The last two installments of INBOUND were 100% digital due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This year was a relief for those who desperately wanted to attend the in-person event. HubSpot kept INBOUND22 digital as well as in-person. As every year, Computan did sponsor this year’s INBOUND, along with Google, LinkedIn, and Amazon, among other sponsors.
Computan divided the team into two parts, one for the in-person and the second for the digital version of the event.
In-person Team Members: Sajeel Qureshi, Aleksandar Mitic, Francisco Orue, Nicolas, Joacim Nicolaysen, and Gill Bates.
Sajeel Qureshi missed being in an in-person event last year and the year before. But, this time, he was excited to attend it in person. “Nice to reconnect in person and see the event at pretty close to its full potential. Said Qureshi. INBOUND feels like an annual tradition to Sajeel because Computan has been doing it for quite a while now, and it is always nice for him to meet his teammates in person. “It was a hugely rewarding experience to see Nic, Franc, Alex, and Joacim in person.
Digital Team: Bratislav Brankovic, Lisa Johnson, Syed Asadullah, Haseeb, and Simranjeet Singh
The ground was set, and everyone was briefed for the big three days, so both teams knew what to do. We were looking forward to agendas and meetups to network with people, get to know their work, and tell them about ours. The idea was to have solid, meaningful conversations with the booth visitors or anyone we meet at the event.
We were also looking forward to attending the sessions by…
- TJ Adeshola, Head of Global Content Partnerships, Twitter
- Ethan Brooks, Senior Marketing Manager, HubSpot
- Felipe Ortolano, Strategic Marketing Manager, LinkedIn
- Dharmesh Shah, CTO, and Co-Founder, HubSpot
- Mandy Bowman, CEO, and Founder, Official Black Wall Street
I guess everyone was looking forward to the Barack Obama session at the end of the third day. That’s one of the highlights of the event.
The sessions across the tabs, attendees, and meetups were lesser than the previous year, but the quality of the sessions was not compromised at all. There was a lot to learn this year as well. Bratislav Brankovic, HubSpot Project Manager at Computan feels the same, "This year, Inbound was amazing. They had good sessions and great guests."
There were also more first-timers. I assume there's one reason for this. The teams were divided for the in-person event and digital event. The experienced team members, or those who could easily get the visa on time, went to the in-person event, and that's why half of the team members and most of the first-timers were at digital booths.
The sessions were divided into seven categories so the attendees could find their favorite session relevant to their interests. The sessions were on Spotlight, Build Your Business, Build Your CRM, Build Your Purpose, Build Your Curiosity, Build Your Workplace, and Community. The community tab holds up the meetups where all attendees interact with each other in a metaverse-based meeting hall.
This year, the inbound was focused on community building, professional relationships, and business strategies for startups. The sessions were excellent. Since the timings of the sessions did not clash, I could attend more sessions. My favorite was "How to Spot Business Trends (That Matter) by Ethan Brooks, Senior Marketing Manager, HubSpot." Bratislav Brankovic brushed up on the marketing skills that later helped him get more emails for Computan's latest product in the vault - Braython. "I connected with people on LinkedIn and learned more about selling from them. Haseeb and I created between 200-300 Braython reports."
Braython is a platform designed and developed by Computan engineers to test website speed. Braython generates reports from three renowned tools and delivers them to your email address within minutes.
Back to Inbound22. We all wanted the online sessions to be a bit longer and more detailed, and at the in-person event, Sajeel Qureshi felt an opening session was missing, 'they didn’t have the 'Club INBOUND Opening Happy Hour' this year, and it felt like something was missing.” The Club Inbound Opening Happy Hour happens a night before the first day and breakout sessions.
As I said earlier, there were many first-timers this year at the digital Booth; this was Haseeb's first Inbound as well. Haseeb is a Project Manager at Computan. “It sounded like a game type of experience and looked amazing where we can interact with people," I remember my first Inbound three years back; I had similar feelings, it was all new for me, and I spent the first few hours just playing around knowing and learning which option does what. Once anyone gets a hold of that platform, they can use the event to its full potential.
Haseeb did the same, he played around for the first few hours, and once he got a complete hold of how all this works, he started creating his topic chats. "I made three chat forums for HubSpot, Braython, and WordPress, and people connected with me within WordPress thread. Way to go, Haseeb, creating a chat forum in your first digital inbound and connecting with people is undoubtedly a good takeaway for day 1.
There were bugs at the digital booth. Some options were working better than others. We weren't bothered about the glitches because no event is perfect. Organizing and managing an event of this scale is no walk in the park. Attendees understood that as well.
To sum up, it was an excellent experience for the first-timers and the seasoned ones. We did for what we joined the event. We connected with some great people, had good conversations, and made the best of our time there.