Plumbing Manufacturers International held its first virtual PMI20 Manufacturing Success conference Nov. 10-12. PMI decided to pursue a virtual event for the conference after gathering restrictions postponed its annual Legislative Forum earlier this spring. The digital experience was broken up to a few hours per day over the course of three days.

“Our primary concern was we want to protect our members’ health and safety,” noted Kerry Stackpole, executive director and CEO of PMI. “Many of our member companies were restricting travel at that time, and many of them still are. We did a lot of work to condense the conference. Normally, we host a 24-hour conference, but this year, we hosted a seven-hour version. We had to make some tough choices in terms of who the speakers would be and the timeframe we would have. Our goal was to give our members — knowing they are working from home, with perhaps other responsibilities such as tutoring kids — an educational experience for just a few hours a day while staying on top of their typical work and life responsibilities.”