Role

Experience Design Strategist, Art Director 
I developed the experience strategy in partnership with a larger, cross-functional working group. I also concepted and developed the event branding.

Context

Who
We expect 300-500 attendees. This conference is for the people who wear all the hats: HR and operations leaders in the small business community. 


What
The event offers HR leaders a chance to step back from their day to day, build community, and leave the day with actionable steps to impact their teams, company, benefits, policies, recruitment, retention and more. 

Where
Metropolitan Pavilion, New York City

When
Spring 2021, Date TBD
Original, fall 2020 date postponed due to COVID-19.

Experience Strategy

At Justworks, we have team offsites every quarter or so. The purpose is to get outside of the office, have big conversations, brainstorm, learn something new, and return to our desks feeling inspired. This is exactly how we want attendees to feel at and after the conference. “Offsite” seemed like a fitting name for the event.

Project Goals

1. Attendees will walk away with actionable steps to impact their company’s teams, benefits, policies, recruitment, and retention.

2. Attendees will return to their day-to-day work feeling inspired and refreshed.

3. Attendees will build relationships with the broader small business and Justworks community.

4. Make the Justworks quirky, knowledgeable, confident brand come to life in a unique and delightful way through every interaction.

Space Planning, Part 1
We took a day to tour Metropolitan Pavilion and brainstorm how we might use the space to accomplish the goals above.

Moodboards
We took a step back to gather inspiration for how we might create unique interactive spaces. We pulled a lot of inspiration from children’s museums, galleries, and interactive art exhibits. Fun, interactive moments are more meaningful and delightful than hearing a pitch from a sales rep. We also looked to organizations we admire including Zendesk and Slack for inspiration, and reached out to Meg Lewis (Creative Director of Slack’s Frontier conference) for advice and mentorship.

Space Planning, Part 2
I worked with the cross-functional team to think about how we might apply some of the interactive elements from the moodboards to our space given the content we’re trying to deliver. I also partnered with a design colleague to create these 3D renderings of how the concepts might come to life. We’ve delivered these initial plans to our construction consultants, Workshop, and will execute on these plans later next spring.

Sign Up & Promotion Experience
I partnered with our revenue marketing team to plan the ticketing experience. Attendees will be offered a variety of discounts. We’ll leverage our social account to announce the conference. Prospects and current contacted through an event-specific email flow.

Next Steps
We made a lot of our interactive space design decisions prior to the pandemic. We’ll be working with Workshop to make sure that attendees experience the content in a safe and comfortable way. We’re also rethinking our approach to food, swag, and attendee interactions given the current constraints.

Now that we’ve mapped how we’re occupying the space, we need focus on the experience inside of each space. Here are a few examples of experiences we’re continuing to think through:

1. What is the arrival/departure experience? Who will greet attendees? What will the lobby sound like? What will attendees receive upon arrival?

2. We want the attendees to explore the Justworks product in a hands-off way via the exhibit we’re creating. How can we prepare the sales team to interact with attendees in a way that supports this vision?

3. How might we highlight current Justworks customers or businesses throughout the experience?

4. How can attendees easily amplify their experience on social?

5. How can we share event content with attendees after the conference?