More than 400 sessions and 300 follow-up discussions broadcasted live from Orlando and Frankfurt on 24 live Web feeds—all on a proprietary virtual events platform built by SAP and firm vCopious. Several innovative features offered interaction between remote user and onsite delegates, presenters and staff.

"Ask a Speaker" routed virtual delegate and social media questions to moderators, who then connected to colleagues onstage.
Virtual delegates tracked their online peers and requested chats. Account execs and customers who couldn't attend in person watched sessions together virtually.
The platform featured social media integration. Online delegates followed a live Twitter stream while watching sessions and reading comments on Facebook.
Attendees saved and recorded content, and kept play lists.
Delegates shared content via email, Twitter, Facebook and other platforms.
Partners and exhibitors occupied a virtual "trade show" space, uploaded collateral, talked about their companies and collected contacts.
The virtual platform was available on mobile devices. Onsite delegates saved sessions to their online profiles and created play lists from their mobile devices.

Intelligence Note:

Keep the audience in mind and design for its specific needs instead of taking a technology-driven approach. Design an experience that parallels the face-to-face exchange, but has unique qualities. Provide something as simple as audio and video podcasts or live audio streaming. High-relevance content is the most important driver of the success of a virtual platform.