Here is a quick guide to help you host your own viewing party of Elevate virtual conference celebrating International Women’s Day on March 6th, 2020!

Elevate viewing parties are an excellent opportunity to bring folks together to celebrate women in tech within your organization! Taking the initiative to organize an event to celebrate International Women’s Day is a great way to raise your own visibility and meet more women in your company.

Get started with your Girl Geek X: Elevate “Lift As You Climb” Viewing Party:

1. Get the word out. Tell your friends and co-workers about Elevate conference livestreaming on March 6th. In addition to emailing the colleagues you work with directly, consider creating a calendar invite, posting on Slack and to your internal bulletin boards, ERG groups, Chatter, LinkedIn, etc. We welcome all genders and allies – this event is relevant to everyone! Please help us spread the word about Girl Geek X: Elevate virtual conference on LinkedIn, on Twitter, and on Facebook.
2. Order your Girl Geek X Elevate party swag ASAP because it’ll take a little time to ship to your office! You can pick up a banner and stickers, party plates and party napkins, table confetti and balloons, shirts and bum bags, pint glasses and our favorite mugs and water bottles at the Girl Geek X Zazzle Store!
3. Download the official promo image for use in your posts and emails here.
4. Familiarize yourself with the Zoom webinar attendee guide. You’ll be joining the virtual event as a Zoom webinar attendee, so you can mute/unmute your audio, virtually raise your hand, and send messages to others.
5. Put it on the big screen. Connect your laptop to a projector or HD television. You’ll need a VGA Cable to connect to a projector. Use an HDMI Cable to connect to your HD Television. Crank up the sound. Connect speakers to your computer so your audience can hear the broadcast clearly. You’ll want to test this in advance to be sure everything works as expected.
6. Share the conference link (elevate.girlgeek.io) with those who aren’t able to attend your viewing party IRL can still tune in from their home or office and soak up the learnings!
7. Take notes during the conference. Start a discussion about topics relevant to your team and your company, and make a note of any that aren’t addressed during the webinar. You might decide to host an internal event to dive deeper into those topics at a later date.
8. Have fun and make sure everyone feels welcome.

Tips to make your viewing party an even bigger hit:

• Provide snacks and drinks in a convenient location so people won’t miss any of the content!
• Invite women on your company’s leadership team to kick off the viewing party.
• Host an internal Q&A, roundtable, or lightning tech talk after Elevate ends onscreen.
• Make it fun! Encourage attendees to mingle and discuss the sessions or ask each other questions.
• Have name tags and markers available if you’re hosting an event in a larger organization where attendees may not have interacted previously.
• Play networking bingo to help attendees meet each other! Printable cards are available here. Attendees mark off words/phrases as spoken onscreen. The game will restart with a fresh bingo card every time we get a winner. The first person to tweet a picture of their winning bingo card to @girlgeekx using hashtag #girlgeekx during each round will get a gift bag of Girl Geek X swag!
• Take group pictures and get retweeted! Show us your viewing party so we can share in the excitement! Tweet @girlgeekx using hashtag #girlgeekx and we’ll retweet your team! On Instagram, tag girlgeekx in your photo and we’ll share in our Instagram Stories!

We hope to see you and your team online with us on March 6th!

If your organization is interested in sponsoring the conference, featuring your viewing party’s webcam during the break, and putting your job listings in front of thousands of mid-senior level women in tech, email us at sponsors@girlgeek.io to get involved.

Special THANK YOU to our Elevate Sponsors – they are HIRING!