Matrix Group International

Month: March 2021

How BeSpeake Clients are Adding Fun to their Virtual Meetings

“How do we add fun to our virtual meeting? How do I get people chatting during our sessions? How do we get attendees interacting with each other?

These are just some of the questions we get when we meet with BeSpeake clients each week to plan their virtual meetings. While there’s no magic formula, here are some ideas that have worked well recently:

Jeopardy! FACT does Jeopardy during the morning break of their Workshop and Bootcamp conferences. They created their own questions about their standards and accreditation process, invited three attendees to go live in the virtual studio, and then played the game. The attendees loved it and many of them played along by posting answers in the comments.

Photo roll. AFPM asks attendees to send in photos of themselves attending the conference from their office or home office. The photos are reviewed and the photos edited to add the attendee name and location. Before the general session each morning, the photo roll is played to show members around the world attending the conference.

Jackbox.tv. I love Jackbox and have purchased several of the party packs. Here’s how it works. The person who owns the game (let’s call him the host) chooses one of the many games available, like fibbage or truth or lie. The host shares his screen, which shows the URL that attendees need to navigate to, and the code they need to enter to play the game. Attendees use their phones as their controllers. Some games allow 10 players, while some games allow up to 100 to play. Jackbox is fun and cheap. The party packs start at $12 (period, not per month). Teri Carden of 100 Reviews loves Jackbox, and Matrix Group opened a recent webinar early with some Jackbox.

Musical entertainment. Several clients have booked musical entertainers to perform live or via a pre-recorded session. NAES had a musician/comedian perform at the end of the day, while FMI had a DJ (who happened to be one of their members) use music to interview industry executives.

There’s no limit to the creativity our clients are showing when it comes to creating fun and interactive virtual conferences. We’re sharing these ideas to get you inspired. What fun things have YOU done at your conferences?

Want to create a custom built virtual conference or tradeshow experience that is just as transformative as your in-person events? Contact us today to schedule a private demonstration of the BeSpeake virtual meeting platform.

March 25, 2021
Why Journey Mapping is so Important to Creating Amazing Member Journeys
Matrix Group is working on an email signup project for a longtime client. This client wants to create an easier way for members and non-members to see all the newsletters the association has to offer, and easily subscribe to receive them. Some newsletters are open to the public, while others are members-only. The client has many goals with this project:
- Showcase all of their newsletters
- Get more people signed up
- Make it easier to sign up
Seems simple, right? Not so fast. In fact, it’s taken us a few weeks and multiple rounds of wireframes to get what I think will be a winning sign up form. The form itself will look simple BUT it will ultimately be the result of intentional journey mapping to ensure that the sign-up process is simple and amazing.

How do we do it? First, we identify the audiences and the tasks they wish to accomplish. Then we map out the journeys they need to take to get what they want. We ask questions like: Will the person need to log in? What if they don’t already have a username? What if they forgot their password? How will they know that they are not eligible to subscribe to specific newsletters?

Here’s a simple sign-up journey: Member is already logged in, goes to the sign-up form, presses the Subscribe button next to the newsletters of her choice, and gets a thank you pop-up.

Here’s a not so simple sign-up journey. This journey took some time to articulate and make easy: Individual is with a member company but doesn’t already have a password. Individual navigates to the sign-up page, presses Subscribe. User is taken to a login page. She doesn’t have a login, so she has to create a profile and attach herself to the proper company. The profile form is two pages. At the end, she can navigate back to the sign-up form; this is important because some systems dump users back to the home page after creating a profile, which is disorienting to users. The form remembers which newsletter she wanted to sign-up for and she gets a success message.

You see, it’s not enough to create a form and say it works. You need to map all of your user journeys. If your users have to log in, create a profile, or traverse websites, their journey is going to be more complicated, so you have to be intentional about it, know how many steps the journey is going to take, and involve your vendors in making the journey great, even if that journey requires multiple steps.

If you’re not already doing this kind of journey mapping with all of your projects, start now. You don’t need special software to do it, but you do need time to explore the journeys. Need help? Give us a call. We love this process and we’re great at asking the questions that will lead to amazing member journeys.
March 22, 2021
We Need to Bring Back the “Meet” in Meetings

During a kickoff meeting with a new BeSpeake client, I asked this question: What did not work during your annual meeting last year? Answer: While the education offerings were excellent, there were few opportunities for attendees to connect and network, and the few that did exist, were simple text chats.

This client isn’t alone in wanting to add meaningful opportunities for their meeting attendees to connect, talk to each other, catch up, be on video, laugh, say hello. As my friend Lee Gimpel of Better Meetings says, “we need to bring back the ‘meet’ in meetings.” In other words, if your virtual meetings are mostly live or pre-recorded sessions where all attendees can do is comment, you’re not holding a meeting, you’re offering private YouTube videos. Worse, if all or most of your education is pre-recorded, you’re not giving your attendees to attend in real-time because hey, they can watch these videos anytime. Just like YouTube or Netflix.

So what are your options for adding the “meet” to your meetings? In BeSpeake, we have our own web-based video rooms that can be used for breakout rooms, 1-2-1 video meetings, exhibitor sessions, speed networking, cohort groups, and so much more. Clients are finding creative ways to allow attendees to connect with old friends, make new connections, develop business relationships, even strike deals.

One BeSpeake client had a whopping 54% of their attendees participate in break out discussions or 1-2-1 appointment scheduling. In other words, more than half of their attendees participated in an activity where they were on video with other attendees. Wow.

But wait. While 54% is an amazing number, I’m not satisfied. I’m working with my team to get that number even higher and I’ll blog about what we are trying and learning over the next few months.

How about you? What is your organization doing to bring the “meet” back to meetings?

P.S. Lee from Better Meetings will be joining me for a conversation on April 7th at 2pm ET as we dive into “How to Deliver Collaboration and Connection at Conferences.” He has invaluable ideas and insight; I hope you can join us!

March 12, 2021
The ASAE Annual Meeting Goes Virtual; Why This is a Good Decision

I read the email from ASAE (the American Society of Association Executives) yesterday afternoon about the ASAE Annual Meeting. Citing concerns for the health and safety of all members, ASAE Annual, which was supposed to be in person in Dallas, will once again be virtual, coupled with smaller, regional hub gatherings. Ugh. After a year of no in person meetings, I was so looking forward to this conference. I love ASAE Annual. I love the sessions, catching up with friends, the social events, the exhibits, all of it. I’m even scheduled to do two sessions: one with Elise Kuurstra from EAIE and Gretchen Steenstra from DelCor; and one on leadership lessons from the martial arts. Sigh. Who knows if I’ll even have the chance to do these sessions this year.

ASAE is not alone in this decision. Many Matrix Group clients, including clients using our virtual meeting platform (BeSpeake), have decided to go virtual with their meetings, at least through September 2021.

But there’s another dimension to the ASAE decision. Texas announced on March 2 that the state no longer has a mask mandate and all businesses can operate at full capacity. Perhaps some are cheering, but I’m not. I have not been vaccinated and since I have no known health risks, I figure I’ll get my vaccine sometime this summer or fall. Which means I was maybe looking at attending the ASAE Annual meeting unvaccinated, in a state that doesn’t have a mask mandate and is operating without social distancing guidelines. Yikes. I was going to think hard about whether or not my speaking opportunities were worth it. Since the meeting is virtual, I don’t have to make any tough decisions.

While I’m bummed, I know this is the right decision. I have grounded my staff at least through the end of July. Many of our clients report that their members, especially the larger companies, have done the same.

How about you? What do you think of ASAE’s decision to take their Annual Meeting virtual? What is your organization doing this year?

March 4, 2021