Quickly Building a Virtual Solution

As logistical plans for the 14th annual CNAS National Security Conference became more complex with the COVID-19 pandemic, we worked with stakeholders to research options that would make a virtual event possible. We weighed our findings against factors like user experience, scalability, and perhaps most importantly: what was possible within the timeframe. 

To complement flexibility with speedy, pre-built functionality, the team chose to embed third-party services like Maestro for streaming and Salesforce’s fonteva for registration, and embedding where appropriate into the WordPress CMS.

Given the conference had always been held in-person, the brand identity was one that was largely rooted in print design. The classic yet modern look was one that was powerful and clean; it provided a solid foundation for our team to quickly extend the identity online, while also making design considerations for the overarching CNAS brand given our prior experience working with their team.  

Creating a site in such a tight timeline wasn’t possible without close collaboration — early and often — with our client partners. Leveraging Slack, Teamwork, and old-fashioned face to face communication (via video calls) helped us shorten the feedback loop and move quickly to launch in advance of the conference.