Last week saw Administrate host our third annual conference, LITE 2017, to an audience of awesome Administrate customers and professionals from within the learning and training industry!
This year we decided to host LITE in CodeBase, the tech incubator where Administrate’s Edinburgh offices are located! We felt it would create a more intimate environment for our conference, as well as giving attendees a chance to see the Administrate team in their natural habitat.
Let’s take a look back at the jam-packed schedule from Day 1 at LITE 2017!
Let’s Get Started!
If you’ve been to LITE before, you may have noticed we have a thing for extravagant welcome videos, and 2017 was no different. What better way to wake up a room full of learning professionals blasting Disturbed over the sound system? Heavy metal was the soundtrack while our welcome video showed just how far we’ve come in the last year, with our team and customer base growing significantly.
LITE 2017 has kicked off in our usual rock and roll style #guitarsolo pic.twitter.com/glSEyxm4lN
— LITE Conference (@LITEConf) September 21, 2017
Day 1 Schedule
This year we ran two tracks, which were jam-packed on both days with a mixture of guest speakers and workshops. Topics ranged from Administrate specific sessions, to more broad subjects which covered the whole training and learning industry.
We also ran customer one-to-one sessions all day to give customers a chance to address their problems and questions directly with members of the Account Management and Product team!
There was loads going on, so let’s look at a rundown of everything from day 1!
Mike McGrail (Velocity Digital) – Busting Modern Marketing Myths
Our opening speaker for LITE 2017 was digital marketing expert and Administrate alumni Mike McGrail from Velocity Digital.
Mike has the high honour of having spoken at LITE every year since we started, and this year’s talk on Busting Modern Marketing Myths was another stellar performance!
En route to #lite2017, to deliver more GIF-riddled marketing myth busting to a crowd from the training industry.
— Mike McGrail (@mike_mcgrail) September 21, 2017
Sam Gray (Administrate) + Tim Lavoie (Administrate) – The Student Portal and How to Use It
In our Innovation Room our first Administrate focussed session was all about the Administrate student portal and how to use it. The student portal allows your students to access all the information relating to the events they are registered for, as well as allowing them to view their progress through any learning track they are assigned to.
Rico Page (Administrate) + Patrick Haddad (Administrate) – How to Design Course Evaluations That Will Improve Your Business
Relevant to any training providers, Administrate team members Rico and Patrick discussed How to Design Course Evaluations That Will Improve Your Business. We’ve talked about this in the past on our blog, but it’s vital that you evaluate your training offering in a helpful way to make sure you are providing the best training possible to your customers.
Great actionable content on how to manage and evaluate instructors by Rico and Patrick Haddad at #lite2017!
— John J Peebles (@johnjpeebles) September 21, 2017
Petra Hajal (Administrate) + Layal Alawar (Administrate) – Marketing Fundamentals for Training Companies
All the way from our Administrate office in Beirut, Petra and Layal from our Marketing team discussed Marketing Fundamentals for Training Companies! Marketing is not a one-size-fits-all activity, so it’s really important to make sure you are investing your time and energy in the things that will work specifically for your business, within your industry.
Simon Greany (Elucidat) – Big Learning: 4 Strategies to Help you Unlock new Revenue Streams with Digital Learning
Our second guest speaker was Simon Greany from Elucidat, one of Administrate’s partners and one of the sponsors of LITE 2017. Elucidat gives users the ability to create their own high quality eLearning content, which they can then upload into their own LMS.
Simon Greany delivers how to improve digital learning #lite2017 @GTA_Guernsey @GetAdministrate conference
— Adam Martel (@adammm1980_adam) September 21, 2017
Rico Page (Administrate) + Vanessa Zoghbi (Administrate) – An Intro to Our Reporting System
One of Administrate’s most popular features is our reporting system, which allows you to create completely customisable reports in just a few clicks! Rico and Vanessa from our Beirut office gave attendees a glimpse of what the system could do and how it could help improve their training business.
Siobhain Murdoch (Administrate) + Natasha Serafimovska (Administrate) – Common Course Pricing Strategies for Training Companies
Siobhain and Natasha, two members of our Account Management team, were in the Evolution Room talking about Common Course Pricing Strategies for Training Companies. The Account Management team spend a great deal of their time talking with our customers, and helping them get the most from Administrate, so it was a great chance for them to share some exclusive insight that everyone in the audience would be able to use!
Gilles Bell (Administrate) + Tucker Johnson (Administrate) – Networking – A Chance to Meet Peers in the Training Industry and Share Common Goals and Experiences
Learning is one part of attending conferences, but another huge part is networking with fellow attendees that you might not otherwise get the chance to meet! We decided to hold a networking workshop to give people a little chance to do just that, and get some tips from Gilles and Tucker at the same time.
Patrick Flanagan (Administrate) – Managing a Sales Operation
Patrick is Administrate’s Chief Commercial Officer, and looks after our Sales team in the Edinburgh office, so he was the obvious choice to lead our Managing a Sales Operation workshop. Not just specific to training companies, but anyone with a Sales team within their business, we hope this session was useful to everyone who attended!
Siobhain Murdoch (Administrate) + Loki Lau (Administrate) – A Deep Dive into Course Templates
Course templates are an amazing feature of Administrate which allows you to create your courses in just a few clicks, and cuts down on as much duplicate data entry as possible! Siobhain and Loki gave us an in-depth explanation of what course templates are and how you can use them in your business to make your course scheduling as efficient as possible.
Petra Hajal (Administrate) + Bob Sabra (Administrate) – How Technology Is Revolutionising Education: Big Data, AI and More
Petra and Bob gave us a look at all the different types of technology you cold use to revolutionise your training offering, from the quite traditional to the more out-there like VR!
Josh Amidon (Administrate) – Defining, Mining, and Maintaining Your Data
Administrate is all about keeping all your important business data in one place, but once it’s all loaded in, how are you going to use it in the most useful way? Josh, our Implementation Manager, was ready to show you exactly how to do just that!
Gilles Bell (Administrate) – How to Communicate More Effectively With Students And Customers
Our Account Management team do a lot of communicating with our customers, and they also help our customers communicate more effectively with their students. Gilles, one of our Account Managers, showed our attendees what were the best approaches to communicating with your different audiences.
Sebastian Meller (Administrate) + Todd Primrose (Administrate) – Project Management Fundamentals
Making sure you have good project management in place is key to making sure everything goes smoothly. Sebastian and Todd took us through Project Management Fundamentals including what you need to do to prepare, how your teams should be structured, and how you can judge if your project was a success or not.
Lee Berkman (CloudShare) – How to Boost Business with Virtual Training Labs
Administrate have just launched a new integration with CloudShare, as well as them being a sponsor of LITE 2017, so we were pretty excited to have Lee Berkman along to speak for us. Lee showed us how training companies can boost their business with the use of virtual training labs like CloudShare’s.
Lee from @CloudShare, telling us all about virtual training labs! @GetAdministrate @LITEConf #LITE2017 pic.twitter.com/rJYntqdXHI
— Ryan Cochrane (@RyanCochrane92) September 21, 2017
Heather Bayfield (Administrate) + Troy Michels (Administrate) – Integrating Xero and Administrate
Administrate have been working hard recently to make sure that our integration with Xero accounting software offers our customers the perfect solution to handle all their financial data! Heather and Troy from our Product team gave a detailed workshop on how to integrate Xero with Administrate, and then use it to its full potential.
Patrick Flanagan (Administrate) + Bob Sabra (Administrate) – Building a Sales Workflow that Scales
In another sales focussed workshop, Patrick was back with Bob to explain how to build a sales workflow that scales. They covered how to map out your current sales workflow, so you can see which bits are working and which aren't, and how you can use Administrate to build a scalable workflow that will work for your whole business.
Todd Primrose (Administrate) – Professional Services
Todd gave an amazing workshop about our new Professional Services offering, which includes implementation, system integration, custom development, and content creation! Check out our website to see our new Professional Services page and get all the details.
Todd talking us through @GetAdministrate's new Pro Services! @LITEConf #LITE2017 pic.twitter.com/IdGiGSVAko
— Ryan Cochrane (@RyanCochrane92) September 21, 2017
Edinburgh Pub Tour
In usual Administrate fashion, we finished the first day of LITE 2017 with a pub tour around some of Edinburgh's most amazing pub. We started in the historic Grassmarket, which is just down the road from our offices, and then headed off to explore the rest of the city!
Everyone's buzzing & and day 1 has flown by #lite2017 thanks to @GetAdministrate for another great start to this 2 day event. pic.twitter.com/YeriDFmUl4
— Adam Martel (@adammm1980_adam) September 21, 2017
Stay Tuned for Day 2!
Come back tomorrow for our recap of day 2!
