Like everybody else I’m attending a bunch of virtual events that were originally supposed to be physical conferences. And, like everybody else, I’ve attended a number of really bad virtual events… because the organizers didn’t change the structure of their event to take advantage of what could be done in a virtual event world.

One company that did rebuild their physical event into a successful virtual conference was Pegasystems, a leading customer engagement and process automation platform. Having attended a number of physical PegaWorld events over the years, the changes to “virtualize” the conference were noticeable, and made it feel very much like it was built from the ground up for experiencing the conference differently than if you were sitting in a 10,000 seat auditorium at MGM in Vegas. And it worked.

My CRM Playaz co-host Paul Greenberg and I had a chance to sit down (virtually) with Don Schuerman, Pega’s Chief Technology Officer and Master of Ceremony for PegaWorld, to hear from him how they were able to successfully go from physical to virtual. And also hear how some of the lessons learned from the experience are transferrable into broader digital transformation efforts companies of all sizes are beginning to undertake due to the coronavirus pandemic.