There are a lot of exciting things happening in the Enablement space right now. Not only are we in the thick of conference season - but a lot of folks are planning to launch their first ever virtual kick off (SKO, RKO, Growth Summit).
Traditionally, kick off is a time for the distributed team to gather together, celebrate their successes, build relationships, rally around the mission and vision for the year ahead and focus on personal development... so, naturally, enablement is involved.
Knowing this is the first time many folks are moving to a remote format for the event, the enablement community is rallying to support one another! A unique opportunity came about from a LinkedIn post from Misha McPherson, Head of Global Revenue Enablement at Coursera. She put it out there that she wanted to network and share best practices and was met with a force! Over 40 enablement practitioners met for an hour, broke out into small groups and brainstormed a specific aspect of kick off planning - this past week was focused on Engagement. We plan to meet bi-monthly through the end of the year to lean on each other.
I learned a TON!
Here are my top 10 takeaways.
Pre-record one-to-many sessions so you may edit in advance and have quality control of content. Host live Q&A when necessary.
Create internal "commercials" to break up the monotony of back to back sessions. These could be fun cultural messages, product updates, etc.
Use tools like Zoom polls, Kahoot, Mentimeter, Slido, Poll Everywhere and even Cameos to keep the teams engaged. Consider a virtual DJ to kick off the morning or re-energize after lunch!
Find a way to engage the families of those who may be working from home and supervising their children's education. (Examples include Talent Show, Show and Tell, Pitch Practice when children explain their parent's profession, etc)
Folks miss each other! Ensure there is an opportunity for social interaction whether Breakout Rooms in Zoom or the virtual vendor hall or networking capability based on the tool you are using. You can incorporate healthy breaks like yoga, meditation or cooking.
Sendoso is a great tool to send gift packages to individual addresses globally. Consider sending lighting/green screen to all presenters to ensure quality of recording.
Ideal time is 4 hours in the morning (PST), 3 days out of the week. This is best to accommodate time zones and prevent zoom-fatigue.
Create a Rewards Program to grant credit for attendance and participation so people show up and are engaged. Can create a baseball card experience with ranking and stats.
Themes! Not only should the conference have a theme that continues throughout the year - but also, it's helpful to have a theme of the day and create Zoom background options that align to that theme.
Use http://makeplayingcards.com to create a custom deck for your company containing bite sized customer stories. Fun for reps and teams to celebrate their deals highlighted and is a great physical asset for the team to learn each other's customer stories as if they were their own!
Interested in attending the next workshop? Message me on LinkedIn and I'll get you connected!