Case Study: Hybrid Meeting | Page 1

+ Hybrid Meeting Case Study

Thrivent Financial: The Case for a Hybrid Meeting

When Steph Pfeilsticker, CMP, CMM, saw a presentation on hybrid events given by former MPI CEO Bruce MacMillan in 2010, she experienced an a-ha moment. As senior event planner for Thrivent Financial, she knew the impact her National Sales Meeting had on the fi nancial representatives who attended, and on the company’s bottom line. She uncovered data showing that reps who attended increased their sales in the three months following the event. However, only 40 percent of her fi nancial reps were attending. What if the company could somehow reach the other 60 percent? That was her business case when she presented the idea of a hybrid event to her leadership in early 2011. Pfeilsticker won approval for that event proposal in February 2011, and began the process of planning and collaboration leading up to the November NSM.

VIRTUAL VALUEHigh-performing fi nancial reps receive complimentary or discounted access to the face-to-face event. The vast majority of those who had not attended face-to-face in the past had not qualifi ed for gratis access. “I wanted to place a value on the virtual stream [free implies lack of value], but not price ourselves out of the market,” Pfeilsticker says. She knew if she got them to log onto the virtual meeting, those who usually didn’t attend the national sales meeting would get the content and education they needed to increase their production, so remote participation was priced at a $49 early-bird rate and $99 regular registration.

About Thrivent FinancialThrivent Financial for Lutherans is a faith-based, not-for-profi t fi nancial services organization of nearly 2.5 million members with the strength of more than US$75 billion in assets managed.

What would current Steph Pfeilsticker tell pre-hybrid Steph Pfeilsticker?“Don’t get bogged down with the naysayers who might not understand it. Keep the fi re in your belly and don’t second-guess your plan when you recognize the value and know that it’s the organization’s future. Don’t let the technology scare you. It’s a machine, and we know how to make machines work. If we can understand it, we can trust it.”

Key TakeawaysStephanie Pfeilsticker, CMP, CMM, the virtual strategy manager for Thrivent Financial, shares her key takeaways from creating a hybrid national sales meeting.

1. Learn everything you can about hybrid events and virtual event technology. Network with other planners who have produced a hybrid event. Having more knowledge about hybrid events will help you formulate questions to ask and better communicate with technology providers.

2. Become an educator. Put together a presentation or orientation materials to explain the hybrid event concept to those on your team who are unfamiliar with it. Keep it basic to be sure that the least technically sophisticated person in the room can understand. Confusion breeds fear.

3. Choose partners who communicate well. Choose a technology partner that is willing to talk about exactly how things operate. It’s important to fi nd providers who are patient, don’t rush you and provide education.

4. Engaging the remote audience is a priority. Think of engagement as you design your event, not as an afterthought.

5. A virtual emcee is a must. The virtual emcee is the remote attendee’s connection to the event. Increase that connection by creating compelling segments for them during the face-to-face breaks. Make it interesting so that they are less likely to be lured by distractions in their own environments.

6. Insist on testing the equipment. Request tests of the equipment used for the remote portion of the event.

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PROGRAM DESIGNED FOR A REMOTE AUDIENCEWith increased productivity as the goal, Pfeilsticker determined that the attendees she was targeting for the virtual element would need content that specifi cally addressed their needs. “I wanted to create a separate experience for people that were attending virtually,” she says. “I knew that from a production perspective, many were looking for more fundamental skills. ” The live event, which ran for four days, included a virtual component for three. Pfeilsticker directed that all general sessions be live-streamed, but only the breakout sessions that focused on building basic sales skills or were introductory in nature would be part of the virtual experience. Even when face-to-face attendees were on break, there was something scheduled in the virtual studio, so the screen never went black.

VIRTUAL EMCEETo ensure a continuous fl ow of content, a virtual emcee fi lled in between sessions and during breaks. Pfeilsticker worked with subject-matter experts to write all the questions and content for these segments, which included interviews with speakers or experts, specifi cally designed to provide more introductory sales technique information. This was provided exclusively to the remote audience. She also took time to coach virtual emcee Emilie Barta in the history, culture and jargon of the company to ease her ability to communicate with the audience and with the Thrivent executives she interviewed.

TOOLS FOR ENGAGEMENTThe platform used for the digital portion of the Thrivent event featured three chat rooms in which different topics were discussed. A company representative moderated each of the chat rooms to facilitate and spark discussion. Between 10 and 20 people would typically participate in these discussions. Remote attendees also had an Idea Book mailed to them that contained a full schedule of the virtual program, speaker bios, presentation descriptions and plenty of room for jotting down ideas from each session. All attendees were asked to narrow down their ideas and submit three electronically that would be included in their business plans, due at the end of the meeting. Many remote attendees commented that the printed booklet made them feel like they were valuable parts of the event, Pfeilsticker says.

DOING HER HOMEWORKWhen she sent out RFPs to companies providing virtual event services, Pfeilsticker ran into her fi rst big diffi culty: The responses were rife with confusion. Comparison was diffi cult because companies bidding for the same job didn’t always provide or charge for the same services. She fi nally chose a company with which Thrivent had a previous relationship. That company would be able to provide two of the services she needed—streaming and platform.

Put Together a Bullet-Proof Business CaseThrivent Senior Event Planner Steph Pfeilsticker did her research before she approached leadership with her idea for a hybrid event. She uncovered that people who attended the national sales meeting raised their production levels as a result. With improved productivity as the main goal of the NSM, her business case for making it a hybrid event also answered the following questions.

1. What is your objective for your hybrid event? To provide education that would improve the productivity of fi nancial reps not attending the face-to-face event.

2. Who are the attendees you want to reach? Financial reps who aren’t attending the event—which largely included reps who were looking for more fundamental training.

3. How will you reach them? Tailor the virtual portion of the event to specifi cally address the online audience’s need for fundamental skills and charge a registration fee that is affordable, yet creates a perceived value.

4. What do you want them to do? Increase productivity comparable to the productivity increase usually seen in face-to-face attendees

5. How will you measure whether your objectives were met? Monitor the productivity of remote attendees (it increased more than two times that of face-to-face attendees)

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REMOTE ATTENDEES WERE HOOKEDSome 75 percent of Thrivent remote attendees stayed with the event all day, Pfeilsticker says. “Statistics show that remote attendees typically stay on for two to three hours. So it was somewhat remarkable with our attendees that 75 percent were on from the very beginning—7:30 a.m.—until it ended at 5:30 p.m. each day.”

PROMOTING THE ON-DEMAND CONTENTAfter the conference ended, Pfeilsticker knew the content was still useful. Thrivent’s virtual provider captured the streamed content on its own site for on-demand use. To encourage Thrivent’s fi nancial representatives and corporate employees to access the content, a weekly article highlighting a general session and providing a link to the on-demand site appeared regularly on the company intranet. Pfeilsticker characterizes the post-event strategy as basic. “We simply wanted to drive the fi nancial representatives back to the on-demand site to view content that would help them grow their business,” she says. “In the future, I will focus more energy on creating ways to repackage the content throughout the year, and not just rely on the attendees seeking it out.”

SUCCESSPfeilsticker measured the productivity of both remote and face-to-face attendees for three months following the event. In terms of increase per attendee, the remote attendees boosted their production more than two times that of the face-to-face attendees. Response to the event was very positive. Remote participants loved the idea that they could receive the content and still be in the offi ce, fulfi lling other duties. “Family is really important in our organization. Being able to still be with their families was a huge benefi t for them,” she says. Additionally, in a follow-up survey, 51 percent of the remote attendees said they were likely to attend future national sales meetings in person.

SEEING IS BELIEVINGFear of the unknown is a typical response when introducing innovative ideas. Pfeilsticker found that new concepts, such as the role of a virtual emcee, were diffi cult for many to understand. She had to resell many ideas throughout the planning process. “I really had to be more of an educator than I had imagined,” she says. However, with the success of Thrivent’s fi rst hybrid event, things have changed. Naysayers saw for themselves how the hybrid format vastly expanded the reach of the NSM. As a result, Pfeilsticker began to receive calls about adding virtual components to other company events. So, she wrote a business plan proposing the creation of a virtual strategy group and has since become its manager.

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The AuthorsJenise Fryatt Fryatt has a background in journalism and communications and more than 20 years’ experience in the event industry as the co-owner of U.S.-based Icon Presentations audiovisual company. An avid meeting industry blogger, social media consultant and former community manager for Engage365.org, Fryatt also has extensive experience leading virtual discussions, creating and distributing content online and studying and participating in virtual-event experiences. Ruud W. Janssen, CMMA digital global nomad, Janssen is an online collaboration and bespoke new media specialist for events, as well as speaker and trainer. With a solid background in conference organizing and hospitality marketing, he has a curiosity and appetite for slow food and fast media. Living in Basel, Switzer-land, he is the founder of TNOC.ch, an unconventional marketing collective specializing in crafting live, hybrid and virtual experiences for international, organizations. He is also founder and curator of TEDxBasel and co-founder of Event Camp Europe. Richard John As workforce development fellow at the University of Derby, John brings academic perspective to the project. The university makes a virtual events simulator, the eAPL (Accreditation of Prior Learning) process and a body of research available to the team. John is also a course director for the Chartered Institute of Marketing and a guest lecturer on events management programs at universities in the U.K. and Germany. His articles on face-to- face communication have appeared in more than 50 magazines, and he is a regular columnist in a number of MICE magazines.

Rosa Garriga MoraRosa is an ROI consultant for meetings and events and serves as market- ing and media manager for the Event ROI Institute. She holds a master’s degree in international events management from Stenden University in the Netherlands and London Metropolitan University. She is a certifi ed meeting architect and is editor of the book The Tweeting Meeting. She currently lives in Barcelona, Spain, where she also works on projects related to meeting design. Samuel J. SmithSmith is a thought leader, speaker and award-winning innovator on event technology. In 2011, BizBash Magazine named him one of the most innova-tive people in the event industry. In 2010, Smith co-founded Event Camp Twin Cities, an innovation lab for events that rewrote the rules for attendee engagement in hybrid events. Smith judges the annual EIBTM Worldwide Event Technology Watch Awards in Barcelona, Spain.

Interactive Meeting Technology, LLC is an event tech-nology consultancy, which creates digital interactive experiences that transform attendees into active par-

ticipants. It helps clients develop a strategy around their digital initiatives. Then, it brings their vision to life. The company works across Web, mobile, social, digital signage and hybrid meetings.

The Meeting Support Institute is an association for companies and individuals with products or services on the content side of meetings, offering a wide range of tools from art to technol-ogy, AV to facilitation, knowledge to science. Its goal is to help

meeting professionals design the content side of meetings and events. The institute informs and educates about available tools in the market via its knowledge base, presentations, dinners and conference. Here, suppliers meet each other and their clients.

The University of Derby Corporate is the corporate training and development division of the University of Derby. The school works with a wide variety of organi-

zations to deliver work-based learning programs and accredited qualifi ca-tions that improve key capabilities, such as service, innovation, leadership and problem solving.

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TNOC | The New Objective Collective brings ideas to life using live and digital communications. The collective is specialized in crafting Live, Hybrid and Digital Events

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