Strategic Conversation Agenda can be viewed here

What to expect at Strategic Conversation

Tuesday 8 December -  Commercial.  Trading Through Covid and Beyond 

2020 has undoubtedly been a challenging year that has not only begun to transform how we communicate and manage our spaces but also how we guide behaviours and usage from student customers on a number of levels. Engagement is the key. With footfall into our spaces currently at an all-time low, customer journeys are now far more likely to involve more channels than ever before. Passing trade cannot be relied on and the conversation on the student digital customer journey has intensified.  

Focussing on building for the future, Day 1 focuses on creating a digital strategy that harnesses digital tools and gets them working together to help you understand more about your student customer and engage with them wherever they are. Ultimately, having the optimal digital journey means doing the right thing for your students. It means that students should have a better experience of the whole of the Union – one that is tailored and appropriate for them on a personal level. It should enhance their engagement with the Union as a whole and make them more likely to want to visit, stay, eat and drink (in the longer term). 

Wednesday 9 December – Trade Show

Today all Strategic Conversation content will be run as part of Trade Show. Along with master classes, sharing innovation, sampling sessions and loads of learnings, we've also got a scavenger hunt with heaps of great prizes up for grabs.  You can even get your glad-rags on for the Best Bar None awards and give a virtual cheers to this year's winners. 

Don’t forget to register for Trade Show

We’ll be running a short plenary introducing Thursday and Friday’s content.

Thursday 10 December – What’s happening here and now

10 am – 3.30pm
Thursday’s sessions will focus on the immediate challenges for our sector and how we come together to respond to them. The impact of covid-19 will be one of the key focusses of the day with sessions on a broad range of issues including the impact on staffing and mental health. But we know covid isn’t the only issue on our minds at the moment so expect content on VAT and freedom of speech amongst others.

Friday 11 December – Looking to the future

10am – 3pm
The final day of Strategic Conversation is all about looking to the future post covid and how students’ unions respond to the new normal. There will be a range of sessions including evaluation and impact, diversifying commercial services and the NSS review.

Pre released content and more information

As well as the main agenda of the conference we’ll be releasing content for you to review in your own time. This will include updates on the work of NUS and NUS Charity and finances – there will be space for questions on this within the agenda. The opening plenary will be recorded, so if you can’t make it on Wednesday you can still access the content. We’ll also be releasing relevant content and further reading around the sessions

We'll be adding more information about sessions and a full agenda in the coming weeks