This article reports on the first Virtual International Practice Development Conference, held in May 2015 to celebrate International Nurses Day. The article describes key aspects of its planning, offers a flavour of the event itself and sets out an evaluation, including learning points and recommendations to assist with planning similar events in the future. Central to our learning are:

• The need for practice developers to grasp skills in technology associated with virtual space
• The need to embrace virtual space itself as another means by which creative and communicative spaces can be established for active learning and practice development activities
• The potential advantages that international virtual engagement has over face-to-face national or international engagement

The delivery of this virtual event made a significant international contribution to global practice development activity within the International Practice Development Collaborative and to enabling practice developers to connect and celebrate on a more global basis.

Implications for practice:

• Virtual space technology skills can assist with sharing and translating practice development research, innovations and critical commentary
• Virtual space can provide an adjunct to creative and communicative learning spaces
• Global networking opportunities can be developed and enhanced through the use of virtual space technology
• Practice developers need to role model the use of virtual technologies

https://doi.org/10.19043/ipdj.62.003

This article by Moira Stephens, Jan Dewing, Angela Brown, Rebekkah Middleton and Victoria Neville is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 3.0 License.