 Turning a live event into a virtual event is no easy feat, and meeting planners around the world are needing to do this now and into the foreseeable future. Friends, the skillset required to do a virtual event is so different from doing live events as Ola Ayub of the Canadian Conference on Medical Education can attest to. She had six weeks to create an engaging virtual library of education for 1,500 conference attendees, and thanks to her partnerships with some trusted vendors, she was able to do it. Ola is sharing her story and her virtual event journey with us today through our 2020 Stories Initiative. Before we turn it over to Ola, if you'd like to be notified of more videos about our 2020 Stories Initiative or videos about the meetings industry in general, don't forget to subscribe to this YouTube channel and click on that little bell to be notified of new content. We have more stories coming out for you of meeting planners and meeting partners who are doing an incredible job in supporting our industry at this time. And now, let's hear from Ola Ayub about her new virtual CCME conference. Hey everyone, it's Leanne, and thank you so much for joining us today. I'm sitting with Ola Ayub of the Association of Faculty of Medicine of Canada. She is the conference manager and was responsible for planning the Canadian Conference on Medical Education, which unfortunately had to change formats due to COVID-19. So I've invited Ola to join us today and share with us her experiences on changing the format of her conference. Welcome, Ola. Thank you. Thank you for having me. No, we're thrilled to have you. We were referred to you by another conference manager in the Canadian Association space. She said that you were doing some really, really great things around your conference that had to pivot quite quickly after COVID-19 hit. What can you tell me about your conference format and what it changed to? Yeah, so our conference is usually a three and a half day with some pre-conference days on site. And what we had to do is on March 13th, we had to pivot completely. So at first, not only do we have about 1,500 delegates that come to our conference, but most of them are frontline healthcare workers. So we knew that not only could we not hold our conference because we were no longer allowed to do so, most of our delegates had to be on the frontline. So what we pivoted towards at first was going to a virtual conference during the same dates that we had our conference. So we would have been from April 18th to the 21st, and everything would have been live-streamed. So at first, it seemed like a good idea, as you've said, we packed to pivot quite quickly. And we were running with it until we realized that it was no longer feasible to be doing it that way. So March 31st, we decided to re-format our entire conference and do pre-recorded sessions instead. And why we decided to do that was because most of our delegates would not be able to attend a conference at a set time on a set date, especially not April 18th to the 21st. So what we did was we pre-recorded our main plenary sessions, and we had a little bit more time to do so because we had changed the dates. And we posted them online for a 90-day period so that our delegates can come and watch as they please, and whenever they could. Okay, thank you. Now you mentioned pivoting on March 31st. How much lead time did that give you then to create this new pre-recorded virtual event? It gave us six weeks. So we decided that we weren't going to push it too far out of our actual conference dates. So we decided May 15th, right before the long weekend, we would open up our platform. And six weeks might seem like a lot, but it really wasn't because in those six weeks, we had eight plenary sessions as mentioned, but in total 24 speakers. And they all had to record their session separately, and then our audio-visual company would edit the videos in the order that we wanted them to be in. So we had to schedule and coordinate 24 speakers to pre-record their sessions. And then our audio-visual company had to edit the videos, and then once edited, we had to get them interpreted because we're a fully bilingual conference. And once that was done, we had to send it over to our housing platform. And then they had to work with what we had. Not only did they have to have to post the videos up there, but we had a few other requirements like meeting a discussion board for our delegates to be able to ask our speaker questions and putting up our evaluations and creating the reports that we were going to meet afterwards. So it gave us six weeks to do all of that. So now looking back with six weeks in after, would you have preferred a bit more time to get everything together? I mean, of course, I would have loved more time. However, we did it and very successfully. I mean, if we didn't have the vendors that we do have and the relationships that we have with them, I don't think I would have felt as confident as I did in the six weeks that we had. Of course you want more time, but we didn't have more time and we worked best under pressure, right? So I think the six weeks were great. One more time would have been even better, but we made do. No, that's brilliant and thank you for sharing that. I think people appreciate knowing that it can be done in a short amount of time, but you mentioned something that I've made a note of and that's having great partners. Are there any partners in particular that you'd like to give a shout out to? Definitely. Freeman Encore. I mean, we've been working with them for several years now and they don't let you down. They really, they were flexible. They really rose up to the challenge. I mean, everybody was faced with this pandemic and no one knew how to navigate through things and Freeman really made us feel comfortable as well as DE Systems, who's our registration and abstract management company. So Freeman Encore recorded all of our sessions with our speakers. So there was a tech there to help our speakers through and to just navigate them through it and then with DE Systems, they just took those videos and everything that we had asked them to put on those on that platform, they did it for us. No questions asked, like they were capable of doing it all. So I mean, that was really something that we were really thankful for. I love hearing stories of partners coming together. So thank you for those shout outs. I do appreciate it. Of course, yeah. Now, as a conference manager with six weeks to plan an event, you're likely learning some new skills as you go through this process. What can you share with the audience about what skills you had to learn to pull this together? So I find that the skill that I had to learn more about was learning the technology. So one thing that I am as a conference manager and with so many great vendors, I learned to just put my trust into the vendors because some areas are not my expertise. So I'm the conference manager. That's what I excel at. But when I'm reaching out to freemen and I tell them I need a screen with this and that, I just expect them to know what to do. And I don't give it a second thought. But with this, I really needed to understand what was going to happen, you know, like how were those videos going to be recorded? How were we going to get them interpreted? Everything was virtual. It was really just not so much difficult, just something that I needed to learn, you know, like learn how these things work. What's the back end look like, you know, like, and I'm really thankful that that happened because it just added a new skill set to my list of skills. You know what I mean? So I think that that's the new skill that I've had to take on and learn further. I mean, not that all the other skills that we have as conference planners didn't just get much stronger because of the situation. But that's the newer skill on my end that I've had to learn more about. And I think that's been the silver lining or the lemonade we've made out of lemons is all of us have come out of this with these new skill sets in our toolbox. And so as event managers, whatever your role is in the industry, we have that much more than to kind of showcase our advocacy and showcase, you know, that we are a legitimate profession and that not anyone can just pull together an event like this in six weeks. You do have to rely on your experience and your education and on great partners like you mentioned. So I love hearing that and thank you for sharing that. And one thing too about conference managers and planners is that, you know, we work a lot under pressure. And most of the time, you know, you're planning the same conference, you know, you're kind of getting used to your environment. Not to say that it's not under pressure because, you know, of course, everything planning is one of the most stressful jobs. But this really took it to another level, you know what I mean? Like you really had to work under pressure in a short timeline and just figure it all out as a planner. And I think that I shout out all the other planners that are doing this as well right now, you know, it's not easy. Oh, and thank you for recognizing the other planners because you're right. Some people are just starting this process. So I'm hopeful that what you're sharing today will help lead them down a successful path to their next virtual event. And so I'm going to put you on the spot with this question, Ola. But now that it's over, how do you feel about the finished product? And more importantly, this is where I'm putting you on the spot. How do you feel about your career as an event planner? So now that it's over, God, I'm so relieved to be honest. It's, you know, at the end of a conference, after planning it over a year's time or however, whatever your job looks like, you feel so accomplished, right? Like you feel like you've succeeded. You've done something like all of that hard work has now paid off. And I feel the same. Like I feel almost even better than I would if I were on site. I mean, the level of adrenaline. Yeah, the level of adrenaline on site is much different, of course, because, you know, you're making sure everything is running according to plan. You have more. I mean, if I had more time to plan this virtual event, we would have had more components to the conference. But because we had such a short time, you know, I didn't have that much to put out there. Just the important pieces. So I do feel, but I did feel like once it was out, I felt accomplished. You know, like we went through a pandemic, something that no one had ever been through before, you know, unprecedented times. And nobody knows how to navigate through it. And we still came out with a conference that more delegates were registering to it. You know, once our plenary sessions were out, we've had more registrations. We've had people sign on right away. You know, in the first week, we had 15% of our delegates sign on to look at the plenary. So it was quite fulfilling, you know, as a conference planner. And to your second question, what was it exactly? Yes. Well, now how do you feel about your career as an event manager going through this experience? To be honest, I thought about that quite a lot. And I feel like there's a new challenge. And I'm loving it, you know? Like it's just something else that you've added to the list of things that we have to go through as an event planner. Like now you have to think of new and innovative ways of virtually putting your conference out there, you know? Like having a hybrid conference. Having, you know, just thinking outside the box and finding new ways of being interactive. A lot of the reasons why delegates go to conferences for the networking. Well, why can't we find more networking virtually? You know what I mean? So I'm really looking forward to finding those new innovative ways of making our conferences even more successful. And you're right, it will change the landscape of how we interact with each other, with content. And I'm with you. I'm looking forward to the changes. I think it's going to change our industry for the better. So time will tell, and we'll see how things roll out for the rest of 2020 and into 2021. So my final question for you, Ola, is what advice would you have for people in the industry who are still feeling a bit stuck and uncertain on how to move forward during this time? I think I would give them the same advice I gave myself. Take control of your conference. I mean, trust yourself and your capabilities of innovation. And just, you know, you're in this industry and you're in this job for the same reasons that we all are, because we love what we do. And if you're in your positions because you're good at what you do, so just trust yourself. You know, like take that and make your conference different. Find new ways. There's so many webinars out there right now trying to help us navigate through it. Attend these webinars. You know, learn and just be confident. I love that. And I have no doubt that you've affected someone today with those words of wisdom. Ola, is there anything else you'd like to share about your event or your careers and meeting planner before I let you go today? No, not really. I mean, I think that this just strengthens the fact that this is what I'm meant to be doing. And I hope that it does the same for all other webinars out there right now. It's a tough time, but you can get through it. And as I've said, trust yourself and you'll be successful. Trust yourself. Hang in there, folks. There is a silver lining to all of this. And I think Ola's new virtual event for her association is proof positive that a lot of good can come from this time. Ola, thank you so much for your time today. I do appreciate you joining us and sharing your story. Friends, I'm going to put links to some of the partners that Ola referred to today, as well as a link to Ola's association website if you want to check out her association. And you'll find those below this video here. And I hope to join you again soon for another edition of 2020 Stories. Thanks for watching. Bye for now.