With the start of the new year, MeetingTechOnline has created a list of ten technologies that we expect will see the widest proliferation throughout the Meetings industry in the coming year. The applications, flexibility, and low cost of these technologies will serve to enrich the attendee experience while creating value for exhibitors and freeing resources for show organizers. While many larger shows already employ these technologies, more and more smaller events are beginning to adopt these products and services and are implementing them with great success.
Top Ten Technologies for 2008
10. Wireless Networking
With the proliferation of the internet across personal and professional lives, people expect and demand internet access wherever they go. Given this, attendees at all conferences, conventions, and tradeshows will anticipate the availability of quick and easy internet access. In the past, events have set up internet cafes and kiosks to provide this service, but such setups are deemed inefficient due to long lines and their placement in isolated locations. However, the advent of wireless internet allows attendees to connect whenever and wherever they want at an event, as most people carry a laptop or other mobile device with wireless capabilities. Moreover, the costs of implementing a wireless network have dramatically declined in the last year, allowing a wireless network solution to be compatible with most event budgets.
9. Online Registration
According to the MeetingTechOnline 2007 Meetings and Events Technology Survey, a trend is emerging among show organizers to employ pure online registration systems. While these systems have been available for years, they have only recently begun achieving widespread adoption. Since many events do not require the depth of services offered by a full-service registration solution, online registration systems provide more focused and budget-friendly options for event managers.
8. Audience Response systems
Audience response systems provide speakers and presenters with instant feedback and allow for a whole new level of audience participation. The availability of these response systems, such as participant surveys and voting, encourage open streams of communication among organizers, sponsors, and target groups. As events strive to provide relevant content for attendees, audience response systems can help speaker sessions and presentations become an interactive and informative experience.
7. Mobile Devices
Everyone has them, but events aren’t taking full advantage of this communications avenue. Cell phones and PDAs may be used to communicate advertising opportunities, conference reminders, session promotions, and entertainment content. Wireless handhelds can now monitor attendee educational credentials and attendance rates. Convenient to carry around, these tools promote social networking and information management with minimal hassle. In addition, current models have the options of instant messaging, electronic resumes, and business card exchange.
6. Digital Dashboards
To ascertain the conditions of businesses in the meetings industry, dashboards are utilized for data management and facilitation. Through visually-oriented, easily discernable graphs and charts, corporate executives can access back-end information, business summaries, and significant metrics. The gathering of data from multiple data systems converges within digital dashboards, allowing efficient analysis of a comprehensive collection of information. In brief, dashboards provide easy access to valuable event data, concise graphical reports, and complete data compilations.
5. Internet Video
Since almost everyone has access to broadband internet, videos can be downloaded or streamed with great ease. These highly visual forms of communication can create a memorable impression upon viewers. This allows events to post educational, informational, or promotional material online for attendees to access at their convenience. In addition, posting internet video creates potential ad space before and after each video, as based on the model of many online news websites.
4. Webinars
Conducted between events, webinars transmit information from presenters to an audience through the aid of telephone lines and web-driven displays. Although they are typically set up as unidirectional presentations, webinars may be interactive arenas where presenters can engage their audience members with discussion sessions and conducting censuses. Webinars may also provide supplementary education for organizational members, extend the life of events, and keep attendees participating long after the event is over.
3. Social Networking
Two of the primary functions of participating in events are to meet people and share information with these individuals. Social networking is the easiest way to facilitate this process before and after an event. The technology involving social networking has become so robust that show organizers can customize the tools to get the specific functionalities needed for specialized events of any size. For example, existing devices have the ability to identify nearby attendees through photo databases, instant messaging, and radar.
2. RFID
Radio-frequency identification (RFID) utilizes radio waves to create an accurate, unobtrusive identification method for shows and events. The benefits of using RFID technology include its easier attendee tracking, information exchange, and lead retrieval capabilities compared to traditional barcode scanners or magnetic card readers. Furthermore, it reduces staffing requirements, allows for more fluid attendee queues at bottlenecks, and provides consistent data reporting for post-event analytics and statistics.
1. Understanding and applying Web 2.0
The websites of many shows and organizations are not up to the latest standards. While Web 2.0 tools provide a great avenue through which shows can take their websites to the “next level,” many shows first need to update the basic content and structure of their websites. There is a trend among industry websites to rush to adopt Web 2.0 tools without updating sites from the ground up, yet this only serves to further complicate any preexisting website issues. Accordingly, the most important part of the Web 2.0 update process is not the technical implementation, but the definition of the fundamental functionality the website requires.