Impartner PXCC
Partner Experience Conference Center
2020 · CTO · shipped
A branded 3D conference centre for Impartner's partner community, launched in December 2020 when the pandemic had cancelled in-person events.
Technologies: JavaScript, Three.js, HTML5, WebSockets
Related expertise: Real-time 3D on the web, Multi-user & real-time systems
Overview
Impartner makes Partner Relationship Management software, used by companies like Adobe, SAP and Zendesk to manage the partners that sell for them. Those relationships were built at live events, and in 2020 the pandemic had moved them to video calls. Impartner's CMO put the problem this way: what they were missing was "who you sit next to in a presentation, who you see in a hallway, who you meet in a cocktail party."
We built the Partner Experience Conference Center on Hyperspace: a 3D venue in Impartner's branding, with auditoriums, meeting rooms, breakout rooms and lounges. It ran in the browser on any device, with nothing to install.
Features
- Audio zones. Two people could meet in a hallway, step into a zone and talk privately, then switch to video or share a screen without leaving it.
- Avatars with gestures. Attendees customised their avatar and could shake hands, high-five, hug and dance.
- AI chatbot hosts that greeted attendees and showed them where to go and how to use the venue.
- A 3D photo booth. LinkedIn and Twitter filled up with attendees' avatar photos during the event.
Impact
The first event was an invitation-only summit on 17 December 2020, "Universe Proof Your Channel", with two Forrester analysts as speakers. Jay McBain said he would rather do more than half of his future travel as an avatar, and called it "radically different than anything I've seen this year". Maria Chien described it as "you're here, you're in the moment, you're authentic."
Impartner wasn't sure at first whether it would be a one-off. After the summit they kept the venue for 2021 and opened it up, so their clients could host their own partner meetings in it.
My involvement
- Architected and built the platform the venue runs on.
- For this event, made sure the platform kept its performance and took in every participant.