The Discover Discovery Systems Virtual Conference went well. Our final count was 84 registered, with a 85 total participants the day of the conference. Unfortunately we did not record the sessions, so we couldn't make them available. The conference web site has the PowerPoint presentations available. We had technical difficulties here and there, but I think we were able to minimize it by allowing the presenters time to prepare and use the collaborate system before hand. This experience has also shown me that there are a lot more advanced features that can make an online session more interactive. I have a few recommendations for future conferences.
1. Continue to provide a test session, or open up the Collaborate session earlier to allow presenters to practice their presentations. We actually had a test session for the whole week where presenters could practice.
2. Instruct presenters to click on the record button. The moderator can be a backup, but it makes more sense to let the presenter choose to start recording when they are ready to present.
3. Keep future events short. The longer the sessions go, the more chances of technical difficulties. I may even split future conferences into separate sessions (like conference rooms) and use a web site to coordinate sessions. This would allow for shorter recordings, allow other sessions to prepare and test while other presentations are running, and will distribute the load on the system.
4. Have presentations prepared beforehand to be uploaded into the sessions.
