WalkMe Realize Live – the First Ever Online Digital Adoption Event
WalkMe Realize, the first digital adoption event, was supposed to take place on March 10th -11th in San Francisco. Unfortunately, just six days before the big day, it was canceled due to the growing concerns over COVID-19.
But the desire to share top industry insights and bring people together was still our top priority. And so, in less than a week, the global WalkMe team transformed an offline event into an online experience, WalkMe Realize Live.
On March 11th, 2020 WalkMe used technology as a bridge to film and broadcast the first online digital adoption event. The following week, Realize Live screened twice on LinkedIn Live on Thursday, March 19th, engaging two different time zones.
How was it done?
Putting together an online event in under a week is no simple feat. Spanning across 8 timezones, over 1,426 digital adoption enthusiasts from around the globe watched Realize Live. We couldn’t have done it without our sponsors, speakers, customers, partners, and attendees who embraced agility and made Realize Live a reality.
The event was filmed in front of live studio audiences in Tel Aviv and San Francisco, with speakers joining in either remotely or from one of the studios itself. It opened with co-founder and president Rafael Sweary, sharing how WalkMe was conceived and where he sees the future of digital adoption.
“If I could guess the future of DAP (digital adoption platforms), it would be a direct line between a company strategy of how they buy technology, how they implement technology and how it translates to the job at hand for each and every employee or customer.”
Rafael Sweary on the Realize Live stage
Industry leaders and their valuable insights
We had over a dozen speakers present, including four customers, three analysts, and one partner. Our industry leaders delivered insightful sessions on a range of topics from digital leadership, increased productivity and the future of work.
Tara Galvin, Comcast’s VP of Digital Transformation and Knowledge Strategy shared that at Comcast they are using WalkMe to create “knowments.” Knowments are knowledge moments that matter which connect Comcast employees to great digital content to relevant business processes. Tara gave an example of an employee viewing a clip about the importance of live feedback before they enter their performance review. By watching the clip, the employee’s mental model already shifted and deepened their understanding and preparedness before their performance review.
Andy Young, the Managing Director of Agility & Transformation at Accenture – a Marquee sponsor of Realize Live – led a fascinating discussion around disruption in today’s workplace, sharing trends and forecasts into what the future holds for companies worldwide.
“We’re seeing the shift from me to we and this idea that we’re going to have to use the 20s, the roaring 20s again, to be the decade that we disrupt ourselves around responsible business.”
Digital transformation was likened to going to a gym as Nilanjan (Neel) Adhya, Chief Digital Officer, Cognitive Applications & VP of Digital Transformation presented in his session, Leading Through Innovation: Transforming Your Digital Customer Experience.
Neel also shared some impressive WalkMe stats on the impact of DAP on IBM products such as a 300% increase in consumption and retention in users with WalkMe guidance in the product.
Topic of the hour: business continuity in a global pandemic
Realize Live industry leaders spoke to the future of digital adoption, and how in today’s changing times, digital adoption solutions are key to supporting telecommuting teams. Employees working out of the office need to have the tools to perform their jobs and ensure that productivity is maintained. In other words, if leaders and their employees aren’t equipped to conduct business remotely, there will be a significant dip in development and growth.
Technology as a bridge
Creating our first online event was unchartered territory. We knew that we would have to use all of the technology capabilities at hand to reach as many people as possible. It was important to connect to our community in a way that was accessible and engaging.
.@literesearch We hope you are enjoying it! https://t.co/UV9ZLp3D0D
— WalkMe (@WalkMeInc) March 11, 2020
Slack
We created a live Slack channel for participants to actively comment and engage with Realize Live as it was happening.
300 people joined and engagement was high! Our virtual meeting place facilitated discussions around WalkMe DAP best practices and created offline connections between partners and customers.
Online participants were able to comment on speaker talking points and even interact with the presenters themselves.
LinkedIn Live
In order to accommodate our digital adoption enthusiasts across the globe, we shared two screenings of Realize Live for the EMEA and APAC regions respectively on March 19th. Due to COVID-19, our whole WalkMe staff was already working from home. The team collaborated remotely to coordinate and execute both LinkedIn Live screenings across two different time zones. We were focused on providing a top-quality experience and engaging attendees throughout the online event.
And the winner is….
Realizers are the people we recognize who truly embrace digital adoption. Our first Realizer Awards featured both companies and individuals leading the charge. We received over seventy submissions, and three finalists were selected for each category.
Read all the fascinating submissions and stories here.
A treasure trove of content
Registrants and attendees received access to a Realize Library of additional sessions filled with riveting content from WalkMe partners, customers and analysts. Some of the speakers and topics included Christian Suykens from Thermo Fisher Scientific and his talk on Building and Scaling WalkMe as a One-Man Team as well as Laura Valenziano who shared Walgreens’ digital transformation journey.
First digital adoption event – check!
The name “Realize” was born out of our goal to make a critical change in the digital transformation mindset, and create a shift to embracing digital adoption to attain true digital value.
We could not have predicted the rapid outbreak of COVID-19 and how it has impacted businesses, families and individuals across the world. With health and safety at the forefront, we knew we had to pivot quickly and transform our physical event into a digital experience.
Realize Live was a collaborative effort to bring digital adoption to center stage, and celebrate all of our valued sponsors, customers, partners, attendees and WalkMe staff who were instrumental in its success.
