Abstract Management Community

Hi all,

Our organization stopped our student poster contest post-COVID as we had little interest in it at our annual meeting.   We are considering bringing it back, but with a twist.   Has anyone changed this into a digital or presentation contest?  If so, I'd love to see examples and hear about your progress!

Thanks,

Annie 

My organization has done digital poster presentations the past 2 conferences. Overall, I feel it has been a failure. If you want to stick to something that feels more "traditional", but uses screens, I have found that the cost is too prohibitive to make it worth it. We have opted to do them more light a lightning talk, but that has not been well received. Doing it the way we have has taken away a lot of the networking and interaction aspect, which has been the biggest complaint. We will return to a traditional poster session at our next conference. Best wishes to you!

Hi all,

Our organization stopped our student poster contest post-COVID as we had little interest in it at our annual meeting.   We are considering bringing it back, but with a twist.   Has anyone changed this into a digital or presentation contest?  If so, I'd love to see examples and hear about your progress!

Thanks,

Annie 

Tony & Annie-have you tried moving posters into your event app as a structured sub-session type? Many modern apps (including ours-Mobile Engage Pro-and others like RD Mobile, Eventpedia, EventMobi) can handle poster "micro-sessions" with profile pages, time slots, and wayfinding.

The tech is only half the equation, though-the strategy matters more. A few proven tactics:

• Browsable poster gallery with smart filters + "save to plan" to drive foot traffic

• Asynchronous Q&A threads tied to each poster so presenters keep engaging after hours

• Opt-in contact exchange ("scan to connect") at each poster to replace hallway networking

• Push nudges during breaks ("Posters on water-equity starting now in Hall B")

• Light gamification (visit/engage badges) to encourage exploration

• Simple analytics so you can prove what worked-and what didn't-to your board next year

Feel free to share these examples. Also I have a short playbook on what makes digital/poster hybrids succeed. Shoot me your email if you'd like a copy.

Schedule a quick chat if you'd like to brainstorm strategy: https://meetings.hubspot.com/wallach

Happy to help, Mark

My organization has done digital poster presentations the past 2 conferences. Overall, I feel it has been a failure. If you want to stick to something that feels more "traditional", but uses screens, I have found that the cost is too prohibitive to make it worth it. We have opted to do them more light a lightning talk, but that has not been well received. Doing it the way we have has taken away a lot of the networking and interaction aspect, which has been the biggest complaint. We will return to a traditional poster session at our next conference. Best wishes to you!

Hi all,

Our organization stopped our student poster contest post-COVID as we had little interest in it at our annual meeting.   We are considering bringing it back, but with a twist.   Has anyone changed this into a digital or presentation contest?  If so, I'd love to see examples and hear about your progress!

Thanks,

Annie 

My organization has done digital poster presentations the past 2 conferences. Overall, I feel it has been a failure. If you want to stick to something that feels more "traditional", but uses screens, I have found that the cost is too prohibitive to make it worth it. We have opted to do them more light a lightning talk, but that has not been well received. Doing it the way we have has taken away a lot of the networking and interaction aspect, which has been the biggest complaint. We will return to a traditional poster session at our next conference. Best wishes to you!

Hi all,

Our organization stopped our student poster contest post-COVID as we had little interest in it at our annual meeting.   We are considering bringing it back, but with a twist.   Has anyone changed this into a digital or presentation contest?  If so, I'd love to see examples and hear about your progress!

Thanks,

Annie 

Wow, Tony, I'd like to hear more about why  digital posters were a failure for your team. It's clear you gave it a fair try for two years! What had you hoped to get from going digital? How many posters do you generally offer, and how many days does your meeting run? What was it attendees wanted that they weren't getting?

Digital is more expensive than paper and pushpins. It's worked great for us, so we're committed to it. We introduced the software in 2018, and our goal was to improve engagement between poster authors and poster viewers who are attracted to a particular topic (as opposed to the "window shoppers" -- attendees who just walk around looking at posters and chatting with people in a random way). Before digital, we had the "football field" model with 3-hour poster sessions.

We run 700-1000 posters per meeting, and digital let us organize them by scientific focus, and make them appear and disappear in specific places, which has helped our exhibit hall traffic. Partners are also very interested in the activity their posters create, which can be tracked. 

But I can imagine a lot of situations in which digital posters wouldn't be worth the cost. What went wrong for you?

My organization has done digital poster presentations the past 2 conferences. Overall, I feel it has been a failure. If you want to stick to something that feels more "traditional", but uses screens, I have found that the cost is too prohibitive to make it worth it. We have opted to do them more light a lightning talk, but that has not been well received. Doing it the way we have has taken away a lot of the networking and interaction aspect, which has been the biggest complaint. We will return to a traditional poster session at our next conference. Best wishes to you!

Hi all,

Our organization stopped our student poster contest post-COVID as we had little interest in it at our annual meeting.   We are considering bringing it back, but with a twist.   Has anyone changed this into a digital or presentation contest?  If so, I'd love to see examples and hear about your progress!

Thanks,

Annie 

Wow, Tony, I'd like to hear more about why  digital posters were a failure for your team. It's clear you gave it a fair try for two years! What had you hoped to get from going digital? How many posters do you generally offer, and how many days does your meeting run? What was it attendees wanted that they weren't getting?

Digital is more expensive than paper and pushpins. It's worked great for us, so we're committed to it. We introduced the software in 2018, and our goal was to improve engagement between poster authors and poster viewers who are attracted to a particular topic (as opposed to the "window shoppers" -- attendees who just walk around looking at posters and chatting with people in a random way). Before digital, we had the "football field" model with 3-hour poster sessions.

We run 700-1000 posters per meeting, and digital let us organize them by scientific focus, and make them appear and disappear in specific places, which has helped our exhibit hall traffic. Partners are also very interested in the activity their posters create, which can be tracked. 

But I can imagine a lot of situations in which digital posters wouldn't be worth the cost. What went wrong for you?

My organization has done digital poster presentations the past 2 conferences. Overall, I feel it has been a failure. If you want to stick to something that feels more "traditional", but uses screens, I have found that the cost is too prohibitive to make it worth it. We have opted to do them more light a lightning talk, but that has not been well received. Doing it the way we have has taken away a lot of the networking and interaction aspect, which has been the biggest complaint. We will return to a traditional poster session at our next conference. Best wishes to you!

Hi all,

Our organization stopped our student poster contest post-COVID as we had little interest in it at our annual meeting.   We are considering bringing it back, but with a twist.   Has anyone changed this into a digital or presentation contest?  If so, I'd love to see examples and hear about your progress!

Thanks,

Annie