "hook" the audience and not let them score and go to the kitchen to cut the salad. Throughout the entire event, the number of spectators remained at about the same level, which, of course, does not mean that all participants were 100% involved, but gives hope!
In conclusion, I would like to note ...
It was a tense, long day full of impressions for organizers, speakers and spectators. Of course, no online event, no matter how cool it is, compares to real emotions and live communication. Nevertheless, thanks to new technologies and a cool team, everything is possible, even organizing a large international event online - and at the same time not only not to go crazy, but also to start dreaming about the next one.
Those were words, but Innovation Day in numbers:
2.5 months of preparation of
17 reports
28 speakers from all over Deutsche Telekom
16 countries from America to Asia
1000 participants from Chicago to Kuala Lumpur
5 hours of live broadcast
If you want to share your experience in organizing online events or ask questions - I'm waiting for you in the comments!