Having attended my first virtual financial services conference organised by Panacea Adviser last month, I thought a blog dedicated to my avatars snappy green suit would be of interest.
Seriously though: what an immersive and engaging process. With Panacea Adviser’s invitational to virtually present on our retirement research at their ‘stand’ I was provided instructions on how to log on and join the conference from the comfort of my real time office.
Once into the system, you are asked to create your profile and avatar (The green suit matched the colour of our brand) then you are set to go. You also gain a virtual conference bag and a business card to swap with like-minded avatar types. You then appear in front of a virtual conference hall and with your forward/backward computer keys away you go traversing through to the actual conference hall itself…and what a line up there was.
Panacea had commendably managed to engage key market participants to set up their virtual stalls: The Pensions Regulator, AVIVA, Royal London and BNY Mellon to name a few. Although I was disappointed not to bump into or walk straight through Royal London’s Steve Webb’s avatar, I was able to swop virtual business cards with plenty of interesting professional ‘people’ and fill my virtual bag with stand goodies such as product brochures and key feature documents which downloaded to my computer along with the facility to watch some classy videos.
I even managed to meet and stay in touch with some great business contacts, one of which who will be speaking at our RDR to FAMR IoD Symposium in May.
You can wonder around or stand by an area of interest just the same as you would in real life, plus there was a video hall where all the videos could be viewed in one go. Indeed there was also a map with a ‘teleport’ button that could transport you anywhere within the conference, now that did appeal to my ‘Star Trekie’ inner child..
All in all a real step forward for conferencing, I do think it would be of benefit for those who want to reach clients and prospects who wouldn’t normally attend such conferences, plus for the shy types, it makes a perfect platform to banish any networking worries and go and virtually meet and great until their hearts content.
It’s also good for those conference organisers who want to walk their talk on new technology and provide an alternative (not an replacement) for traditional face-to-face conferencing.
The downside would be if you aren’t tech savvy forget it, you do need to have a good comprehension on e-based platforms even though it is relatively easy to set up plus you just cant beat looking someone in the whites of the eye when they attempt to sell you their wears and tears. Oh yeah and I had to ditch my green suit once I’d exited. Bummer.
