Every year, the Kansas Regents universities and a few others get together for a conference called CHECK, which stands for Conference on Higher Education Computing in Kansas. Presenters from each of the institutions share the latest trends, unique solutions, and other topics of interest with their fellow colleagues. Each university takes a turn hosting it and this year the conference was scheduled to be at ESU. This year marks 50 years since the techies first started meeting and we were excited to make this CHECK one to remember. Alas, the Coronavirus derailed months of hard work and planning. But not all is lost as we're reinventing the conference as a virtual event and we'd like to share how we're doing that.
- We'd normally have opening remarks by the CIO or others. These will now be done via Zoom and streamed live.
- We follow the opening remarks with a keynote speaker for all attendees (approx. 200). This too, will be done via Zoom and streamed live. We're discussing adding/modifying the traditional keynote to include a roundtable-style discussion with CIO's and/or IT decision makers talking about their COVID-19 response.
- The rest of the conference is made up on breakout sessions on multiple tracks. We're still determining the number of tracks, but we'll have a Zoom room setup for each track with an ESU moderator. Presenters will have the option of joining the Zoom session and presenting just like they would have if they were coming in person. Alternatively, they can film their presentation ahead of time and we'll just run it during their session. In both instances, there will be an option for a Q/A session with attendees--again using native Zoom tools.
- All sessions will be recorded and made available for watching later.
- We had planned a swag bag (T-shirt, pen, notepad) for all attendees, videos and interactive kiosks, vendor booths, and an evening social event. The vendors will be given the option for a digital marketing presence, but the rest are nixed. We're still doing a few fun things on social media to get everyone excited for the conference and we’ll move our Interactive kiosk content to the web, so there will still be a few unique things happening this year.
Hopefully, this gives you an insight into how we're reworking our own conference from digital to virtual. ESU employees interested in IT are welcome to register and attend. The virtual CHECK conference will be held on May 20th and 21st. More info can be found at esucheck2020.com
Brian Osbourn
Director, Web and Digital Strategies
