LBS's Women in Business Club (WIB) is a community of students, alumni and academics that educate, inspire and support the next generation of business leaders to build an equal future. They facilitate thoughtful exchanges of information, ideas and experiences through forward-thinking, word class initiatives, events and workshops to promote the advancement of women's leadership in business.
The Equall Conference is the leading forum in Europe for the next generation of leaders promoting gender equality in the workplace. The theme they chose for this year’s conference is “Flattening the (gender) curve,” where they discussed how the pandemic affected women’s careers, explored what leadership looked like in the “new normal” and inspired each other on how to navigate these times and emerge stronger. With 20+ sessions and 60+ speakers from across the world, this was their biggest event ever!
Like many, London Business School's Women in Business Club needed to find a Covid-friendly solution that would provide strong branding abilities while still being budget friendly. Moreover, they wanted a platform that would bring the fun back to event planning so that it would encourage more organization members to take on the event planning role year after year.
They were looking for an event platform that would allow them to:
Here are The WIB event planners' best tips and tricks that they learned from the conference:
Most attendees join an event for the keynote. What you want to avoid is having them only come for the keynote and then leave right after that's done. A well planned out schedule where your main sessions aren't too far apart ensures that attendees won't drop off in the middle of the event and are engaged throughout. The WIB team went a different route than conventional event structures by stacking their line up with one keynote session after the other, drawing in their guests and keeping them there.
One of the reasons The WIB Club chose Cadence was because of Symphony, our in-house meeting and presentation platform. Symphony allowed them to run high production broadcasts and maintain audience engagement with interactive features like GIFs in the chat and upvoting questions. They utilized our integration with Zoom to allow their speakers to work with a platform they're already familiar with, while still taking advantage of the additional features that provide an elevated presentation experience on Symphony.
Making the first move can be intimidating! By having some team members ignite the fire in those chats and live feeds, it encourages other participants to join in on the fun without any of the additional pressure of initiating a conversation themselves.
Part of the event was executive coaching sessions and resume reviews during breaks. They used Appointments so that people could easily sign up for these sessions creating a convenient and efficient experience for both the WIB team and their attendees. Finding times that matched for both parties was hassle-free thanks to the ability to export the event calendar into your personal one - whether that be iCal, Outlook or Google.
The WIB team used Collections to house important pre-event information, but also updated it with materials that they learned resonated with their audience during the event. For example, when a a speaker shared a book or podcast that they loved, they were able to quickly upload the link to a folder on Collections. This way, participants have access to all the event's content in one place, anytime, anywhere.
Interested to see how Cadence could work for your upcoming events? Schedule a free consultation. We'll recommend the best solution based on your goals—even it's not Cadence.