Microsoft Envision Global Digital Event

Microsoft Envision is global event that is designed to help inform and educate upper leadership in various fields with relevant news about the latest in technology and business. This is normally a live event that tours multiple countries. With the onset of the pandemic, we had to switch gears. How do we make a live event into a digital experience?

When I was first placed on this project, we had many obstacles to tackle. Since Envision was a global event, we had to consider how we could reach the largest amount of people and give them an experience that felt local and important to the attendee. We devised a plan to make multiple airings for different time zones around the world. On top of this we created multiple sessions called perspectives that were micro-localized to help business leaders in their respective regions.

Building out these sessions helped create a localized touch. During the live events a chat was included to encourage attendee interaction. An event that started out with 200 attendees quickly built to 20,000 attendees. We took what the data was providing and began to build a community for the event. Along with storing speakers, segments from the episodes, resources to help build thought leadership, and episode recaps, Envision became a source of information the attendee could return to and grow with the changing times.

When the site launched, it just had a homepage, speaker directory, attendee directory. But seeing the need to give upper leadership a place to find resources and relate, we created the site map above. Envision is now a seasonal event with season 2 kicking off this fall.

Here is the website and here are some page examples:

There is still more work to do. Continuing with making the event even more interactive, real time chat between speaker and attendee, bringing in even more regions, and more broadcasts, to reach more countries. And down the road a hybrid of live event with a digital audience. All you need to do is envision.