While helping prepare some of the presentations, I learned how our project teams have kept their fingers on the pulse of this community of customers throughout this disruptive year.

As with so many other things, project go-lives also had to go ahead completely virtually. Not easy, but the most important lesson learned is that a project will always be successful if we help each other overcome hurdles. Aside from attentive follow-up, careful documentation, and many virtual meetings, the good team spirit between the OMP project teams and customers is built on the core values of mutual respect and trust.

I remember, for example, that when Jan was sharing OMP’s plans for the next-generation user experience and how the cognitive reasoning models behind it would work, he started talking about the pink elephant experiment. “It’s simple, I invite you to not think about a pink elephant for at least 30 seconds,” he said. Maya and I looked over at each other and smiled because, of course, we were both thinking about this large pink animal. And although everyone following the presentation in their home offices probably had the same reaction, it still felt a bit strange we couldn’t exchange a knowing glance with the rest of the audience.

During their presentation, Philip and Jan invited the audience at home to interact live, responding to questions and giving their opinions. Seeing so many people participate, following their answers appearing on the screen, and witnessing Philip and Jan’s reaction to it all was engaging. At the end of their presentation, Philip launched the final poll asking participants to say in one word what the conference theme of United in Unison meant to them. As the word cloud grew, it was so gratifying to see the biggest word to emerge, and therefore the popular choice, was “collaboration”.

Although that is still to come for me, I still felt proud to be part of the core organizing team as we worked together from the ‘control room’ at the head office. Of course, there were some technical issues as in every other online meeting or event. Don’t tell me you never had to tell anyone to un-mute, but with more than 700 registrants, the event definitely exceeded our expectations.

Witnessing these presentations, testimonials, product demos, and councils from a front-row seat in my first months at the company was an enriching experience. One that confirmed that although I started working for a tech company, the heart of OMP is the passionate people and real, honest partnerships with customers. What will our next conference look like? Who knows? Whatever the format — in-person, virtual or hybrid — I look forward to fully experiencing the interaction and sense of collaboration that come with it.