How the BAT Graduate Academy increased its productivity and fun thanks to technology

Khai Smith, BAT’s Learning & Development Manager says they wanted “a way for grads to have all the information they needed in one place, to be able to communicate with one another and something that would help make the process of running the programme more straightforward for us”. They also wanted attendees “to have everything they needed in one place so that they could focus on learning”. They used PowerVote’s events app to provide them with their personalised schedule, a venue map and room locations, session documents and surveys for feedback on the sessions.

55 people attended, and all 55 used the app, with a total of 107.899 page views. 175 photos were uploaded, providing a great gallery of the event as experienced by the attendees.

Besides information about the event, gamification was used: attendees summed points by uploading photos, answering polls, sending messages or taking notes during the sessions.

The most visited section of the app was ‘my schedule’, which reflects the usefulness of the app for the attendees-students. 46 hours were spent valuing sessions and providing a useful feedback.

Finally, the app is still useful post-event: it is still online and users still use it to see content… and sum more points!

How to stimulate usage? Technology doesn’t get used just because you provide it, you need coaching. According to Powervote representatives, they ensured a simple user guide and they trained the clients who added content on the app every hour for 2 weeks (including a daily newspaper and new feedback form). They were also mentioning orally about the game and offered vaping devices at the end.

Khai sees the value of the solution, which became “the hub around which the entire event revolved. The solution succeeded in providing information and interaction for both the user and organiser, adding to the entire experience.”