Virtual Senior Leadership Conference
Temporary power provider Aggreko plc had originally planned to hold their November 2020 Senior Leadership Team meeting in a deconsecrated church in Edinburgh, with over 50 global managers in attendance. As with previous SLT meetings, the Chimera team were charged with creating a versatile environment for the three day meeting which included a plenary and discussion space, catering and networking areas and flexible workshop zones. As always, this meeting would be two-way process with the emphasis on discussion, group interaction and feedback. When by mid-September it became clear that the COVID-19 pandemic would not allow the meeting to continue as a physical event, the Aggreko team asked Chimera to provide a virtual alternative which would, as far as possible, recreate the live event experience.
Aggreko plc SLT Meeting- 45
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Feedback for the virtual SLT Meeting
Loads of really positive feedback… Many saying it was the best virtual event they'd ever experienced.
Within this tight six week timeframe, and working closely with their online development partners, Chimera created a completely bespoke, branded, online meeting platform. Having put together slide and video content for the meeting, Chimera then hosted the SLT in November, for 45 participants who were joining via webcam from their homes around the world.
The secure platform was hosted on fully-scaleable, multiple-redundancy cloud servers to ensure maximum reliability and an optimised high-quality experience for all users, regardless of their location or connection speed. Working with Aggreko’s own IT department, the platform was integrated with Aggreko’s Single Sign On to make accessing the site completely seamless for the delegates.
Key presenters contributed from a hub studio which was built especially for the event in a central London hotel. Here the Chimera team streamed high definition live and video content onto the platform and managed feedback from the delegates, so that presenters and facilitators always had the information they needed in front of them. Live voting and text feedback were used throughout the meeting so that there was never any sense of this being a one-directional webcast. Main presenters who were unable to travel to the studio were brought, via video link up, into the studio environment where they were then able to take part in panel discussions.
For even more interactive sessions, delegates were automatically moved around the platform into pairs, small groups, or larger workshop rooms for brainstorming sessions. The groups were then returned to the virtual main forum, where live discussion sessions gathered feedback from across the meeting.
The platform was designed so that delegates could also move around “ad hoc” – dropping into their chosen workshops as and when they liked. Similarly, bar and coffee areas were created for more relaxed meetings. Icons displayed where delegates could be found in the virtual space so it was possible to enter the bar area, then find a chosen colleague and join them at a “bar table” for a video chat.
The Aggreko events team were so pleased with their virtual experience that the same platform is now being adapted for their Extended Leadership Team meetings, which will see three simultaneous meeting streams running for up to 250 global delegates.