HC PPMD Leadership Summit · Austin, TX · 2025

Unlock the
Magic of
Connection.

300 Human Capital leaders. One goal: get them to actually talk to each other. We designed a system to make that happen — a symbol-coded badge that made common ground instantly visible, and a real-time scanning app that turned every introduction into a measurable connection.

People tend to stick to what they know. At a summit of this scale, that tendency is the enemy of the whole point. The challenge was to design a networking experience that changes behavior — not just encourages it.

My Role Experience Design Lead — System, Print, UX & Tech
Scope Symbol System · 24 Badge Templates · SharePoint App · D3 Visualization
Result 1,755 connections · 83% participation · 268 attendees
Scan your partner's QR code on their badge
"To meet our ambitions, people need to break out of their silos. Learn what others are doing, and discover new ways of working together."
Leader of Human Capital Consulting — the brief in one sentence
Designing with Systems

Color = Offering.
Shape = Industry.

The badge needed to communicate two things simultaneously — at a glance, across a crowded room. We created a symbol system built on two simple variables: color encoded the offering (3 options), shape encoded the industry (7 options).

3 offerings × 7 industries = 21 unique symbol combinations, plus 3 special variants for staff, speakers, and special guests — 24 total badge templates, each immediately readable without a word exchanged.

Square · Pink = HRST Human Resources Strategy and Transformation
Circle · Green = IIO Integrated Infrastructure Operations
Triangle · Orange = OWC Organization and Workforce Capability
Symbol system — 3 offerings × 7 industries matrix
The 24 badge template combinations

The complete set of 24 templates — 21 attendee combinations across HRST, IIO and OWC, plus Staff, Speaker and Special Guest variants

Connect. Scan. Repeat. — mobile app: badge activation, connection confirmation, leaderboard
300+ Attendees each with a unique badge
24 Dynamically printed badge templates
21 Unique symbol combinations in the system
83% Participation rate in the scanning experience
Experience Flow — Pre-Event to Deliver

The full attendee journey mapped across four phases: admin setup pre-event, badge activation at registration, real-time scanning and connection during the conference, and post-event delivery of each attendee's full connection list by email.

Experience flow diagram — Pre-Event, Setup, Connect, Deliver
Building the Tech Experience

Simple stack.
Complex compliance.

A closed SharePoint environment accessible through user authentication hosted a mobile-friendly app with 3 core screens. Simplicity in the stack didn't mean simplicity in the build — firm PII compliance requirements meant every data flow was carefully scoped.

As individuals arrived at registration, they activated their badge first. The admin could add late arrivals and troubleshoot in real time. The D3 visualization in the main reception grew with every scan — a live network expanding in public view throughout the three days.

First time activation

Scanning your own badge first activates the unique identifier — all subsequent scans are registered as network connections

Connection confirmation

Immediate feedback confirms each connection, shows the colleague's offering, and encourages the next scan

Live leaderboard

Total connections broken down by offering — displayed in main reception via D3 network visualization as the conference network grew

Badges at registration, SharePoint data list, live D3 network screen
Final network visualization — 2025 HC PPMD Leadership Summit connection map with market offering legend

Left: printed badges at the registration table · Centre: the SharePoint NetworkingMasterUsers data list · Right: the live D3 network visualization displayed in reception

The Results
1,755

connections made.

268 attendees · 83% participation rate · an inclusive environment that brought tangible purpose to the event.

Things I Learned

What building for a fixed deadline teaches you.

Event tech is unforgiving

Building applications for events is a different discipline entirely. The launch date is immovable, the audience is captive, and there's no graceful way to push an update mid-conference. Every edge case — late registrations, self-identification errors, PII compliance requirements — had to be anticipated and solved before doors opened.

Physical and digital must work as one

The badge only worked because the app existed. The app only worked because the badge was designed for scanning. Neither system was meaningful on its own — the experience lived in the handoff between the two. Designing physical and digital in tandem, not in sequence, was what made the whole thing feel seamless.

System design scales; one-offs don't

The symbol system — 3 offerings × 7 industries — was the decision that made everything else possible. A bespoke badge per person would have been beautiful and unusable at scale. A system meant dynamic printing, automatic assignment, and instant legibility across 300 people. Constraints produce better design.

83% don't participate by accident

Getting 268 out of 300+ attendees to scan a badge requires more than a clever idea. It requires embedding the behaviour into the event flow — making activation the natural first step at registration, reinforcing it in the environment, and making the reward visible and social. The leaderboard in reception was not decoration. It was the engine.