-- Surgeon General’s Exercise in Operational Leadership and NMRMCO4

Invitations to the Surgeon General's Exercise in Operational Leadership were extended to members of the Navy who were located in a variety of places.  Therefore, using Internet technology was crucial to the conference's success.  RainStorm Consulting helped the Surgeon General's staff organize and prepare for the conference by facilitating the distribution of invitations (including a streaming video message from the Surgeon General) via email, developing an online conference signup and class scheduling system, and enabling secure credit card payment.

Members of the Navy that were invited to attend the Surgeon General’s Conference were sent an html email invitation with a link to a streaming video speech by the Surgeon General himself.  Before viewing the speech, their internet connection speed was determined and they were redirected to the appropriate size video.

• Invitees and their partners could sign up for the conference and schedule their classes via an online registration form.  Administrators were able to establish a maximum number of registrants.  When the max number was reached, a notice automatically replaced the registration form and the ability to register for the conference was disabled.  If a registrant cancelled their reservation, the form automatically reappeared and registration was enabled.
• Registrants paid for the conference by credit card via a secure, real-time credit card verification screen.  The result of the credit card transaction was immediately made available to the registrant with a friendly error message in case of transaction failure.
• A back-end administration section was available to the Surgeon General’s staff to view registrants, send out mass emails to all contacts and keep track of travel information.  Administrators were also able to administer a post-conference survey to gather input on how to make future conferences better.

(http://www.changearchitect.com/sg04)