After a couple of years of lockdowns, cancelled events and postponed get-togethers, Australia’s community and stakeholder engagement professionals were chomping at the bit to head to Melbourne for the IAP2 Australia Conference last week, among them Spatial Media’s Nicole Vaughan and Dan Cain.

With a conference theme of 'Brave. New. World’ we caught up with Nicole to hear more about the conference and the key takeaways.

“After a couple of years of missing out on events, it was fantastic to be back at a major conference where we could connect with peers, catch up with clients and learn about the latest trends, themes and technologies supporting community and stakeholder engagement. At IAP2 the mood across the conference was one of happy reunion as we reconnected after a hiatus of a few years.”

“The conference had many highlights for me as we connected with new people, sharing what we do and how we support community engagement from our exhibition stand. As well as that, the great questions and curiosity that shone through during the panel presentation I was fortunate to be part of.”

“I particularly liked the conference’s theme of Brave. New. World. and the key takeaway for me – there were many – was that there is a huge appetite to push the boundaries of what technology can do to support community engagement and provide consumers, communities and clients with the opportunity to bring stakeholder engagement to life like never before.”

“This was supported by an increasingly strong trend to focus on diversity and inclusion to bring in typically unengaged groups to the public participation realm, something Spatial Media is passionate about as we support the conference theme through what we deliver in visualising the future world. We're here to help drive engagement outcomes and create excitement for the future going beyond standard websites and PDFs to bring stakeholders on the journey combining high-quality communication, interactive media, and cutting-edge technology,” said Nicole