Google kicksoff two days of talks at debut Tech Summit
The inaugural Digital Event News Tech Summit served-up two days of discussion , networking and one-to-one meetings between technology providers and event planners . Mike Fletcher reports on the opening keynote from Google Cloud .
The Digital Event News
Tech Summit was held at Hanbury Manor in the Hertfordshire countryside from 23-24 November . Planners from companies such as News UK , Ernst & Young , Clarion Events , Forum Events , The RSPB , 73 Media and Philips , met with suppliers , including Hubilo , Notified , On24 , Totem , iVent , Brella ,
CircData , Cvent , LexisNexis and LiveBuzz , to share knowledge and requirements in order to shape the future of virtual and hybrid events .
The two-day summit opened with a keynote from Google Cloud ’ s marketing director , Global Experiential & Demand Marketing , Matt Kaufman .
He began by telling delegates that in early 2020 , Google took the decision not to go-head with its large-scale San Franciscobased annual user conference for up to 40,000 in-person attendees . But instead , began experimenting with different virtual formats .
He told event delegates : “ At that point in time , many organisations were discontinuing their events but we had already invested a lot in content production . So , we made the decision to convert the work we ’ d already done into a digital programme .
“ EARLY ON WE LOOKED AT A WHOLE RAFT OF PLATFORMS . I ’ D STILL ENCOURAGE ANYONE TO CONSIDER THE MINIMUM VIABLE EXPERIENCE , WITHOUT ADDITIONAL FUNCTIONALITY THAT YOU EITHER DON ’ T NEED OR WON ’ T USE .”