The Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO) Årskonferansen 2022 main event went LIVE this Thursday (May 12th), and the myOnvent platform had the honour to host the online side of this exciting and important hybrid event. NHO’s annual event will bring together some of Norway’s biggest political, economic, and social players to discuss this year’s theme, “A New Tomorrow”. 

NHO: One of Norway’s largest institutions

But before becoming official partners with myOnvent to host their annual conference, NHO started as a pilot event tester of our platform, exploring our features and functionalities and evaluating the potential to cooperate on larger projects and initiatives. NHO went from “let’s see how this could work” to making myOnvent an integral and crucial part of their annual conference. This article looks back at the journey of our transformative collaboration, from the very start to upcoming developments for our partnership. But before we start the journey, let’s first introduce NHO and its mission as an organization. 

NHO is the largest organization for recruiters and the most prominent business lobby in Norway. The organization’s present membership of over 22,000 enterprises comprises groups from small family-owned businesses to large multinational corporations that act on a global scale. NHO is the country’s topmost industry voice, with its indispensable role as an essential and beneficial player in Norwegian society through its specialized knowledge and large corporate network. 

Testing out the online & hybrid event format

Since 2002, NHO has worked with a number of sister organizations in Africa and Asia, and through these collaborations has formed a broad contact network with the local businesses and communities. In Vietnam, for example, a project in collaboration with NHO helped to reform the Vietnamese vocational training law, which now mandates more collaboration between the school and the employer. Because of NHO’s international scale, hosting online events soon became a necessity for NHO, as only with online events people from all over the world could be part of the conversation regardless of the geographical borders and boundaries separating them. 

Everything started when NHO contacted myOnvent’s CEO Bjørn Christian Nørbech to work together on a project called “The Food Industry 4.0,” an event focused around concepts of improving the monitoring and control of food quality, safety, manufacturing, automation, training, and food waste management & reduction. 

NHO’s interest began after taking part in an event organized by Tekna hosted on the myOnvent platform, where the features and qualities of the platform were shown in real-time. In addition to the high quality of work, myOnvent was also a pioneer in the field and the first-ever company that was organizing events on such a large scale. Tekna’s event had around 600 in-person attendees, but through myOnvent they were able to triple their audience base. This initial experience would be a cornerstone of the future collaboration between myOnvent and NHO. 

myOnvent’s position as a pioneer of the online event platform in the Nordic region was one of two reasons for NHO’s decision to choose them: “They trusted in our technical and operational expertise in organizing online events, but they chose us also for the transparency and loyalty with which we had worked with all other partners and clients previously.” Bjørn Christian believes that this trust is crucial to any relationship, and that the more you work together the greater the trust, especially if both sides stay loyal to their promises, roles, and responsibilities. “Through honest and transparent work ethic and communication, we reached a level of trust that became the cornerstone of our partnership with NHO.”

#NHO2022 and moving forward

Today, NHO and myOnvent’s vision entails creating, through collaboration, the best hybrid event ever. There are now 1300 participants invited to attend the event in person in Oslo, while they expect thousands of people to register online on myOnvent. The event is also a very timely one given the current crises going on in Ukraine and the world. Many important topics will be discussed and important decision-makers will attend the event, such as the Prime Minister of Norway Jonas Gahr Støre, former Finland Prime Minister Alexander Stubb, and many more. Above all, this event is built to be a place where people come to network, to meet others, and to build relationships and important partnerships. 

Both NHO and myOnvent have done everything to assure that anyone can log in easily regardless of where they are located, and that our interactive features will enable people to take part in engaging and constructive discussions without ever feeling left out or bored. “I’m both hopeful and optimistic that indeed this will be the benchmark for hybrid events going forward,” mentioned Bjørn Christian Nørbech. 

In addition to his vision of hosting the best hybrid event ever, Bjørn Christian also aims for the event to have a large and long-lasting impact in societal, political, and humanitarian areas. That is why the platforms are bringing together the highest-level speakers to address the current situation in Ukraine, its implications for Norwegian businesses going forward, the risks, the threats, the opportunities, and more. “The event will hopefully be an impactful first step to set the business agenda for Norwegian businesses for the next year in a situation that is very serious and challenging in many ways.” 

Depending on the success of the event in creating an agenda and a networking arena for online conversations, this could be an eye-opening experience for many businesses. And the fact that it’s going to be the largest annual conference ever is in itself impactful. “If we can make it a pleasant, interesting and rewarding  experience from not only content but also networking perspective, then it will definitely have a direct impact on how people would like to host hybrid events going forward,” said Bjørn Christian Nørbech. 

Looking back at the myOnvent’s trajectory, Bjørn Christian Nørbech was very proud about the numerous accomplishments and instances where the company met and surpassed any benchmarks and objectives. “We have delivered on every promise ever made, and that’s something I’m proud about. We have always received positive feedback from organizers and participants, and that not only encourages us to do more and better, but also reminds us that we are on the right track.” 

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To find out more about how a hybrid event works in action, get in touch!! We’d love to speak to you about this, just drop us a line at contact@myonvent.com and we’ll get back to you ASAP to set up a chat.