Alternative Handshakes x ConveyUX

Redefining connection at ConveyUX

Challenge

Blink’s annual professional conference, ConveyUX, was scheduled for March 3–5, 2020, just as news broke of COVID cases in Washington.

The evolving situation presented a few communication challenges: how might we communicate clearly and calmly to keep our attendees safe, while staying true to the playful, earnest, nerdy brand?

Solution

In addition to clear communication with attendees with email, social media, signage, and in-person announcements, we created alternative handshakes buttons. The alternative handshake buttons encouraged attendees to not touch in the early days of COVID when that behavior might have felt a bit strange. By prompting attendees, we were able to diffuses some of the awkwardness and provide a prompt for conversation.

Process

We created a suite of “alternative handshake” buttons to playfully discourage attendees from shaking hands at the conference. Remember: this was there first week most people had heard of COVID-19, so it took some getting used to for folks to not shake hands at a professional conference.

The buttons were so popular that we printed up blank button worksheets — modeled after the concept card template we use for projects at Blink — for attendees to design even more alternative handshake buttons. Our designer Mike, working in Boston three-hours ahead of the Seattle event, turned around polished illustrated versions of the attendee-submitted buttons in a snap.

Image: This slide reads, “We are imaginative. We think big. We’re passion about meeting new people and learning new things. We’re curious, optimistic future-thinkers.”

Image: A slide reads, “We are sincere. As a consulting firm, we are out people. We use photos of real employees and keep out language pretty straightforward. Limit the business jargon to a minimum, and bring empathy to conversation.”

Explore Alternative Handshakes x conveyux (pdf)

Team

Brent Summers / Mike Weinstein / Mel Johnson / Mark Gsellman / Joe Welinske