Cloud Foundry Summit 2014
INTRODUCTION:
Pivotal is a leading provider of application and data infrastructure software, agile development services and data science consulting. Committed to open source and open standards, Pivotal is enabling the creation of modern software applications that leverage big and fast data – on a single, cloud independent platform.
The Cloud Foundry Summit is the premier event for developers and cloud operators using Cloud Foundry – the industry’s leading Open Source Platform-as-a-Service. With community-led case study sessions and a dedicated un-conference to organize attendee-voted session topics, Pivotal designed the event to encourage interaction and discussion. In 2014, the conference (hosted by Pivotal, IBM, VMware and HP) featured dozens of speakers comprised of industry leaders, Cloud Foundry users, and community members.
CHALLENGES AND OBSTACLES:
When Pivotal set out to plan their Summit, they knew they would need a flexible event management platform. Although Pivotal is an industry-leading software developer, they acknowledged that they didn’t have the time or resources to build custom event software. The company had very specific requirements including a custom domain, a customizable event website, schedule building, surveys, and an integrated event registration experience. Until they discovered Attendease, they were unable to find an event management platform to satisfy their requirements.
THE SOLUTION
Pivotal identified Attendease as the only event management software capable of fitting the specific requirements for their conference. Chloe Jackson, a Web Producer at Pivotal, explains, “We researched a number of different solutions, but no one was able to offer the features we needed. Attendease was the only solution that fit our needs. We wanted a custom domain,” she continues, “and we wanted the look and feel to match the main site, so the user experience would be as seamless as possible.”
Pivotal’s own web team customized the default Attendease event management theme, using a combination of CSS and Javascript, in order to pixel-perfectly match their event’s look and feel. We asked Chloe if her company was able to achieve a desirable level of customization. “Yes. Most users don’t even realize they’re on a different site.” She outlines key benefits of using Attendease:
- Better experience for conference attendees. “We love being able to say ‘Yes, no problem’, instead of ‘Sorry, our platform doesn’t support that’. There are so many little features that we wouldn’t have thought to put in the requirements, but ultimately helped make our customers happy.”
- Better experience for event management staff. “Being able to give other teams direct access or to respond to internal requests almost instantly means we’re able to spend more time with customers and less time being the bottleneck.”
- Software Support. “Attendease support is amazing. The team is friendly, eager to help and quick to respond. I wish every company had a support team like this. It’s really next-level. I also love their lightweight, available-everywhere support interface – it’s brilliant.”
- Constant event platform improvement. “Attendease is an ever-evolving, constantly-improving product. Almost every time I log in, I notice changes – everything from features to performance.”
- Stability. “This is not a flashy point, but it’s arguably the most important one: our Attendease sites have never gone down.”
ACHIEVING SUCCESS:
Close to 1000 conference attendees successfully registered for the Cloud Foundry Summit, almost doubling attendance from the previous year. The event’s success is evidence of the proliferation of Cloud Foundry as the industry’s standard for open source PaaS. When planning the high profile event, Chloe Jackson found that Attendease allowed her team to effectively manage the customer experience. “Some of the most well-known companies in the world come to our events. It’s important for us to present them with a clean, professional, reliable experience.” Pivotal also used Attendease’s event management software for their recent SpringOne2GX 2014 conference.
“Choosing Attendease significantly reduced the time and cost that would have been required to achieve our goals. Starting from scratch just didn’t make sense. We also appreciate their SaaS model, which ensures that we benefit from improvements as soon as they are ready – without having to think about it.”
- Chloe Jackson Web Producer, Pivotal