The added value of visual harvesting at medical congresses: How to use live illustration to deliver outstanding events for the scientific community
Even though visual harvesting is becoming more and more popular at in-person and online events, medical congresses haven’t been too quick to adapt this tool to offer visual summaries of the key messages of talks and panel debates. But just as science communication is becoming more and more important, the medical field seems to become more open to sharing research findings in innovative and unexpected ways. One such way is to offer visual harvesting at events.
What are the benefits of visual harvesting at conferences and events in general?
No matter the subject of your event, visual harvesting offers a couple of excellent benefits, such as:
Your event will be different from other events and more memorable
You will have visual summaries instantly available after each session, ready to be shared digitally and online for social media buzz
It’s easier to remember complex content with the help of visual aids
Visual harvesting for medical congresses: How does it contribute to a better conference experience for your attendees?
Adding to the list above, there are a couple of benefits that are specific to medical events. From the perspective of your attendees, this is what it looks like:
You will have visual materials that you will be able to reuse as part of your science communication strategy
Science communication is becoming increasingly important for researchers and academics. These days, it may not be enough to produce excellent research and exciting findings. In order for that research to have maximum impact, you need to be able to share it with a wide audience, many of whom are non-researchers. For this reason, if you have visuals of a talk you have given or a panel debate you have participated in, you will have an important asset for your #scicomm strategy. This visual can be used in a lot of different ways:
to spread the word about your research on social media
to reach out to publications to write articles about your research
to develop further visual content based on your research (infographics, videos, comics, etc.)
to reach out to potential research partners and create interest with the visuals…
You will have a visual reminder of interesting and relevant research findings
At medical congresses, a lot of the talks are about new research findings and exciting scientific experiments. Even if a conference offers video recording afterwards, it might be a challenge to look through a 60 minute talk and find that one piece of information that could be super beneficial for your own research. But with the help of the visual notes, you will have a quick visual reminder at hand event months later, just when you need it.
Easier to refer back to colleagues on what you heard
Not all of your colleagues will have the possibility to attend a specific medical congress, but by being there and obtaining the visual harvesting in digital format, you will be able to give them a more accurate recap of the key findings.
Here is what the organiser of a medical congress has told me a few days after the event where I created visual harvesting:
“I saw that a colleague was printing out the visual harvesting of a recent conference. I asked her, were you there? — No, I just really like this graphic and wanted to use it as a reminder.”
If you are organising a medical event and would like to offer analog or digital visual harvesting or graphic recording, feel free to reach out, I’d love to hear from you.