Case Study: How Diversified Transformed Conference Management with Sessionboard

Impact at a glance...

• 150% Increase in Time Savings: From two days to a full week saved per event.
• 100% Increase in Speaker Portal Usefulness: Doubling the effectiveness of speaker communication.
• 71% Improvement in Process Efficiency: Streamlining workflows for smoother operations.
• 100% Positive Onboarding Experience: Seamless implementation and support.
• 13 Events Successfully Completed: Proving the system's effectiveness at scale.

The Challenge

Managing large-scale conferences is a herculean task. With hundreds of speakers, sessions, and assets to coordinate, event organizers often find themselves drowning in manual processes. Diversified, a leading global event organizer, faced these challenges head-on and found a solution in Sessionboard.

Diversified, known for its extensive portfolio of industry-leading events, struggled with a fragmented speaker management process. The call for papers was manual, evaluations were time-consuming, and collecting speaker assets was a logistical nightmare. Communication was often delayed, and website updates were slow. The use of Smartsheet for pre-planning, while useful, added an extra step in the workflow. This led to inefficiencies, increased stress, and a less-than-ideal speaker experience.

The Solution: Streamlining with Sessionboard

By implementing Sessionboard, Diversified streamlined their entire speaker management process. The platform centralized the call for papers, evaluations, and asset collection. Automated reminders ensured timely submissions, and real-time website updates kept attendees informed. The intuitive speaker portal improved communication and provided a seamless experience. The evaluation plans and track chairs allowed for improved evaluation of submissions. The support provided by the Sessionboard team was excellent, and the onboarding process was very smooth.

Key features that made a significant difference included:

• Centralized Call for Papers: Simplifying the submission process for potential speakers.
• Automated Reminders: Ensuring timely asset submissions and reducing follow-up tasks.
• Real-Time Website Updates: Keeping attendees informed with the latest speaker and session information.
• Intuitive Speaker Portal: Providing a seamless and organized experience for speakers.
• Evaluation Plans and Track Chairs: improving the review of submissions.

"Our event teams consistently report that speakers are extremely happy to have a one-stop, intuitive portal to manage their tasks and materials. A game changer for being able to use our time to focus on strategy rather than chasing down assets."

Quantifiable Results: A Transformation

The results were remarkable. Diversified saw a 150% increase in time savings from July 2024 to January 2025, with time saved jumping from two days to a full week. The usefulness of the speaker portal and web integration doubled, and process improvement increased by 71%. All users reported a positive onboarding experience. 13 events have gone through the full cycle, proving the system's effectiveness. The improvement from 2024 to 2025 was very noticeable.

Customized Support Through Implementation

Sessionboard's responsive support team worked closely with Diversified to implement new solutions such as custom fields to meet the unique needs of Diversified's event portfolio, as well as individual training sessions to help the team effectively adopt Sessionboard.

Key takeaways from this successful implementation include:

• Increased Efficiency: Sessionboard significantly reduced manual work and saved valuable time.
• Improved Speaker Experience: The intuitive portal and streamlined communication enhanced speaker satisfaction.
• Streamlined Workflows: Centralizing key processes simplified conference management.
• Enhanced Communication: Automated reminders and real-time updates kept everyone informed.

"The adoption of Sessionboard has been transformational for all of our event teams. From the immediate realization and continuing gains in time savings to the elimination of multiple systems to collect content and manage communications, Sessionboard has modernized how we manage and scale across all events."

Ready to Transform Your Conference Management?

If you're looking to streamline your conference management process and achieve similar results, learn more about Sessionboard here to discover how our platform can revolutionize your events.

About Diversified

Diversified is a global B2B events and media company that strengthens business communities by fostering a space, in person and online, for professionals and businesses to connect and grow. The company serves as a trusted partner across several industries including active lifestyle, business management, clean energy, commercial marine, healthcare, seafood, technology and more. Established in 1949 and headquartered in Portland, Maine, the global company has divisions and offices around the world in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom. Diversified is a third-generation, family-owned business. For more information, visit: www.divcom.com.

About Sessionboard

‍‍Sessionboard is a next generation speaker and content management platform. Our platform helps streamline the call for papers, abstract evaluation, agenda management and speaker onboarding process for events. The result is 100's if not 1000's of hours of time savings for their event teams and an incredible experience for their speakers.

And with our Speaker CRM, you can activate your speaker network—not just manage it. Build a centralized, searchable database of SMEs and thought leaders to quickly find the right voices and 11X your event marketing ROI across conferences, webinars, podcasts, and more.