Blog

Success Story: How to Expand Recruitment Training Capability Using VALTs to Support Virtual Events

expand training for HCPs

The Event

A pharmaceutical company, launching a global-wide Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) study, needed to host an investigator meeting (IM) series as well as a recruitment training series.

The Challenge

Given the large scale of the study, combined with the challenges of the pandemic, the client needed to proceed with the investigator meetings and recruitment trainings while also providing flexibility and accessibility to site staff and sites involved in the study.

Due to the complexity of this study involving OCD, the specialized training involved the interaction and management of patients from initial communication throughout the lifecycle of patient care and the many touchpoints in between. In order to maximize the patient recruitment capabilities, it was imperative to make comprehensive training accessible to every staff person at every site who interacts with the patient at each touchpoint, in addition to the HCPs, site coordinators and principal investigators.  

This was the client’s first fully virtual event series; they needed guidance from the Miller Tanner Associates team to plan and execute these meeting series to ensure accommodation of multiple time zones including North America, Canada, and Europe. 

The Solution

The Miller Tanner Associates team worked with the client to determine their goals and created a thorough strategy to execute multiple virtual meeting series for the investigator meetings and the patient recruitment training as well as an on-demand training option through VALTs, (Virtual Assessment Learning and Training Source), MTA’s proprietary learning management system, for those unable to attend the live sessions. By offering multiple meeting options, attendees could choose based on their availability, enabling a higher participation among those invited.

  • Because recruitment was integral to the study, MTA planned four branded 2-1/2 hour recruitment meetings for U.S. and Canada sites with focus on implementation of recruitment strategy, patient interviews, explanation of illness and symptoms, and patient retention.
  • For the investigator meeting series, we planned four branded strategic, 4-hour meetings to disseminate protocol overview and education for U.S. and Canada sites.
  • European investigator meeting will be offered later in the year.
  • To further maximize both meeting series, our team created a branded training portal within VALTs to accommodate all participants who could not participate in the scheduled dates of the study series. The benefits included:
    • Extend the training to additional site staff members who would normally not attend the investigator meeting (i.e. additional sub-investigators / study coordinators, recruitment specialists, chief pharmacist, etc.)
    • Create roles-specific modules within the training content
    • To use as a refresher for those who did attend
    • To train new site staff throughout the life of the study

To maintain the efficiency and efficacy for the study team, both the IM and the recruitment meeting series were live streamed events with pre-recorded content. MTA provided speaker coaching, remote recording, and editing of the remote pre-recorded content.  

Additionally, MTA designed and implemented brand uniformity throughout the VALTs study portal, vendor portal, and the landing page of the virtual platform used for the meeting series. The landing page featured speakers’ bios to be repurposed for use within VALTs.

The pre-recorded captures were live streamed using an elevated virtual platform. To create a more engaging virtual experience, the speakers and moderator provided live Q&A throughout the meetings. These sessions were then repurposed within VALTs.

Results

  • Most notable outcome is the significant increase in recruitment capability as a result of using VALTs for repurposed content; recruitment training can be made, with version control, accessible and available to anyone who interacts directly with the patients, beginning with the point of initial contact, providing a broader baseline training.
  • This strategy expanded recruitment training from 3 site contacts to more than 15 contacts per site, with unique role-based learning plans. Because this training is captured within VALTs, anyone trained can submit questions directly to the trainer/speaker. Using VALTs also allows content to be used as a refresher or for onboarding of new staff joining the sites. Our client was excited to have this capability that expands beyond the limitations of a face-to-face training that is typically limited to principal investigators, site coordinators, and HCPs.
  • Our team selected an elevated experience platform for the virtual event that seamlessly supported both the prerecorded and live segments of the event, enhanced engagement opportunities, and optimized the playback quality.
  • MTA’s thoughtful strategy to leverage the strengths of VALTs significantly improved the recruitment training leading to a more successful, effective recruitment process with expanded reach and ROI.

Need to expand your training? Contact us to learn more about VALTs.

Blog

Success Story: In-Person Event Pivots to Virtual & Expands Reach by 2,100%

The Event:

The Everygirls Rise: A Career Empowerment Conference Powered by La Marca Prosecco

About The Everygirls Rise Virtual Conference: The Everygirl Media Group presents its 2020 online conference experience, powered by La Marca Prosecco—a virtual career empowerment and networking event (featuring the talents, leadership, and expertise of inspiring women across industries).

https://youtu.be/p4k5DqRTFXY

About The Everygirl Media Group: By offering detailed in-depth features, career profiles, relatable first-hand accounts, and how-to guides, The Everygirl inspires women toward leading a well-rounded, financially sound, and stylish life.

The Challenges:

Annually, The Everygirl Media Group (The Everygirl) hosts two career empowerment face-to-face (F2F) regional events in North America; one in Chicago, Illinois and the other in Atlanta, Georgia.  Pre-COVID, the average F2F size was 75-100 attendees per event. Due to the pandemic, The Everygirl considered cancelling their annual event; however, they decided to explore their virtual options to engage their membership and continue to achieve their company goals.

Desiring to keep the ascetic quality of The Everygirl F2F event, as well as continue to provide networking capabilities, both essential to The Everygirl brand, The Everygirl needed virtual technology with an integrative platform that would deliver on multiple fronts.  In addition, The Everygirl needed a team of virtual event experts to manage and produce the event from beginning to end.

After doing a quick internet search, The Everygirl discovered Miller Tanner Associates (MTA) and their Global Experience Team. The Everygirl hired MTA to curate a virtual event series that would engage and activate networking opportunities for The Everygirl members and generate brand awareness for The Everygirl event sponsor, La Marca Prosecco.  

The Results:

Using the best-in-class virtual technology options, MTA’s expert Global Experience Team worked closely with The Everygirl to design and deliver a flawlessly executed virtual experience for 2300+ remote attendees from the United States and expanding across the world to include: United Arab Emirates; Argentina; Australia; Buenos Aires; Barbados; Switzerland; Canada; Cameroon; Germany; Spain; France; Great Britain; British Virgin Islands; Ghana; Greece; Guatemala; Croatia; Hungary; Indonesia; Ireland; Israel; Iceland; Italy; Japan; Kenya; Columbia; Kuwait; Latvia; Mexico; Malaysia; Nigeria; Nepal; New Zealand; Republic of Panama; The Philippines; India; Puerto Rico; Russia; Sweden; Singapore; The Caribbean; Ukraine; Zimbabwe; and South Africa.

By switching “The Everygirls Rise” event from a F2F event to a virtual event, the first virtual event realized 900 attendees in the remote audience and the second virtual event realized 1400 attendees in the remote audience for an increased audience ratio of 2100 percent total combined.

The virtual nature of this event resulted in the increased attendance due to the convenience of joining the event from any location and at the reduced cost.  The Everygirl gained global brand exposure and maximized their brand awareness, as well as their sponsor’s brand, with final remote audience participation from five additional continents outside North America including Asia, Europe, Australia, South America, and Africa.  

Planning the Overall Experience

Based on the desired goals of the event, the MTA team created an elevated virtual platform using features that offered engagement, networking, and sponsorship opportunities that closely aligned with The Everygirls legacy F2F experience.

Sponsor’s Experience:

The event sponsor gained extensive brand exposure with the assistance of the MTA team. The MTA team designed an interactive experience to include sponsorship commercials; engaging content; opportunity to direct sponsor product purchases; sponsor-led panel moderation; and widgets to interact with the integrated sponsor website. As a result of the virtual event, the sponsor’s brand had exponential reach.

Attendees’ Experience:

The goals for the attendees included participation in career empowerment and personal fulfillment panels, professional guidance, and networking opportunities amongst peers.  Attendees included entrepreneurs, creative content creators, and corporate leaders.

Our team designed an experience that mirrored that of an in-person event including a “handshake” feature, a networking option for attendees to identify mentors/like-minded individuals digitally; a social wall for attendees to connect; and interaction with the sponsor’s content within the platform.

Client’s Experience:

The MTA team created an entirely fresh new branding suite for the virtual event including customized graphics, enhanced visuals, and branded video templates; built a branded platform that would elevate the overall experience and create continuity with previous in-person events.

Presenters’ Experience:

The MTA team provided speaker training, technology consulting and technical rehearsals to ensure that all speakers’ background/lighting was optimal, that they were well prepared and understood the technology.

Further, MTA designed customized virtual speaker backgrounds.  The background was designed for consistency and to emphasize event branding. MTA also created a show flow, provided guidance for the script, and an optimized 3-hour agenda that would be most impactful for the virtual attendees.

Users’ Experience:

The MTA team built out a platform that was mobile and desktop-friendly with features designed to enhance the experience for speakers, attendees, as well as for sponsor.  

Within the platform, users had access to the following:

Downloadable content including:

  • Spotify playlist
  • Career empowerment planning guide
  • Course discount codes

Audience engagement features:

  • The Everygirl Media Group and La Marca Prosecco website links
  • La Marca Cocktails: Recipes for 2 Featured La Marca Cocktails
  • Sponsor discount
  • Panelists’ bios
  • Digital Swag Bag: including a Career Guide, Everygirls Rise productivity playlist, screen downloads, and a discount code for The Everygirl Courses
  • Networking and chat functionality

“The Everygirls Rise” Event Conference app provided additional features:

  • SHAKE: a next-level networking experience. Simply exchange profiles with a click of a button.
  • Social Photo Wall: Post to the Social Photo Wall via mobile within the app!

Day of Event

The day of the event, MTA managed the attendee experience, the platform technology and the live stream of panel discussions and live moderation.  The MTA production experts executed a flawless event that consisted of multiple panelists, a moderator, as well as engagement features for the audience. The MTA production team seamlessly streamed all live presentations into two 3-hour shows designed to keep the 2300 attendees captivated throughout both events.    

Client Feedback

“Never been a part of anything so smooth and organized to this level.” – panelist (speaker)

From Joyce Chen, Marketing Director, E & J Gallo Winery (Lamarca Prosecco), Instagram:

“WHEW! This is the release of adrenaline  after La Marca Prosecco x The Everygirl virtual RISE women’s empowerment conference season is done…We are so amazed that over 2,300 women from over 10 countries decided to tune in & celebrate a community of women virtually this year. We feel so humbled that all of you wonderful humans welcomed @lamarcaprosecco  @theeverygirl and our amazing women of panelists into your home. We are so inspired that through the app & social wall, you all chose to lift each other up and create community in these trying times. These are the days I pinch myself when work has a greater purpose beyond the bottle. For that, I am so moved and never want to take this moment for granted. Thank you to the team at Everygirl, @miller_tanner_associates and the amazing women on my team who I am proud to serve. They are the tireless MVPs who make this all happen…“

Blog

The Benefits of Hybrid Events

what is a hybrid event

What is a Hybrid Event?

Essentially, a hybrid event is any combination of a face-to-face and virtual or digital experience.

You might have a 5,000-person virtual event with 20 people joining in person in one location. Or you might have 100 people face-to-face in meeting rooms and 100 people attending virtually online. Or you could have 5000 attendees with a live speaker being recorded and filmed at a remote location. These are just a few examples of the countless options that hybrid events can offer. Bottom line: With hybrid meetings, the event possibilities are endless.

Why Hybrid Events Are a Good Solution Especially Now

Hybrid events have always been a great solution. For years at MTA, we’ve been using a combination of face-to-face, virtual, and hybrid events to enhance learning, strengthen the conversation before or after an event, boost return on investment and improve audience connection.

Now that companies are forced to go virtual due to the current pandemic, organizations have lost their “fear factor”, have stepped outside their comfort zone, and have started to think outside the box; now there’s curiosity around what it looks like to extend and further engage their audience in the future.

Easily Pivot Your Meeting During an Unpredictable Time with Hybrid Events

As many companies have pivoted their face-to-face events to virtual as a result of the pandemic, this trend will continue in 2021 with a hybrid model. Hybrid events will be necessary to allow all attendees to participate at their comfort level. For those individuals where it’s safe to return to in-person events, they can participate face-to-face; and for those who have reasons why they can’t attend face-to-face, hybrid enables them the opportunity to attend the events without being in person.

Advantages of Hybrid Events

Expand Your Audience

One important advantage of hybrid events is the ability to expand your audience to include those who cannot travel to the event but can still attend the event virtually. The idea of attrition begins to shift – It’s not a traditional attrition model anymore of who can’t attend the event, but rather those who can’t attend in-person now have a second opportunity to say yes to your event.

Additionally, audiences are hungry for great content and for exceptional virtual experiences. They want to learn more, attend more, and experience more. This particular time period in our history allows so many people to expand their horizons and their knowledge base.

As a result, we’re not seeing a decline in hybrid or virtual audiences; we’re seeing increases in expansions of audiences allowing for reach that didn’t exist before.

It’s an opportunity to embrace and recognize that there is an audience, that they want to be engaged, and that if we provide great content, and engaging experiences, then they’ll continue to come and, and feast off of what we’re sharing.

Ensure Safety during Uncertainty

Safety certainly is a very important issue. There will be COVID-related restrictions for all face-to-face events moving forward, but some of those restrictions, guidelines and safety measures aren’t enough for certain portions of your audience who may be impacted for a variety of other reasons such as health risk factors for themselves or someone with whom they live or childcare limitations.

The hybrid event then enables you to customize your event, to ensure everyone feels comfortable at the level at which they’re able to engage. And for some people that will be virtual and for some people that will be face-to-face.

Flexible, Built-In Contingency Planning

The great advantage of a hybrid model is that it offers a built-in contingency plan should situations change.  

For example, 12 weeks from now, the country or the region in which you are conducting your event, or from where your audience is traveling, needs to move fully virtual due to imposed travel restrictions. By planning a hybrid event to be fully executed alongside your primary face-to-face event, you can quickly convert your entire conference into a full virtual experience.

Why MTA is the Right Partner for your Hybrid Event

Experience and Expertise

One of the benefits of working with Miller Tanner Associate is that we have been planning virtual events for the past 10 years for our clients. Our company, itself has been a virtual company for 23 years.

Over the past five years, a high percentage of our in-person events have been converting to virtual. There’s always been a virtual component to our face-to-face events, whether it’s a small virtual audience or a small group of virtual speakers. As a result, we have a high level of experience helping our clients determine how to engage people virtually.

Return on Your Investment

Helping clients create a return on investment is another benefit of working with an event planner like Miller Tanner Associates. Working with our team shows you how to create this ROI, as it doesn’t necessarily happen naturally in a virtual or a hybrid scenario. It requires core planning, structuring your agenda to maximize your content delivery, and employing technologies to ensure engagement.

We’ve done the testing within our own team, and with years of experience in using the virtual model, we take that trial and error out of the way for you.

Beyond Plan B

We want our partners to have peace of mind with every corporate event planning. Moving forward in 2021, every face-to-face event will have a shadow hybrid event plan integrated meaning a virtual event is being planned alongside the in-person event in case the event requires a sudden pivot to virtual or hybrid.

Hybrid events are truly the best of both worlds. The hybrid model offers an effective way to maximize and personalize an event experience that can accommodate any audience both in-person or remote. To learn more about hybrid events, contact our Global Experiences Team.

Blog

What HCPs Really Want from Your Investigator Meeting

With over 23 years of experience planning investigator meetings, Miller Tanner Associates has learned a lot about what makes a successful medical meeting for both the host and the attendees. We survey every participant so that we can give our clients specific direction as to what attendees really desire from an investigator meeting. Here are a few ways you can deliver an exceptional meeting to your healthcare professional (HCP) attendees.

Continue reading “What HCPs Really Want from Your Investigator Meeting”
Blog

Reasons to Hire a Pharmaceutical Event Planner

3 Reasons Top Pharma and Biotech Companies Rely on a Corporate Event Planner

The biggest challenge for biopharma companies when it comes to planning events may be the lack of internal staff to handle such an undertaking from start to finish. Not to mention, understanding the nuances associated with many moving parts can complicate the planning process.

That’s where Miller Tanner comes in as a one-stop-shop with proven processes for all things meeting planning related.

While some companies have meeting and event planning specialists and/or travel services within their own organizations, these resources may be too stretched to take on a “big” meeting. Likewise, smaller companies are often strapped for resources too which requires existing staff to take on additional “special projects” like this.

Hiring a planner can make all the difference in the success of your next pharmaceutical meeting. That’s why top companies in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries rely on a corporate event planner agencies to get the job done. Here are 3 reasons why they turn to the experts:

1). We are pros at handling the fine details.

MTA Meeting Professionals

Miller Tanner is a global, full-service meeting planning agency utilized for organizing logistics and professional events both big and small in size. We can take the burden off of bio-pharma internal resources by taking care of the smallest details they might not consider when planning the meeting, such as clearly defining the meeting specifications, providing concise attendee lists, securing visas as needed, and handling negotiation of budgets for other vendors required such as travel, hotel, and ground transportation.

We serve as a liaison with hotel staff so you do not have to worry about the details of room assignments/availability, nor worry that the VIP rooms will be ready when you are. Onsite activities we handle include confirming rooming lists, handling adequate food and beverage orders per person, and ensuring all expected attendees are accounted for throughout the event.

While onsite, our staff helps to manage time between agenda sessions, handles helpdesk registration sign-ins, and offers suggestions for the unforeseeable schedule or banquet adjustments.

Compliance and security are another area of expertise that we offer. We are able to provide compliance documentation so that your team does not have to worry about government reporting requirements for healthcare providers if applicable. We have a well-defined compliance policy for healthcare professionals we can deploy as needed. Advanced planning for emergency situations is another key task to consider. The safety of all attendees is our top priority.

These are just a few examples of the finer details that may go unconsidered if planning meetings and events are not your “day job”.

2). We keep you within your budget and leverage additional cost savings.

A major benefit of hiring a corporate event planner is cost savings. As experts in the field for over 19 years, we know the ins and outs of saving our clients money and we have several proven methods of accomplishing just that.

Dining room set up at a corporate event

Venues are often a big part of the meeting spend.  Because we conduct many meetings a year across the globe, we have long-standing, established relationships with numerous meeting venues and vendor partners to expedite the overall process from the start of the planning phase. We can leverage cost savings for your hotel and ground transportation using our connections and effective rate negotiations on your behalf.

We track every dollar. When it comes to tallying the budget, we reconcile the entire spend and send it to you in an electronic file format. This file provides supporting documentation of funds spent and how the funds were applied.

3). We offer meeting solutions that are efficient and save you time.

MIller Tanner Associates Global Meeting and Event Planners

When a bio-pharma company employs Miller Tanner we like to function as an extension of your existing team doing the “heavy lifting” using our expertise and your guidance. This is our core competency and we know most of our existing clients would prefer to outsource this task if given the choice.

We help select venues and meeting locations that are time efficient for travel to and from. We are able to provide a concise budget, conduct hotel searches and narrow the details so that you are able to have laser focus in attaining your meeting goals. Giving you options when it comes to your meeting location is one step.

An additional benefit that we can provide when it comes to meeting solutions is the capability to create hybrid meetings, using top-notch technology, to virtually bring in any key speakers or attendees that are unavailable to travel in person. When time zones aren’t impacted, we can even bring in a specific country virtually to participate.

Our dynamic global logistics team of event planners can make sure your next meeting is a successful one. We’ll meet all of your timelines and budgets, stay on top of the smallest details, and exceed all of your meeting expectations. We’re here to support you. Contact us today!

Frequently Asked Questions

In effort to help readers to summarize the information found within this post, we’ve recapitulated the article in question and answer form.

What is the Biggest Challenge Bio-Pharmaceutical Companies Face When Planning Corporate Events?

The lack of internal personnel to manage large corporate events from start to finish may be the greatest barrier for biopharma firms when planning conferences. Not to mention that figuring out the intricacies of so many moving components may make the planning process more difficult, which often requires knowledge and experience to execute.

How Do You Manage the Fine Details When Planning an Event?

We start by clearly defining the meeting specs, providing an accurate attendee list, securing visas (if needed), and negotiating budgets for vendors.

How Do You Provide Cost Savings for an Event & Stay Within Budget?

We know the ins and outs of saving money for our customers. As specialists in the industry for over 19 years, we have many proven ways to reduce overall costs and stay within the allotted budget. These tactics include utilizing previously established relationships, effective rate negotiations, plus we track every dollar spent.

What Type of Event Management Solutions Do You Offer & How Do They Save Money?

We can assist in choosing venues and meeting places that are convenient to get to and from. We can offer a detailed budget, perform hotel searches, and narrow down the specifics so that you may concentrate only on achieving your meeting objectives. The key is to provide you with choices for meeting locations and vendors that meet your budget requirements.

Are there Any Additional Benefits to Working with Miller Tanner?

When it comes to meeting solutions, we also have the capacity to design hybrid meetings that use cutting-edge technology to virtually bring in any important speakers or attendees who are unable to travel in person. We can even bring in audience members digitally to participate; provided time zones aren’t an issue.

Blog

Success Story: Business Pitch Competition Goes Virtual

Client names and logo have been removed from virtual platform image for privacy reasons.

The Event

A face-to-face (F2F) or LIVE event format for a business pitch competition that successfully pivots to a screen-to-screen (S2S) or virtual event format for the same business pitch competition.

The Challenge

Historically, the annual pitch competition had taken place at the organization’s LIVE event; however, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the pitch competition had to be transformed into a highly-engaging virtual event while still delivering the presenters’ messaging, captivating the panelists, and engaging the remote audience.

As the presenters were located in various U.S. cities, communication and coordination were vital to the success of the final production.

With the event format switch from live to virtual, the competition required a more creative approach as well as guidance on best practices to accomplish the revised event goals.  

Given there were 10 presenters in addition to a panel of 6 judges participating, the flow of the event needed to be a seamless fit within a one-hour time frame.

The Successes

Miller Tanner Associates (MTA) facilitated discussions with the client to better understand the goals and intentions of the virtual event. This led to designing a combination of technologies and virtual platforms that would best accommodate an outstanding competition experience for all participants.

To ensure the success of the event, our team provided multiple one-on-one coaching sessions for the moderator, panelists, and key presenters to deliver consistency in lighting, backdrop and overall visual quality (look and feel) of the remote sets.

MTA advised the competition presenters to pre-record their business pitches within a specific set of rules.  One day prior to the event, our team conducted a thorough tech rehearsal with the presenters, including both the live sessions and pre-recorded pitch presentations to ensure that everyone involved felt comfortable and understood the show flow.

On the day of the event, MTA integrated live moderator/panelist sessions with streaming of each pre-recorded business pitch to create a  seamless one-hour virtual experience for participants and panelists.

Event Feedback

“You and everyone were so professional and accommodating, it was a delight working with you all. Please feel free to use me as a reference any time.  I will be sure to refer Miller Tanner. Meredith, Your team is amazing!!!!!”   – Event panelist

“Thank you all….watching it on the cell worked well. The production quality was excellent and the pitches were great (some, very creative!).  Very nicely done!” – Remote attendee

“Thanks to the Miller Tanner team for their professionalism, technical platform and execution of today’s event.  I’m excited to view the recording so I can see what others saw.  Thanks again!” – Event moderator

“Best virtual event I’ve ever participated in!” – Event panelist

Blog

Meet MTA: Jesse Torres, Senior Software Engineer

The Miller Tanner (MTA) difference is our people. That’s why we want to introduce you to our team of superstars that bring our corporate meetings and events to life for our clients. Today we introduce you to Jesse Torres, a senior software engineer with MTA Technology Services. Jesse is one of our tech masterminds behind our event management products: EPICTM, VALTsTM, and AttendTM.

Meet MTA: Jesse Torres

Tell us about your current role with MTA?

I’m a senior software engineer. My responsibilities include developing new features to extend MTA products in order to streamline the event planning process and making those products better and more robust by applying industry best practices and patterns.

How many years have you worked in this industry? I have been in the telecommunications and IT industry for over 20 years.

What do you enjoy most about your job?

I most enjoy solving problems and making people’s jobs easier through technology and automation.

What’s your favorite aspect of software development?

I like learning new technologies and applying them to my daily work as well as collaborating with the MTA team.

What’s a favorite unique trait of MTA’s event tools?

Our event tools offer a one-stop shop for event planning!

What inspires you most when developing new software/technology for MTA?

Developing solutions that help make people’s work easier and more productive is what inspires me most.

Where do you live and what do you love most about your state/city?

I live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas. I love it here because there is so much to do and the food is great. Must-see attractions: Dallas World Aquarium, The Dallas Zoo, Reunion Tower, Southfork Ranch, and the Cowboys.

What do you do for fun? For fun, I watch movies, read, play video games, and watch football (Go, Cowboys!!!)

What are some of your favorite tech trends? Cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and machine learning are some of my favorite trends.

Jesse received the 2021 Story of the Year Award. To read more click here.

Blog

5 Ways to Drive Your Training Ahead This Year

Behind every successful company is an equally successful training program to drive them forward. This year, give your training a tune-up and navigate a new route. Here are 5 ways that you can drive your training ahead in the new year:

1. Put your learner in the driver’s seat.

Instead of assuming which training topics should be a priority, ask your teams first. Map out a clear direction with your learners. Survey them to find out what skills they would most benefit from learning. If you get their input, you are more likely to have increased engagement from your trainees throughout your training and, ultimately, you’ll have a better return on your training investment.

Additionally, identify gaps and create a training that addresses those gaps.  eLearning Industry suggests using your company’s tech help desk as a resource for mining the most frequently asked questions submitted from employees. This allows you to “easily spot general trends that reveal skill gaps and common workflow disruptions.”

2. Put your training on cruise control. 

Do you feel like you are spinning your wheels when it comes to delivering your training? Are you repeating yourself? Do yourself a favor this year and take advantage of technology that allows you to automate your training process.

You can put your training on cruise control, using a learning management system like our VALTs, Virtual Assessment Learning and Training Source. This allows you to easily:

  • Deliver training content
  • Reach all onboarding  requirements
  • Create assessments to validate comprehension
  • Generate completed training documents
  • Refresh rapidly changing content
  • Track progress

3. Let training data be your compass.

Your training data can be an excellent guide for delivering successful training. It can get you from point A to point B.

What if you could:

  • Have instant access to deviations
  • Know what information or activities your attendees engaged with the most
  • Manage multiple events within one source and compare data
  • Identify the gaps in learning among your attendees and address in during your event
  • Measure, or even change, the behaviors of your attendees
  • See in real-time how many people per roles per country are represented at your meeting

These are just a few examples of how data can improve the outcomes of your event. You can have your data accessible within a “dashboard” to provide real-time insights about your event anytime from anywhere.

Data paves the road for predicting the success of your training. It helps determine your goals, content, assessments, and trends so you can improve on future events.

4. Test drive other training technologies.

Why not try out a new vehicle for delivering your training. If you’ve always done a face-to-face meeting, try a more cost-effective virtual meeting instead.

Try using a learning management system like VALTs to conduct a pre-training or to downsize a lengthy face-to-face meeting. Mashup your training with a hybrid meeting (face-to-face + virtual).

To prevent your audience from falling asleep at the wheel, use new technologies such as ARS (Audience Response System), polling, and gamification to engage your passengers.

5. Hire a co-pilot (and by co-pilot we mean a meeting planner).

When it doubt, hire it out. It may be more advantageous and cost-effective to hire an expert to plan your training. The knowledge and time that it takes to design and deliver a seamless meeting can not be overstated – it’s a big, detailed job.

A meeting planner is up for the task because they have an event road map complete with backup plans and alternate routes. They have the resources available and the relationships established to make sure your training reaches its final destination with no bumps in the road. ( 10 signs you need to hire a meeting planner) 

Let Miller Tanner Associates help get your training on the road to success this year. Contact our team today to learn more about our training options!

Blog

Success Story: How a Hotel Contract Cancellation Clause Resulted in Zero Penalty During Pandemic

The Event

Multiple face-to-face events with meeting attendance directly threatened by a public health crisis, COVID-19 between February 2020 through June 2020

The Challenge

Given our previous experience with global outbreaks and public health crises including SARS (2002), Swine Flu (2009), MERS (2013) Ebola (2014) and Zika (2015), Miller Tanner Associates (MTA) knew that it was likely meeting attendees would be reluctant to attend face-to-face events with so many looming unknowns related to the meeting’s safety, travel, and accommodations. In these instances, travel could be prohibited for in-person attendees without advanced notices. Based on our extensive industry knowledge, we had historically included hotel contract clauses to address these emergency epidemic/pandemic situations among others. Typically, generic clauses are offered by venues; however, those are not always in the best interest of our clients who might need to proceed with the meeting on the same timeline, but in a different format.

Expanding upon our prior global experiences, in early January 2020, the Miller Tanner Associates’ Global Experience Team discussed the growing uncertainty and concerns over the COVID-19 outbreak that was happening in China and how it could impact upcoming Asia Pacific meetings as well as other global regions worldwide.

The Solution

MTA includes several clauses in all venue contracts that protect our clients in situations of emergency, terrorist attacks and other scenarios that would impact the full or partial audience attendance. We evaluate our contract clauses often to ensure that we have measures in place to protect our clients from situations outside of the norm.

Taking a proactive approach and utilizing our strong hotel partner relationships, we implemented a cancellation clause for all our hotel/venue contracts in reference to COVID-19 specifically. The COVID-19 clause allowed MTA 100% cancellation in case there was a need to cancel any event impacted by the pandemic with no obligation to rebook at a future date – allowing those events to move forward on their own time and in their preferred way. 

As a result, we secured 100% forgiveness of payment obligation for scheduled events that were canceled due to the coronavirus between February 28 – June 2020. This enabled our clients to avoid cancellation costs associated with their events during this timeframe and allowed for the future rescheduling of their events without penalty. We value our venue partnerships, especially during these uncertain times, and appreciate all who worked with us to put our clients’ and customers’ best interests first.

Blog

Virtual Events: Frequently Asked Questions

Do you have questions about virtual events? We have answers.

Q: Is virtual really the best option for my canceled meeting?

A: Virtual event solutions are a very effective alternative to a canceled face-to-face event. Even when you can’t meet face-to-face, our virtual solutions offer an option to deliver your message to a virtually-engaged audience. 

Virtual Event Planning E-Book

Q: Why should I use Miller Tanner Associates (MTA) for my virtual event? 

A: We have over 10 years of virtual event planning experience. With a virtual event planned and managed by Miller Tanner Associates, your organization can streamline everything from staff training to annual investor recaps. We have created an innovative approach to virtual event planning and management that is focused on delivering a fully-tailored experience that suits your individual needs and goals. Years of experience have taught us exactly what works in the virtual event space. Now, we are able to make virtual events as powerful as meeting face-to-face.

Q: How are your virtual solutions and planning processes different from others?

A: Our approach is to partner throughout the process to plan your virtual event experience. First, our team identifies your virtual event goals so that we can recommend the best technologies for your virtual needs. Platforms are not one-size-fits-all when it comes to virtual meetings and it takes expertise to determine the best fit for your specific event goals.

Secondly, we guide you through the entire virtual event planning process and can assist with everything from managing registration, providing redundant systems, optimizing your presentation materials, coaching your presenters, creating an effective agenda, providing tech support, and ensuring audience engagement throughout the event production. 

Q: How many attendees can participate in a virtual meeting?

A: There is no limit restriction for the number of participants for a virtual event. 

Q: Will I have to “go it alone” during the virtual broadcast?

A: We have a team of experts working alongside you to provide technical and practical support throughout the duration of your virtual event. 

Q: What if I lose audio or video during an event? 

A: MTA’s support will provide assistance to make sure your virtual event runs smoothly.  If it is a system issue, MTA will work diligently to get everything up and running. We have specific processes in place to avoid and remedy any issues that a participant or presenter might have when participating in a virtual event. 

Q:  What about security for my virtual event?

A: Because of our expertise and security parameters, your event is secure. Our systems are geographically disparate and resilient. We use established and constant internal auditing processes. Individuals are issued unique credentials for virtual meeting access. Security is paramount for each and every event that we host. 

A: This is an important differentiator for clients in the life sciences industry. However, many other industries find it supports their requirements as well.  As part of our virtual event solutions, we developed a proprietary tool VALTs (Virtual Assessment Learning and Training Source) which supports 21 CFR Part 11 requirements such as trustworthy e-signature and reliable electronic records with associated audit trails.  Through our dynamic client reporting, clients can monitor training completions and produce electronic training records for their files through a secure system.

Q: Will I know who attended? 

A: MTA provides post-event reporting that will identify the attendee by the unique URL they were provided when registering. This will show the client who attended from registration and the duration they were in attendance.

Q: How do I keep attendees engaged throughout my virtual event?

A: This is one benefit of having a professional meeting planner support your virtual event. With over 10 years of experience in virtual event planning, Miller Tanner Associates has developed best practices and a variety of strategies to ensure that your virtual event is engaging and interactive. Once we understand your event goals, our team designs an event that keeps your audience attentive and captivated throughout every session. 

Let our team of expert planners handle the details from start to end. Are you ready to get started planning your virtual event? Contact our team to learn more about how we can support your virtual experience.

© 2025 Miller Tanner Associates. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy & Use of Personal Information Vendor Code of Conduct
Instagram Facebook LinkedIn X (Twitter) Alt Text