SMU Steel Summit Platform Opens Wednesday, Aug. 19

Why are we opening the platform on Wednesday, three full days prior to the conference beginning?

The answer is those attendees who are most prepared will get the most out of this conference. To explain – the first thing you will need to do once you enter the lobby is to edit your profile. Why do I need to edit my profile?

Your profile will include your name, company name and your title. That will be populated by SMU prior to Wednesday. You will then have the ability to pull your photo and description from your LinkedIn or Facebook accounts. You can also load your photo from one saved on your computer. You will want to include your interests and a biography. These include keywords which can then be searched by the other attendees. For example: If you sell hot rolled steel and processing, you will want to include those in your interests and in your biography. If someone searches hot rolled or processing, your contact will include those keywords and will be included on the list being searched by another attendee.

As an attendee you will have access to the complete list of registered executives who will be attending this year’s conference. You will be able to search by name, company, title as well as keywords you select (such as hot rolled and processing suggested in the paragraph above).

Once you find a registered attendee you would like to meet, beginning on Wednesday the 19th you can send them an invitation to schedule a meeting within the conference platform. Initially this will be done via email.

What other options you have will vary depending on whether the other person is in the platform the same time as you. You will know if they are online and in the platform as there will be a green dot next to their photo. If they are not online, there will be a gray dot.

If they are online, you can invite them to chat (instant message), you can email them, you can request a meeting and you can request a live video chat, all within the platform. You can also make requests for multiple people to chat at the same time. For example: If you have a customer that you would like to have a meeting with and you would like to include a steel mill, processing house, your boss along with the customer, this can be done via the video chat on the platform. You can invite up to 24 people (25 including yourself) to meet at one time.

These meetings can be scheduled beginning on Wednesday the 19th and throughout the event.

All of the meetings you schedule can be saved directly from the platform to your business calendar at home or on your office computer.

Next, you are going to want to examine the agenda as the timing will change slightly from what we have posted right now. You will want to know when each program begins, and you can then save those that are most important to you to your office calendar, just like scheduled appointments. This way you will not miss those segments you want to view live (as you may wish to participate in live Q&A).

If you do miss a program, you will be able to view it “on-demand” shortly after it has been conducted live. We will keep the platform open for a week or two after the event so you can view all of the programs.

During the event, we will have open discussion forums. Many of the speakers will participate in the discussion forums after they have spoken should there not have been enough time to get to all the questions asked during Q&A.

We have a large group of sponsors and exhibitors this year. I believe there are more than 30 booths that you will want to visit. You can begin visiting the booths on Wednesday, Aug. 19, and can continue to visit them until the platform is closed a week or two after the live event.

Many of the booths are using the gamification software included on our platform as they look to provide gifts to those who visit their booths and interact with their staff.

We will go over how to effectively work within the platform on Wednesday, Aug. 19, at 11 a.m. ET. If you are registered, or thinking of registering, or just curious as to what you are going to miss, you will want to participate in this week’s SMU Community Chat. You can register by clicking here.

You can learn more about the 2020 SMU Steel Summit Conference by clicking here or going to www.smusteelsummit.com.

We have more than 700 executives in manufacturing, steel distribution, steel mills, toll processing, transportation, analysts, banks and others associated with the industry already registered. If you would like to join them, you can register by clicking there.