12 Learnings - Virtual Global Conference

Dr. Olivia Mitchell

I had the privilege this week to co-host a first ever virtual symposium, along side Dr. Olivia Mitchell, Director of the Pension Research Council at the Wharton Business School.  It was attended by over a 100 senior academics and corporate executives, with 12 papers presented and 3 panel discussions.

We were delighted that our attempt at holding this event virtually went off successfully with positive feedback from the attendees.  Here are some learnings from this experience:


I. 12 key takeaways from the Virtual Conference:

1. Crystal clear focus on the agenda:  The topic of the conference was “Managing Longevity Risk: New Roles for Public/Private Engagement” – and every presentation, paper and remark was aligned to this goal.

2. Radical shift from in-person conference:  The annual conference is typically for a day and a half, with breakfasts, lunches and dinner; with keynote speakers at the first lunch and dinner.  The Virtual Conference was reduced to 4.5 hours - with no loss of technical content contribution to the conference proceedings.

3. Preparation, preparation, preparation:  We all rehearsed individually and in groups both the technology, the mechanics, flow and content.  We even focused on camera angles and lighting.

4.  Very detailed show-flow: Our show-flow document ran 9-pages long with a to-the-minute orchestration of the proceedings – this is needed not only for an in-the moment experience for attendees, but also because the conference was being recorded.

5.  Capable support team:  There was a 3-person staff team from the Center that had 3 different roles.
     a.  One person handled the people side – attendees, presenters etc.
     b.  A second person handled the technology side – the platform recording etc and
     c.  A third person handled the social media posts.

     d. That left the Director and me free to manage the conference.

6.  Tight presentations:  We reduced everyone’s presentation to a tight 10 minutes and were not afraid to keep them on time (these were fairly senior folks – but they ALL played ball!)

7.  Engagement techniques:  We used polling and moderated Q&A to keep everyone engaged.  I was also using my phone text and my email to stay engaged with the attendees I knew in the audience, getting their feedback and observations live and in the moment.

8.  Technology Platform:  “Blue Jeans” recently acquired by Verizon was used.  Fairly flawless.

9.  Contingency Planning:  We a contingency plan in place, in case our respective internet connections had trouble.  We all had unlimited Verizon / AT&T on our cellular phones to be able to use it (And I had my son use a cellular connection for his online college class, since I lay claim to the internet connection in the family during the course of this conference).

10.  Back-up:  The Director of the Center was my back-up and I was her back-up in case either of our lines failed while we were moderating.

11.  Command module:  All 5 of us that were running this event, were in group-text mode.  So we were chatting in the Blue Jeans room and on phone group text – such that we never lost touch with each other.  And more importantly, knew exactly where we were in that detailed 9-page show flow.

12.   Breaks:  We had two 15 minute breaks in the course of the conference and the recording was stopped during this time. (There was generally no loss of audience during the course of the conference).

II. Improvement opportunities:

A.  Speakers still don’t yet know where to put their speaking notes when they are speaking – so that was a bit all over the place on camera and paper rustling as well.

B.  Sometimes they had issues with not knowing how to un-mute their microphones, especially during the Q&A

C.  There was a slight delay between when they said, “next slide please” and when the slide appeared – but everyone settled down on this after a while.

D.  We could have played some music during the breaks

III. Future capabilities


There are additional virtual conference capabilities that are / will be possible, as virtual conferences expand to virtual conventions.

i.  Engagement beyond polling to whiteboards and other collaboration tools.

Holograms on stage

ii. The ability to do multiple break outs simultaneously.

iii.  Attendees able to see who the other attendees are and will be able to interact with other attendees through a “chat” option and the ability to set up meetings with them.

iv.  A virtual exhibit/resource room where exhibitors can post materials and have a live person “in” the exhibit room to answer questions or interact with attendees

v. The virtual exhibit/resource space that would be available 24/7 during the conference, but would be manned live during the conference and breaks.

vi.  Even further into the future, perhaps hybrid meetings with holograms and virtual reality.

IV. A parting thought:

When we transitioned from radio to television in the late 1950s, broadcast stars were radio artists.  When television came about, they would stand on stage and perform into microphones, like they were still on radio.  It took several years for everyone to understand that television was an entirely different medium.  

Many of us have become very adept and comfortable with in person meetings and conferences - knowing how to read the room, keep the audience engaged etc.

It seems to me that in this world we are entering, we should think deeply and carefully about the virtual capabilities as entirely different, and approach it with fresh thinking and new imagination.


All in all, I am grateful to have had this opportunity to have an early experience in helping to conduct a Virtual Global conference.

I think we are entering a brave new world of virtual conferences and conventions!