With an event that happens at the same time every year, expectations for what’s needed to bring it to life are, well, the same every year. But in 2020, the year I began as the lead copywriter for Red Hat Summit, everything changed.

After we had the first Red Hat Summit Virtual Experience under our belt in 2020, we set out almost immediately after to start on Red Hat Summit 2021. I led all efforts involving naming and theme messaging as well as:

• Overall theme concept,

• A brand-new promotional process,

• Organic and paid social content,

• Creative direction and feedback for external agencies,

• Virtual platform copy and assets,

• … and everything in between.

In partnership with designers, art directors, content strategists, creative strategists, paid media specialists, event strategists, and more, we were able to bring a three-part flexible conference series to life with one overarching goal: to not tell the Red Hat story, but to tell the story of the open source community.