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STANDARDS CONFERENCE


THE SHOW MUST GO ON


Teamwork and technology came to the rescue when BSI had to move its April Standards Conference online with only six weeks notice


F


rom the moment Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that the country was to go into lockdown, there was a determination within BSI that the Standards Conference should still go


ahead in some format. “Cancelling the event was never really considered,” said Stephanie Eynon, BSI’s Standards-Makers Engagement and Inclusion Manager, who has overall responsibility for the event. “We had our speakers booked, over 300 people had already registered for the face-to-face conference and we didn’t want to disappoint anybody.” With sign off from the BSI executive, Stephanie brought together a working group, including Annju Samrai and Dimple Tailor from BSI’s Events team, and the production company that they work with to stage events. They had only six weeks to look at all the options and bring it together. “We’ve had some experience with staging online training events and webinars and we had organized a live-streamed event in February, but nothing of this scale before.” said Annju.


The first step was to ensure we had a


conference platform that would do what we needed and then to ensure that we could support all of the sessions and our speakers. “The production company gave training to all the speakers who needed it, and at the beginning of the week of the conference we held a dress rehearsal,” said Dimple. “We worked closely with the production company to make sure everyone was comfortable with the technology and what they had to do.” Over 1,000 people registered for the


conference, with just over 500 actually taking part on the day, compared with a maximum of 300 at previous events. Registered delegates received an agenda email with links embedded to access the conference. From that they could click into any session they wanted to join (see page 5). The keynote presentations were introduced


by David Bell, Director of Standards Policy for BSI, who also moderated the question and answers sessions which followed each presentation, taking questions that delegates had typed on onscreen tabs.


Annju Samrai


At the breakout sessions, delegates could listen to speakers on areas of special interest to them. “We set it up so people could jump in and out of sessions as they would at a face-to-face event,” said Annju. All the breakout sessions also had a BSI moderator on hand to collate questions, which the delegates were able to type in while watching the presentation. Questions were then answered at the end of each presentation by the speakers. As with the conventional Standards


Dimple Tailor


Conference, there was a Knowledge Marketplace, virtual ‘stands’ where delegates could go to find out more from industry experts from companies and organizations such as Gambica and Innovate UK. “Microphones were enabled for these sessions so delegates could interact with the exhibitors – we did our best to recreate the face-to-face experience,” said Dimple. On the day of the conference everything


went to plan with no major technical hitches. “We provided delegates with a customer service number and a manned email


address to get in touch in case of difficulties. We also provided the production company number,” said Annju “As expected there was a flurry of messages in the morning from people trying to join – most of whom simply had not seen the joining instructions with the links; but once we got past 10:30am, it eased up and it ran seamlessly after that.” Gracia Molaso, Standards-Makers Engagement and Communications Manager, has received overwhelmingly positive feedback from delegates. “It’s opened us up to a much wider audience,” she said. “We’ve had committee members in the UK and interested stakeholders from overseas who have not been able to attend before saying how much they enjoyed being able to join us online.” The Events team are already making


plans for the November conference, which will definitely be available live online, and perhaps exclusively so. “We’re looking forward to having more time to prepare,” said Dimple.


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