Thanks Edo! We use a number of metrics to track the success of our events. I’ve pulled together a few charts for you that show success on four measures:
Likelihood to recommend
Valuable experiences
New connections
Maintained motivation
You’ll see that our likelihood to recommend score was much lower than usual for the EA Global: Virtual in March, but we learned lessons from that event which contributed to the EAGxVirtual score being comparable with previous in-person events.
In terms of valuable experiences, EAGxVirtual was much more successful at changing the minds of attendees, particularly first-time attendees. However, the number of people making important connections was lower than EA Global: London 2019.
The main difference we’ve noticed between virtual and in-person events is the number of new connections made (see slides 4 and 5). This feels significant because attendees consistently report one-on-one meetings and new connections as their most valuable experience at our events. In-person events seem to be much more effective at generating new connections but there isn’t much of a difference in terms of generating at least one important connection. Perhaps we could make some tweaks to the virtual format to increase the number of new connections at future events.
You’ll also see that our virtual events have been very successful at maintaining the motivation of attendees, more so than EA Global: San Francisco 2019. In particular, we received lots of positive feedback about the virtual format from community members who wouldn’t normally be able to attend an in-person EA conference.
> Also, I’m curious, what CRM are you using and for what purpose?
We are using Zoho CRM. The major use case for it right now is processing event applications: it’s integrated with our application forms, ticketing systems, bulk mailing software etc. to provide a unified overview of everyone who has applied for an event. (This is briefly mentioned above in the “Systems Improvements” section of this post.) We also use it to identify attendees who are good fits for specific parts of the event, for example creating a list of first-time attendees who might benefit from our “Guides” program. Other CEA projects sporadically use the CRM to identify specific people who match some criteria (e.g. if we are trying to brainstorm potential group organizers in some location) but this is not the main use case.
I find it interesting that first-time attendees make fewer connections than returning attendees. Some reasons that it might be the case—less focus on scheduling 1-1s, less interest in them than in more experienced people, fewer referrals, more interest in the content, less time spent on the conference.
Generally, it is amazing that there are many plan changes and increased motivation within first-timers and returning attendees. Again, amazing work!
Thanks for the information on the CRM :) We in EA Israel are trying out a costume Airtable database for our needs (which are mostly managing connections and mapping people and organizations of interest).
Thanks Edo! We use a number of metrics to track the success of our events. I’ve pulled together a few charts for you that show success on four measures:
Likelihood to recommend
Valuable experiences
New connections
Maintained motivation
You’ll see that our likelihood to recommend score was much lower than usual for the EA Global: Virtual in March, but we learned lessons from that event which contributed to the EAGxVirtual score being comparable with previous in-person events.
In terms of valuable experiences, EAGxVirtual was much more successful at changing the minds of attendees, particularly first-time attendees. However, the number of people making important connections was lower than EA Global: London 2019.
The main difference we’ve noticed between virtual and in-person events is the number of new connections made (see slides 4 and 5). This feels significant because attendees consistently report one-on-one meetings and new connections as their most valuable experience at our events. In-person events seem to be much more effective at generating new connections but there isn’t much of a difference in terms of generating at least one important connection. Perhaps we could make some tweaks to the virtual format to increase the number of new connections at future events.
You’ll also see that our virtual events have been very successful at maintaining the motivation of attendees, more so than EA Global: San Francisco 2019. In particular, we received lots of positive feedback about the virtual format from community members who wouldn’t normally be able to attend an in-person EA conference.
> Also, I’m curious, what CRM are you using and for what purpose?
We are using Zoho CRM. The major use case for it right now is processing event applications: it’s integrated with our application forms, ticketing systems, bulk mailing software etc. to provide a unified overview of everyone who has applied for an event. (This is briefly mentioned above in the “Systems Improvements” section of this post.) We also use it to identify attendees who are good fits for specific parts of the event, for example creating a list of first-time attendees who might benefit from our “Guides” program. Other CEA projects sporadically use the CRM to identify specific people who match some criteria (e.g. if we are trying to brainstorm potential group organizers in some location) but this is not the main use case.
Thanks!
I find it interesting that first-time attendees make fewer connections than returning attendees. Some reasons that it might be the case—less focus on scheduling 1-1s, less interest in them than in more experienced people, fewer referrals, more interest in the content, less time spent on the conference.
Generally, it is amazing that there are many plan changes and increased motivation within first-timers and returning attendees. Again, amazing work!
Thanks for the information on the CRM :) We in EA Israel are trying out a costume Airtable database for our needs (which are mostly managing connections and mapping people and organizations of interest).