Last week, a massive IT outage caused by a CrowdStrike update caused more than 40,000 flights to be delayed worldwide, according to the Washington Post. Of these, more than 10,000 flights originated or ended in the United States. The meetings industry was sent scrambling as flight delays left attendees and presenters alike unable to reach their destinations. Rather than postpone an investigator meeting, or hold it without key presenters or attendees, Array and a client quickly pivoted to a hybrid format that provided a consistent, synchronized experience with insights gathering from both in-room and remote audiences.
An investigator meeting for a limited, rare disease study was scheduled to take place Saturday at a hotel in Washington, D.C. Attendees and presenters from all over the U.S were expected to arrive on Friday, the day the CrowdStrike disruptions began. Array’s onsite support (OSS) team was already setting up as the client started to receive cancellations, including from three presenters. The meeting was being held at an important juncture between Phase II and Phase III; each attendee who couldn’t make the meeting represented a trial site that would miss important training (and whose insights would not be gained during the meeting). Working with the client, Array was able to quickly create a hybrid meeting deployment that provided all attendees with consistent experience and engagement opportunities, no matter their location.
“The client decided the hybrid option would enable them to stick to the meeting’s agenda with the scheduled presenters while letting all attendees participate as if they were in the room,” explains Brenden Jenkins, senior program manager with Array. “There is always an Array technical team on site adept at deploying both our managed iPads and our virtual platform, and we travel with the technology needed for both. We were able to pivot during the setup time to create the online activities and access links needed for the hybrid deployment.”
The investigator meeting ultimately took place with four presenters and several attendees taking part virtually. Array’s hybrid platform provided an experience that was consistent and synchronized for all participants, regardless of where they were. Unlike hybrid deployments that only provide the streaming audience the ability to watch the program, Array’s technology offers engagement and measurement features like those found on the managed iPads—and gathers insights down to the individual level from both audiences. Not only did virtual attendees follow along with speakers and slides in real-time, but they participated in polling and Q&A and were able to take notes and have them sent to themselves after the meeting. The meeting organizer gained insights from both in-person and virtual interactions to help them understand the extent to which individual attendees engaged with the content and what concepts were well understood and where there may still be knowledge gaps.
As the travel industry stalled due to a technology failure, Array’s client was able to use our technology to develop a solution that not only let the meeting go on, but to do so in a way that delivered all that was needed and promised.
