We’re thrilled that some of the amazing women and allies who’ve registered for Girl Geek X: Elevate 2019 are organizing their own unofficial viewing parties! How exciting! In fact, they’ve even inspired us to put together this quick guide to help you host your own viewing party.
As the FREE virtual conference falls on International Women’s Day (that’s March 8, 2019!), it’s an excellent opportunity to bring folks together to celebrate women in tech within your organization!
Hosting a viewing party is fun, easy, and rewarding! (And taking the initiative to organize a relevant event to celebrate International Women’s Day is a great way to raise your own visibility and meet more women within your company.)
Here are some steps you can take to get started:
- Register for your virtual conference pass for Girl Geek X: Elevate 2019 – it’s FREE!
- Get the word out. Tell your friends and co-workers about the event. 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!
- Download the official promo image for use in your posts and emails here.
- Familiarize yourself with the Zoom webinar attendee guide. (You’ll be joining the virtual event as a webinar attendee.)
- 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.
- Share the conference link (elevate.girlgeek.io) so those who aren’t able to attend your viewing party IRL can still tune in from their home or office & soak up the learnings!
- 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.
- 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 during the Elevate Lunch Break, following closing statements, or before the event kicks off.
- Make it fun! Encourage attendees to mingle and discuss the sessions or ask each other questions.
- Have name tags available if you’re hosting an event in a larger org where attendees may not have interacted previously.
- Play some Girl Geek X bingo to help attendees meet each other! Printable cards are available here. (Attendees mark off words/phrases as they’re spoken by Elevate hosts & speakers. The game will restart with a fresh card every time we get a winner, and the first person to tweet their winning BINGO card to @girlgeekx using hashtag #GGXElevate during each round will get a gift bag full of sweet Girl Geek X swag!)
- Take group pictures & get retweeted! Show us your viewing party so we can share in the excitement! Tweet @girlgeekx using hashtag #GGXElevate and we’ll retweet your team!
We hope to see you & your team online with us on March 8th!
PS. 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.
