MEETTOMATCH: YOUR MEETING PLATFORM
As part of the Beyond Games online experience, you will have full access to a familiar matchmaking and agenda platform. We adopted MeetToMatch in 2020 as the platform where you will find attendees to meet, and where you will keep track of your schedule. It’s available for all registered participants to use in order to arrange meetings during the event, with your choice of integrated video chats.
The primary objective of any of our events is to help our attendees connect and this is just one of the many ways we can help you do that.
NOTE: The platform will go live about a week before the event and at that time you will be automatically added to it and notified by email if you have registered for a ticket.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Your ticket to Beyond Games includes access to the MeetToMatch platform.
Attendees who have registered for a ticket will receive an automatic notification with their access details as we approach the event (typically a week or so in advance). You will follow instructions in that email to log into the platform. Please note, MeetToMatch for Beyond Games is not yet open.
There is a short video from the last online conference that can give you a taste of what to expect from MeetToMatch.
You will be familiar with MeetToMatch from other events. It’s a trusted platform, which we’ve adopted as our new and improved meeting experience. It has an advanced search function and integrated video conferencing. It matches your needs to those of other delegates, and then automatically schedules a conversation with just a couple of clicks in your browser. A calendar view enables you to keep track of your scheduled meetings as well as the talks and panels you’re planning to watch.
It has profile pages to showcase you and your business, so be sure to fill in all your details – right at the start, you’ll need to select a time zone (because the event is international!) and pick a preferred video meeting service. You can use Zoom or Skype or stick to 8×8, which is the default.
After that, you will use the advanced search to find other attendees who match your business interests. When you’ve found somebody you want to connect with – or if they find you – the platform will automatically schedule a virtual meeting, and generate a link. This link becomes visible 30 minutes before the meeting is scheduled. Simply click on the link at the allotted time to speak with your new contact. You can keep track of your meetings using the My Schedule calendar view.
There is more information about all of this below.
If you have been to one of our PGC Digital events then it is likely that you will know about this platform. We embraced MeetToMatch as our platform in June 2020 and have been using it ever since. Before that, we used a different platform, so if the last time you joined us was in April 2020, or at one of our previous live events, this will be new to you.
The meeting platform opens about a week or so before the event kicks off. If you have purchased your conference ticket through our Eventbrite process, your details will be automatically imported into the MeetToMatch platform and you will receive an email notification with the log-in details at that time. You will need this to activate your account. Please check your spam folder in case it’s gone in there.
Follow the MeetToMatch link in your log-in notification email. You will be taken to a screen where you will first add a password. Then you will be taken to the profile page where you will complete information about yourself. The first things you’ll need to do is select a time zone (this is essential!) and a preferred video meeting platform.
You will be able to begin making meetings immediately, which will be diarised for the week of May 10th-15th.
Please note that nobody has received a log-in yet, it’s too soon. The platform goes live in early May.
At that point: after purchasing your ticket to Beyond Games you will be sent an email with your log-in details.
Occasionally, spam filters can hijack genuine emails from us, so please check there. Perhaps you used a personal email account to register in Eventbrite? Please check that too. To help get important Beyond Games and MeetToMatch platform emails get through, we suggest you whitelist emails from pgconnects.com and steelmedianetwork.com.
If you are sure you have a ticket, and the event is very close, but the notification still hasn’t shown up, please email [email protected] with your details.
You will need to answer a series of questions about yourself, your company and your interests and needs. The more accurate you can be with these, the more useful the system will be for everyone. Have a photo and a company logo to hand.
It’s mandatory to enter a time zone. We need this so that your meeting calendar works efficiently. The event is international, so letting the platform know where you are in the world is essential, and you won’t be able to proceed until you’ve done that. The talks and panels are broadcast live on current UK Time (BST, GMT +1), but you can arrange meetings whenever it’s convenient for your local time.
You will also need to select a preferred video conferencing platform, or else 8×8 will be used. Zoom or Skype are your other options. There is more detail below.
By default, your personal contact information (email and phone) is not shared with other attendees.
If you have used MeetToMatch before, perhaps as part of an alternative conference, you can import your profile from that previous event.
Our experience tells us that people are more likely to request or accept meetings with you if they can see a photo and read a little bit about your business. So please do take a few minutes to add details to your personal profile and your company profile.
Above the MeetToMatch dashboard – where you’ll find quick links to your meeting requests and notifications – you’ll see a menu. On the far right is MY PROFILE. Click on that to see your details. We suggest you immediately edit that page to include details about yourself and some words about your company’s goals. You can also upload a logo for your company. It will help people find you.
Please note, some fields are mandatory, including your time zone. It’s important you set this because the system includes a built-in meeting calendar, and you don’t want people booking time with you in the middle of your night. Videoconference links are generated 30 minutes before a call is scheduled to start, and this process is locked to your time zone preferences – yet another reason to enter that accurately before anything else, please.
Then you will need to select a number of tags describing your core business. We strongly suggest you write a short but meaningful description of yourself and your company activities. Experience shows that people are more likely to connect with you if they understand you and your business needs.
You will not be able to proceed until you have selected a video conferencing platform. The default is 8×8, but Skype and Zoom are also options. There is more information about this below.
Then you can begin looking for the perfect business partner, using the advanced search functions.
Check out this video for a taster of this whole process from PGC Digital #2.
There is no point labelling your company using special characters in an attempt to appear higher up the listings. By default, the MeetToMatch attendee list will be ordered by sign-up date, not company name.
We will regularly edit or remove obvious efforts to ‘game’ the system by including inappropriate or unnecessary characters, images or tags. Promoting yourself artificially high using these methods will just fall foul of our editors. We reserve the right to edit any profile in the platform, and even temporarily remove folk who aren’t playing fair. Please enter information correctly and accurately. Everybody can be found using the platform’s search functions.
We are all in business, of course, and we understand the desire to try clever ways of standing out; but this is a community event for the benefit of all of the industry. If you would like to be featured prominently in any of our activities, please consider a sponsorship package.
Short answer: your time zone.
When you join MeetToMatch and fill in your profile details, one of the mandatory fields is your time zone. That is used to schedule all your meetings.
Assuming you enter that correctly, you should find that if a meeting is scheduled for 1pm tomorrow, that will be 1pm where you are. There is no need to try and convert time zones in your head.
(Please note: talks and panels are broadcast on current UK time. It’s possible to schedule content you plan to watch in your personal agenda, and these will appear there adjusted to your time zone. But here on the main website, all times given are in UK ‘British Summer Time’. For instance, a talk broadcast at 10am BST will take place live at 12 noon if you’re in Helsinki.)
Yes. In fact, before you seek meetings, you should probably check out all the fantastic content in the conference schedule. Inside MeetToMatch you’ll see a menu above the dashboard. Hit PROGRAM. You’ll see the full list of talks, panels and round-tables!
Once the conference has begun on Monday, May 10th, this list will contain links to the Zoom talks – these will also be emailed to you. Before then, the Zoom links are not there, but you can see what the session will be about, what track theme it fits under, who the speakers are, and when it takes place. If more information is available about the speaker, you’ll find it by clicking on Details.
If you see something you like, click Add To Agenda, and it’ll immediately land on your calendar (viewable under MY SCHEDULE). The platform will ask you if you are open to receiving meeting requests during that period, and you can choose NO to completely reserve that slot for the talk you want to see, or NO if you are happy to miss that talk if a more exciting meeting comes along.
This way, you can build your schedule for the week, which takes into account all the talks, panels, round-tables and meetings you want to have, at the times that suit you. Please note that all talks are broadcast live on Zoom during UK Time (9 am to 8 pm), although the recordings will be available later for those who are not able to watch live.
The meeting platform is open all day and night, open for participants all around the world. Some of that time, you may be asleep! There are also many things to do – perhaps you want to watch some expert talks, or take part in the Guided Breakout Groups. So the first thing you should do is block our areas of your time where you are NOT available to meet.
From the My Schedule menu at the top of your MeetToMatch dashboard, you can see your calendar.
You can click on any half-hour slot and click ‘set to unavailable’. Do this for slots when you do NOT want to have meetings – during the night-time in your region, for instance, or during periods when you know you must be working on something else. This will secure blocks in your Agenda where the platform will not attempt to schedule meetings.
To block out a whole day at a time, click the padlock next to the date.
You can unlock a space by similarly clicking on ‘set to available’.
Pocket Gamer Connects events are always about connecting people – hence the name! And Beyond Games is our new event aiming to do the same thing, but connecting the games industry with the film, comic and music industries. We all have so much knowledge to share, and these connections can lead to good business for everyone!
Looking for people to do business with, job opportunities, or valuable industry connections of all sorts? Head to the ATTENDEES link from the top of the dashboard.
Here you’ll immediately see a list of attending companies. By default it will be ordered by sign-up date, so you can easily find companies that have registered with the conference since the last time you looked. You can choose to order the list alphabetically if you prefer: use the drop-down menu.
Now it’s time to search for people. If you’re feeling lucky, enter a quick keyword search, such as a company name, and hit Search. For more options, open Advance Search. Here you can enter more criteria, and filter by company activities, investment opportunities, platform and other factors.
The results will come in the form of company names. Click on a company to visit its page, where you will see a list of attending staff members. If you click on Request A Meeting, you’ll be given the option to select a time slot on your calendar.
You can add a personal message, and then fire it off.
Two possible reasons. Firstly, you’re a student. People on free student tickets cannot contact other professional attendees by default. Other attendees can contact you if they want to find out more about your work. If you’re a student and you want to contact any of the professional attendees, the solution is pay for a pass.
Secondly, it’s possible you’ve made too many meeting requests in a row that have not yet been answered. Non-students can technically send unlimited meeting requests, but if you blast a load out with no response from other attendees, the system may pause until your existing requests are accepted or rejected.
If you’re not a student, and you’ve hardly sent any requests out, but you still can’t arrange meetings, something may need a tweak. Please email [email protected] with your username (email).
You’ll connect with people over video or audio conference and you can pick, which platform you use. We like Zoom or Skype, MeetToMatch also recommends 8×8, ultimately it’s up to you. You set a preference when you sign in for the first time.
If you choose Zoom, please note you will need to set a password. If you copy your personal meeting link from Zoom, it should include any password you have set. You are responsible for making sure your Zoom meetings function securely.
If you select Skype, please remember to fill in your Skype ID.
Once a meeting request has been accepted, the system will automatically schedule the meeting in your calendar, and suggest a link using your preferred platform. You can use that link to initiate a video chat with your partner at the appointed time.
If you are using the free version of Zoom, you may need to contact your meeting partner directly and offer them your meeting password. If you change your password at any point, you may have to resubmit your personal Zoom meeting link to MeetToMatch and/or to individuals you have communicated with.
You will need a computer with a mic and (ideally) a camera in order to use any of these external services.
During the conference, about 30 minutes before a meeting is due, a link will appear in the meeting slot on your schedule, which will enable you to start the meeting. The person who requested the meeting is the “host” and their preferred meeting platform is prioritised. Example: if you reached out, and Skype is your chosen platform, the link in the meeting will be for Skype.
If your meeting is due and you cannot see a link, please check that you have set your time zone and meeting platform correctly.
During conference week, 30 minutes before a meeting is due, a link will appear in the meeting slot on your schedule, which will enable you to start the meeting.
If it’s not visible yet, it’s too soon. Links appear about 30 minutes before the meeting itself. You might have also confused it, if your time zone settings are inaccurate, please check.
The person who requested the meeting is the “host” and their preferred meeting platform is prioritised. So if you reached out, and Skype is your chosen platform, the link in the meeting will be for Skype, and so on.
Yes, you can update your preferences to a different video conferencing suite whenever you like.
If you change your default video conferencing platform, this will automatically be updated for all the meetings where you are the host.
If somebody else is the host (if they reached out to you to set the meeting) the platform will default to their choice.
When you registered, you each must have given the company name slightly differently. Or used different email domains. The platform looks at both (the company name you give and your email ID) to link people up. Perhaps one of you added LLC to the end and the other didn’t, or one of your wrote Acme Games and the other Acme Studio. Or maybe you both wrote the name right, but one of you registered using a private email account.
Whoever is ‘wrong’ should go into their My Profile area (use the drop down menu at the top right) and change their affiliated company to the correct name. Save, and you should be connected with your colleagues.
If you encounter a problem, please email [email protected] and we can help you fix this.
In MeetToMatch by default attendees are listed according to ‘sign-up date’. Look under Attendees, in the top nav bar on your dashboard.
Ideally. If you’ve filled in your profile appealingly (see above), people will be looking for you! If you receive an invitation to meet, please try to respond quickly, to keep things moving.
People will understand if you reject their request – everybody’s busy, and people appreciate that what they have to offer might not be what you’re looking for.
But if you ignore meeting requests, you’ll keep them hanging on while they’re trying to plan their week. So when you receive a notification, please do dive in and accept or reject meeting requests as often as you can. It keeps the momentum going.
The official time limit for the meeting system is the week of May 10th-15th. The meeting system will be open all day during this time (to cater for international time zones). This is to help focus everyone’s attention and time as if in an in real life conference.
However, as with our conferences, we will most likely leave the meeting system open for a slightly extended period after this, so you can download your schedule or finish up conversations you’re already having.
If you have any queries, please email [email protected]. This email is operated by the Pocket Gamer Connects team.
There is also a Helpdesk! channel in our Discord (during the event you will find a link in MeetToMatch labelled Support And Community Chat).
Please note, this is a global event, so you may be on a different time zone to the relevant team member. Although we will endeavour to get back to you as quickly as possible, technical support might not be available solidly through 24 hours. Most of our staff are in Europe, so please allow a few hours for a reply, especially if you are contacting us from far away. We will definitely help you as fast as we can, but even we have to sleep sometimes.
Some of your questions about how to get started may be covered in this video we prepared earlier.