For over 30 years, Summit has always been at the forefront of meeting technology, having incorporated hybrid elements to face-to-face meetings since the early 2000s. Over the past year, we have been addressing our clients’ needs to replicate the human connection that is often lost by reformatting a traditional live meeting to the virtual world. Through meticulous and detailed planning and structure, combined with robust virtual platform technology, we can come as close as possible to providing an arena in which stakeholders and attendees can have a meaningful dialogue.
Too often, virtual meetings can devolve into one-way speeches during which attendees’ attention and learning are minimized due to a lack of interaction. We overcome these virtual obstacles by:
Assisting the meeting stakeholders and presenters in embedding relevant engagement and polling questions directly into their presentations.
Utilizing virtual meeting platforms that encourage attendee interactivity through question boxes, note-taking, slide drawing, gamification, and pop-up questions.
Providing in-meeting metrics to measure attendee attentiveness and knowledge retention.
Producing post-meeting analysis of all attendee actions during the meeting to use for planning future events.
Virtual Investigator Meetings, in particular, require much more sophisticated solutions and planning than a typical internal Zoom meeting. On both sides of the screen, sites and stakeholders, time is limited and the mandated information can be vast. In these types of meetings, a mutual didactic environment must be created as the presenters have as much to learn from the audience as vice versa.
Below is an excerpt from one of our technology partners on the importance of engagement in Investigator Meetings:
Individual sites must educate potential trial participants, and the information gathered in Array® content engagement technology can help them do this more effectively. It identifies how these sites might need to supplement their information or training by showing knowledge gaps between meeting engagement and information retained.
More productive investigator meetings are the first step toward more effective clinical trials and faster drug approval. With this increased efficiency, drugs can reach the market more quickly to maximize limited patent time.
ENGAGEMENT
Engagement technology can bring new excitement and energy to routine agendas. Many investigator meetings rely on old templates that become dull and lose functionality with age. With surveys and engagement opportunities, biotechnology companies can improve event impact, create personalized learning, and improve clinical trial success rates. Investigator meeting audiences are captive audiences, and their continuing interest hinges on active participation. Surveys, polling, and other engagement tools can help identify the right potential research topics, make changes in the clinical trial process and meetings, and ultimately, let participants know that they have been heard.
ANALYTICS
Once this new information has been gathered, analytics provide the necessary centrifuge for distilling value. When organizers understand their audience, they can meet needs specifically.
While offering targeted sessions may add costs to the event, the improved knowledge retention can quickly justify the expenses with long-lasting benefits. Decisions for future events can be based on value and actual insight, not hypothesis and cost alone. Analytics deliver the “why” behind the “what” happening at events. This understanding can inform strategic decisions with amplified impact.
We encourage all of our current and prospective clients to take part in a demo to review all of the latest innovations in interactive virtual meetings. Schedule one today by calling (973) 239-4005 or emailing info@summitmgt.com