While the day-to-day association management model has not changed drastically with COVID-19, our meetings management and membership outreach/marketing model has changed significantly.
Blog By Sarah Timm
President & CEO
When everyone was required to stay-at-home and become more reclusive, we all craved interaction…that face-to-face connection with colleagues and other humans. No one really liked Zoom calls or online meetings, but we (all generations) have now adapted, and we are hearing more positive than negative comments about interacting virtually.
Many of our member clients are seeing the benefits of connecting with others in a virtual environment. To that end, we have been able to build a meeting platform that will enable individuals to engage with each other with formal (round-table sessions) and informal (chatting and screen time talking with colleagues) means of communication.
In our virtual conferences we currently offer such features as an online itinerary planner with room entry and personalized scheduling capability, an e-Poster gallery with easy access to view and interact with the presenter, online awards videos and social media recognition, secure virtual networking communities, and both live and recorded sessions.
We are dedicated to investing in the resources needed to make our virtual and hybrid meetings amazing! Soon we will be providing our association members with even more engaging and enjoyable features such as:
- A 3-D virtual Environment. This is the next best thing to attending in person. Entering through the conference hall, attendees can walk up to the registration desk, enter the keynote session, view e-Posters, visit an exhibitor, participate in a round-table discussion, and more.
- Zoom integration within the existing Itinerary Planner. This will create an extremely secure virtual environment eliminating the risk of bombers. Additionally, it will create a seamless conference experience for attendees to navigate through conference sessions.
- Voice Poster. This feature will take e-Posters to a whole new level. Attendees can click on the e-Poster for an audio clip from the poster presenter. We cannot wait to see attendance and engagement of the virtual poster sessions increase with this enhancement!
- Zoom-powered chat rooms. These chat rooms will allow for quick and easy networking and meet-ups whether it be for an organized networking hour, presenters just wanting to connect, a Q & A session after a lecture, attendees wanting to socialize, and more.
- Full-featured mobile app integration for attendees. The enhanced app will truly connect the attendee to the conference by providing entry into sessions, allowing attendees to connect via chat and voice, browsing the e-Poster gallery, receiving event notifications, providing sponsorship opportunities, and so much more.
What is working?
Almost everything! Many of our groups who have shifted to virtual meetings are seeing record attendance and the ability to connect with members or prospective members who do not have the funds to travel to meetings. Many of these people are junior level or student members. The ability for them to connect virtually has opened up many growth opportunities for our organizations and made joining much more appealing. The virtual platform has made it easier to connect with colleagues and share research in a more interactive manner.
What is not working?
Time Zones! Trying to figure out the best way for an organization with international members to connect virtually is more challenging than ever. With everyone traveling to a venue, time zones became a moot point! Now they are incredibly challenging and are forcing flexibility from PMG and society leaders.
PMG is stronger than ever.
The infrastructure we have built provides an exceptional virtual platform for meetings that engages members at a reasonable cost for societies. We have creative ideas for how to connect attendees with vendors/exhibitors. We have significantly improved the balance sheet for each of our clients. We have increased membership for all our societies. We have demonstrated our ability to adapt and innovate in challenging times.
If you are looking for a new AMC to call home, please click here to start a conversation with PMG. Our mission is to help our clients to achieve theirs.
