SmartLab Brings The Curiosity Forum to Life

Insights
August 31, 2023

On June 20th, 2023, Smartlab proudly powered the first-ever edition of The Curiosity Forum. This event, hosted by Paul Ashcroft, Simon Brown, and Garrick Jones (authors of The Curious Advantage), brought together world-leading experts in a celebration of curiosity and the profound impact it has on how we work, live, and navigate the digital moment we're currently in.

The forum was hosted within the immersive SmartLab 360 environment and was designed to engage participants before, during, and after the event. Here's a breakdown of how SmartLab brought this exceptional experience to fruition.

Pre-Event

In preparation for The Curiosity Forum, we prepared SmartLab 360 to welcome and engage participants in anticipation of the live event on June 20. This included—

Speaker bios

Detailed speaker biographies allowed attendees to familiarize themselves with the expert panelists.

Speaker bios

Discussion boards

SmartLab created a community by providing a space and prompts for participant discussions prior to the forum.

Onboarding and notifications

Participants were manually onboarded onto the SmartLab platform ahead of the event and given system nudges and notifications alerted them to new features, resources, and updates in the lead up to the forum.

Interactive Q&A

Participants were encouraged to submit questions to panelists ahead of the event.

Resource library, virtual bookstore, and knowledge sharing

Those looking to explore curiosity and the themes of the forum were able to access a curated library of resources including books by the panelists, videos, articles, and essays. Participants were invited to add their own resources and findings—collaborative knowledge-sharing promoted interactivity and community ahead of the event.

Virtual bookstore

During the event

SmartLab 360 hosted participants from around the world to watch the forum and interact with panelists.

Immersive environment

SmartLab 360 immersed participants in the world of the forum with a fully branded environment that captured the look and feel of event.

SmartLab 360 immersive environment

Live event stream

The embedded live event stream dissolved geographical barriers, allowing attendees from around the world to listen to live panels and interact with the panelists.

Introducing the panelists
Firestarter 1 - Shaping Our Collective Futures

Firestarter 2 - Thriving in Uncertain Times
Firestarter 3 - State of the Art

Live scribing

The integration of live visual scribing during the event provided a visual aid, enhancing engagement and understanding. The images created provided powerful takeaways after the event—perfect for social media, mailers, and historical documentation.

Visual scribing by Ludic Creatives

Interactive activities

SmartLab's suite of collaboration and decision-making apps allowed participants to interact with panelists. This Interactive element included live polling, mind-mapping, discussion boards and Q&A sessions.

Post-event

SmartLab kept attendees engaged and coming back for more long after The Curiosity Forum was over.

Post-event resources, videos and documentation

Scribed images and videos of individual firestarter panels were made available to participants via SmartLab and shared to a wider audience across social media. In the spirit of curiosity, we used AI language models to transcribe the panels and generate written documentation and AI image generation to capture the themes and spirit of the panels. Participants were notified via SmartLab when these resources were made available and directed to the SmartLab platform to access them.

AI-generated capture of a firestarter panel courtesy of Midjourney

Discussion boards

The discussion boards remained active after the event was over, maintaining an energized and engaged community.

Notifications and prompts

All post-event resources were communicated via notifications and prompts to participants via email. These notifications also included information about forthcoming event updates, ensuring continuous engagement with all participants.

SmartLab was proud to host inaugural edition of The Curiosity Forum and looks forward to continuing our relationship as a trusted partner to The Curious Advantage when we host the second edition of The Curiosity Forum in November 2023. To register your interest in attending, visit The Curious Advantage.

SmartLab was designed with virtual and hybrid events in mind. Whether you're hosting a meeting for 10 people, a conference for 10,000 people, or a series of workshops, discover how SmartLab can bring your event experience to life. Explore our event solutions or request a demo.