How We Make LIVE More Value-Driven and Immersive for Members

During COVID-19 the network took a break from its face-to-face events and went virtual (as most of you did) with your own respective memberships. We trialled many different ideas/projects that we would not have had the capacity/capability to deliver on, had there not been a global pandemic taking place.

For example, the weekly MemberWise Webcast has been broadcast over 90 times (this was originally only planned as a 12 week series) and MemberWise Learn; our online learning platform; now hosts a comprehensive range of over 150 free/paid for membership focused online/on-demand courses/modules.

In May we held our first national digital focused conference (Digital Excellence 2022) since the start of the pandemic. It was the sector’s first dedicated national conference of its kind since 2019 and we felt that it was important to integrate some of the ‘virtual lessons’ we have learnt. In this article we feature two key lessons/innovations that are making the MemberWise Conference experience more immersive.

1) Record, Record, Record

Unlike pre-pandemic network conferences, we now film every single session (rather than just our seven keynote sessions). We have a dedicated AV Team that edits down the content and we make it available to delegates post-event via ‘Digital Excellence On-Demand’ – a dedicated online learning resource hosted on MemberWise Learn (delivered in partnership with Blue Sky eLearn).

Delegates will shortly have online access to all session videos, presentations and the Digital Excellence (2022) Wall in just a few clicks. Non-Delegates will also have the opportunity to attend virtually (paid-for) from August.

Talking about the Digital Excellence (2022) Wall…

2) Taking the Digital Excellence (2022) Wall ‘Digital’

If you are a seasoned MemberWise Conference Goer you’ll know that we have an official conference illustrator, Caroline Chapple, who captures the key themes of each event via ‘The MemberWise Wall’. This is a collection of interconnected drawings/images/illustrations that help to capture the day visually.
Post-event we provide the image to delegates electronically (in high definition) so the themes/challenges can be explored further by appropriate teams ‘Back in the Office’ or now via virtual meetings/huddles.

Traditionally Caroline has drawn the image on a very large piece of paper (attached to a backdrop) on the Main Auditorium Stage (see image below). It has required her to take her masterpiece home and scan at a local printer before the digital version can be delivered to the network.

This year we tried something a little different…

If we rewind by 12 or so months ago (during the height of the COVID-19 Pandemic) Caroline learnt how to create her magnificent drawings on her iPad – You may remember we surprised a few of our best practice webinar presenters with her first images (drawn incognito) as nice little takeaways/surprises. This was done as Caroline was getting to grips with the technology at home and on her iPad.

So, this year Caroline had her very own Illustrator stage (situated on the righthand side of the Main Auditorium Stage Area), a rather comfortable looking modern seat and we connected her iPad to a large HD projection screen facing the audience. For the first time we took ‘The Digital Excellence Wall Truly Digital’.

For the first time delegates could see the illustrations ‘magically emerge’ from the screen as our speakers of the day presented. It really was something great to see and added further depth to the delegate experience in the Main Auditorium.

The result was pretty amazing…

A ‘holding conference image’ was drawn before the day and projected on to the screen when she was drawing other speaker sessions in our other two breakout rooms – something that was not even possible via the traditional pen/paper method.

The process required the MemberWise Team to work closely with our audio-visual team (NAV) and Caroline. All parties were keen to optimise the delegate experience and we were particularly keen that Caroline was clearly visible to our audience, maintained her credibility as a live illustrator and was not made ‘invisible’ through the use of technology – some illustrators are hidden in the audience/drawing by-default and we wanted to maintain Caroline as a key feature of the event.

We hope that delegates enjoyed this experience and we will continue to strive to differentiate our conferences/events via innovation and a healthy mix of face-to-face/virtual opportunities.

A huge thank you to Caroline Chapple (Chapple Cartoons) and Nottingham Audio-Visual (NAV) for their help/support making this development a reality. The output was a more value-driven and immersive delegate experience.