5 Must Do when organising your first Summit

On the 9th of December, weinvolve had the pleasure to host a very special event “Summit as Unusual”. 

It was a hybrid event in two senses, first as in the well known online and offine combined, second bringing together a summit and a graduation ceremony.  

• The summit part was made up of clients of weinvolve who presented the project, product they’d been working on the whole year through applying the Me2We evidenced based strategy. 
• It was also a celebration and graduation ceremony of weinvolve Highflyers students who accomplished a successful year. 

If you are also planning to organize your first summit, this article might be for you.  

Why organize a summit in the first place, you may wonder.  

 Organising a conference brings you, your company and your team as well as the speaker represented, the following advantages:  

• Brand awareness: as a public event, it will bring your brand out in the world, further visibility to a larger public. It helps you positioning the brand as expert in your field, and increases your credibility and reputation.  
• An excellent platform to network: For you as organizer but as well for the speaker present. It helps strengthening the community around your brand and services or products.  
• Acquire new skills: Leading the summit, will strengthen your organizational skills, as well as forehand help further fine-tune your marketing capabilities.   Of course, for the speaker it is an excellent opportunity to work on the speaking technique and abilities to engage the audience and start a dialogue between the room and online audience. We’ve seen different strategies, some focusing mainly on the camera and online audience, some attracted by the room energy talking principally to people present.

That brings me to the technical and IT recommendations as an organizer.  

1. 1. Always communicate to people coming in person to the room to arrive earlier than the Summit start time. It might be very uncomfortable to have to give priorities to either online or room people, dismissing and giving negative effect to the other side. Although we did, there is always people arriving late that will interrupt the speakers and disturb the run of the session. It’s important you keep the entry space away from the main summit corner, so the online and room audience, neither the speaker is affected. 
   2. Locate the camera filming the online world close the room audience. Always keep someone in the room close to the camera. That keep the main speaker looking at that person therefore the online audience, keeping everyone engaged.
   3. Think carefully about the sound. Depending on the size of the room, you might not need to have specific microphone connected to high speakers. However, no, or poor microphone mean the online audience will have difficulties to hear and lose interest. In addition, in case you plan for question and discussion sessions, you also need the room audience to be heard by the online, and the online audience to be heard by the room.

What about speaker presentation and interactive material?

We wanted this summit to be experience-based to keep as interactive as it can be. 

To increase the success of your summit you might want to keep in mind the following points: 

1. Prepare prepare prepare

We had a total of 11 speaker. The more speaker you will be engaging the more buffer you should plan in to have the information and marketing material ready. Everything that includes coordinating several parties might take longer than expected, and might require as well approval from their side.   

 The amount of speaker brings us straight to next point: 

 2. Opt for a large variety of topics.

In doing so the content becomes more appealing to the end audience. This was one of the strength points of our summit. And made it earn the name that followed our branding strategy as “Summit as Unusual”.  

 We were intensionally picked the magic to work at the the intersection.  

Introducing our participants to the space where different backgrounds and experiences all came together: from lawyer, sales executive, marketing manager, photographer, graphic designer, impact-expert, to investor, wine sommelier, program manager, networker, make-up artist, through bitcoin consultant, mindful childcare, writer, speaker, osteopath / world vice-champion, industry training connector. 

3. Make it interactive 

This was another point that made our summit differ from the other. Every speaker has an interactive experience ready for the audience. Experiences are at the core of what we teach in our respective programs and could not be missed.  

4. Give time for Think-Tanks. 

This is where the magic happens. After every 4 speaker we had an exchange session or Think-tanks. The audience (online and from the room) could choose their preferred topic or speaker and join a “break-out” room. An excellent opportunity for everyone to connect, network and ask questions during sessions organised throughout the day. The technical side of it: Online “break-out” rooms were created, and people had to join with their own device from the room. Here again, care had to be taken due to microphones and speakers reverb effect.

5. Have a plan B ready 

No matter if it is in the agenda, where time buffers are always a good precaution to take. Or if like for us with the hybrid format. Especially in these times where unpredictability is high, flexibility is a good virtue to master. 

• To finish we might add a bonus tip:  

 Dare – Similar to all new things, they seem impossible until it is done. If you have the impulse and idea to organise a summit or conference, go for it. It will make you an experience richer.