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Most Innovative Meetings 2022: Cisco IMPACT FY23

The tech company’s annual sales kick-off found a unique way to celebrate its team members, both in-person and virtually.

Most Innovative Meetings 2022: Cisco IMPACT FY23
In the center of the show floor was the Shared Stories Gallery, which the team affectionally refers to as "the wow moment." The 23-foot-tall by 46-foot-wide frame-like structure was inspired by the event's key visual, a kaleidoscope of energetic shards conveying a moment of impact.
Photo: Courtesy of GPJ

BizBash's 10 Most Innovative Meetings 2022 is sponsored by Quest EventsMyClearTextAccessLOOP, and GTHER.

The basics: The 2022 edition of Cisco IMPACT, the company's annual sales kick-off, took place on Aug. 29, 2022, in Las Vegas. The goal of the event—which drew 14,000 in-person attendees and 6,300 virtual attendees—was to help the company's team members grow, accelerate, and win business for the coming year. It included immersive training and networking opportunities, and was produced in partnership with George P. Johnson (GPJ), TENCUE, Sans Serif, and Jaguar Design Studios.

What's new: This year's event marked the first time that Cisco's sales leaders had been physically together since 2019, so the GPJ team worked to create "an awe-inspiring experience that was symbolic of this occasion," said Lindsey Wood, senior account director of GPJ. "We strived to completely refresh the in-person experience, shake off the live event dust, and create an experience for attendees that they'd be talking about for years to come."

To do so, the team leaned into three key design tenants—"hyper-personalized, meaningful, and frictionless"—and faced the added challenge of seamlessly combining the in-person experience with the digital experience. To make sure both groups felt equally involved, the team actively sought "moments of unity," explained Wood. 

Some of those moments included a theme reveal on day one, which "came to life in the event branding, both in the hallways and on our digital platform," she said. There was also a digital day anchored by presentations that all attendees participated in, plus a competitive point system that drove engagement and included both audiences. Most Innovative Meetings 2022: Cisco IMPACT FY23As attendees walked inside the Shared Stories Gallery, they found 24 screens displaying social posts of their peers, along with moments to celebrate their colleagues.Photo: Courtesy of GPJ

Steal-worthy innovations: The Shared Stories Gallery, which the team affectionately referred to as "the wow moment," was a 23-foot-tall by 46-foot-wide frame-like structure inspired by the event's key visual, a kaleidoscope of energetic shards conveying a moment of impact. As attendees walked inside, they found 24 screens displaying social posts of their peers, which were scraped from social media hashtags or submitted through a custom event social platform powered by Fankave

GPJ's group creative director, Oliver Zlotnicki, said that the Shared Stories Gallery aimed to celebrate the sellers, cement lasting bonds, and facilitate connections. "A little bit Instagram, a little bit Twitter, we wanted to build an internal forum that would bring the community together in a similar fashion," he explained, adding that the space was accessible remotely via the Cisco IMPACT Digital Platform, or live in the center of the show floor.

In another fun touch, at the on-site event, Cisco employees could scan their badge and the experience gave them a personalized celebration moment—with imagery and motion graphic treatments touting their achievements displayed on the screens. 

"We want to celebrate success and inspire the whole sales team, but at a 14,000-person event, this can be challenging to do in a meaningful way. As a seller, you come to this event and you always see top leadership up on stage and on the big screen being recognized—could we create a similar experience for all winners?" said Zlotnicki. "By building a celebration moment within the Shared Stories Gallery, we enabled each seller to have their name, face, and achievement level broadcast over a massive screen array in front of everyone in the activation." Most Innovative Meetings 2022: Cisco IMPACT FY23The Shared Stories gallery ultimately resulted in 1,129 social posts and 1,929 Shared Story Gallery interactions, averaging an interaction every 30 seconds.Photo: Courtesy of GPJ

The virtual experience: For the first time in the event's history, attendees were able to choose how they'd like to participate—either in-person in Las Vegas, or virtually via the digital event platform. "The digital event was crafted to give the audience a window into the live event while also giving them their own experience the week following," said Marisa Garamendi, Cisco’s senior manager and IMPACT program lead. "Two of the three global sessions were broadcast live, so the entire audience heard high-level strategy messaging at once, while our third closing session, complete with our external guest speakers, was reserved for rebroadcast to close out the digital event."

Breakouts and demos were all recorded from Las Vegas for the simulive agenda the following week, and live hosts from Las Vegas were on hand to orient the audience and bring energy into the digital platform, Garamendi added. "Beyond the sessions, our digital audience had a variety of experiential elements to keep them engaged from home—from our Sales Winner Spotlight where they could connect with and recognize their colleagues, to point accumulation through our Compete for Good program where once a cumulative goal was reached by the entire audience a donation was unlocked to three global nonprofit organizations."

Virtual attendees could also participate in the Shared Stories Gallery, recommend content to colleagues, engage with session moderators, and enter to win a variety of prize giveaways. "Eighty-six percent of our audience appreciated having the choice to attend digitally, so creating experiences like these is here to stay," noted Garamendi. "We will continue to improve on how we bring these audiences closer even though they are miles and miles apart." Most Innovative Meetings 2022: Cisco IMPACT FY23"We strived to completely refresh the in-person experience, shake off the live event dust, and create an experience for attendees that they'd be talking about for years to come," said Lindsey Wood, senior account director of GPJ. (Pictured: The event's main stage area, which was designed and produced by TENCUE.)Photo: Courtesy of GPJ

The biggest challenges: In addition to acclimating back to live events, "things cost more due to shortages in both labor and materials, and lead times were longer due to supply-chain issues affecting our industry," said Nicole Feldman, GPJ's vice president of client services, adding that health and safety remained a concern too.

"We now had two audiences to cater to and significantly higher expectations for our digital experiences," she added. "To overcome these challenges, we took a step back and pulled out the key learnings we had compiled at the end of the last live event in 2019. We also ensured we were taking the extra step to re-ask ourselves, our colleagues, and our business partners if we had thought of everything when making significant decisions."

She continued, "Taking the extra time to recall key learnings for what used to be second nature, and implementing multiple layers of contingency plans, was incredibly helpful to ward off potential issues."

Lessons learned: "One of the biggest learnings is about audience behavior and the newfound challenge of its predictability, or lack thereof," explained Garamendi. "While much of our audience was extremely eager and thankful to be back, we saw more attrition than we anticipated. Looking at next year and beyond, we will have to continue to monitor if this is a permanent trend."

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Quest Events is a go-to event rental partner for industry professionals based in North America. With locations across the U.S. and service capabilities in Canada, look no further for effective and efficient pipe and drape services, as well as scenic, decor, and furnishing solutions across the AV, hospitality, corporate, wedding, and exhibition industries.

MyClearText elevates events no matter the format with high-quality human captioning in real-time. Thanks to the team’s 50-plus years of technical expertise, MyClearText captions are produced at the speed of up to 300 words per minute, delivered at 99% accuracy contextually and grammatically.

AccessLOOP is a leader in adding accessibility features to all livestreamed and virtual events (think: human captioning, live sign language, translations in more than 100 languages, and more). It’s a simple workflow—the browser-based software links to your source stream and stream destinations, loops in your preferred providers, and allows you to set your on-screen layout. 

GTHER is a next-gen event experience platform that’s designed to evolve with the ever-changing industry by bringing virtual event functionalities into one place. Referred to as “the Swiss army knife of virtual experience platforms,” GTHER allows its users to chat, livestream, stream real-time content, host networking sessions, create a custom-branded space, and so much more.

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