Streamlining Professional Association Conferences with Seamless Abstract Management and Hybrid Production

Nikki Dickens (00:00) I'd say that OkWhen has allowed me to enjoy being a conference director again. Nikki Dickens and I am the conference director for the Florida Association for Behavior Analysis. I've been planning events and conferences for about 15 years. So a lot of the challenges came from having to use multiple platforms and softwares in order to organize our vendors, the mapping of our physical space. One of the biggest challenges was the call for papers or a call for presentations, abstract management. And that was a really big challenge. You know, I've had the pleasure of using a lot of the different services through OkWhen starting with obviously the abstract management We're able to customize the configuration if there's any association policies, and it really sends a clear message to our professional community about what their expectations are if they're going to participate in our event. We also use the AV and the production team on site because we have a fairly large event. And so, it really does take a village - And I feel like I'm getting a professional village whenever I'm interacting with OkWhen and their production team. They're always so accommodating. It almost makes it seem like we are an isolated client and that they know our associations, they know our board, they know our preferences, they know our setup. I've had wow moments as we've grown and we've continued to use OkWhen. I think the cherry on top of that experience was when I decided to start scheduling my events and scheduling my presenters, and I could see where if I'm overlapping either by a room or if I'm overlapping and, you know, double booking a presenter system's able to tell me that, and it's just basically as simple as "drag and drop," and I think that was probably my wow moment. I routinely get positive praise from not only our attendees in that they've enjoyed the initial event, but if they have to follow up or clarify on their continuing education, they feel that OkWhen is extremely supportive and they're extremely responsive. And I think that that is something that we've also seen on the association side. I think what I really enjoy with the program is that if there's a need on site that I mentioned to the production team, and that needs to be reflected in any change, whether it's a sponsor or a potential sponsor coming to me and saying, "You know, I'd really like to sponsor a t-shirt." It's very easy to add that kind of product inside the sponsorship management aspect of OkWhen. I did mention, you know, the "drag and drop" with the scheduler. The fact that my attendees are able to see the schedule as soon as it's published. And so we're not having to wait on the production team to create, you know, an actual spreadsheet or to create some type of flow chart that shows them where they're going to be. You know, we started using OkWhen as a necessity from COVID, and we had such a great time virtually that we decided to start offering hybrid events. And what we've basically received as the feedback is that is very accommodating for any of our professionals. They're able to feel connected to the rest of the professional community. Not only have we seen satisfaction in the attendees that were already attending our event, but we've steadily been able to increase the number of attendees. So I think that the best thing about the AV team is that if I have to, you know, isolate a 10-second clip for you know, someone's family member or if a speaker wants a copy of their presentation, that's almost seamless in that I can just say, this is what I need and they're able to get that to that person. I would say that OkWhen would be an answer for any type of event, especially professional associations. Any entity that needs continued education, or if you just need to track a certificate of attendance, that's also something that's offered within that platform. I would absolutely recommend reaching out and just meeting with OkWhen and looking at the tools, maybe even starting with one portion of the system. Maybe you just want to use abstract management. And that's kind one of the things with OkWhen. It's almost infectious to use their tools because it does interface seamlessly. it's just so much easier in order to keep things organized.