The article was written by Corbin Ball, a consultant, writer and speaker focusing on event and meetings technology. The purpose of this article is to inform actors of this industry about the latest technology to help people improve productivity and save time.
After years and years of backwardness, the MICE industry is now trying to catch the train regarding new technology. To succeed in this, let’s try to analyze what could be the 2011 trends that would help meeting planners as well as all the protagonist of the Events world.
Web-based software + Freeconomics trend
A great change has been taking place over the last few years. In the past, meeting software programs were “custom-installed”. Nowadays, PCO and meeting planners can find cheaper and easier web solutions they need to run an event. Low cost or even free meetings and trade show software with more storage capacity than it was before, allow them to be more efficient while working on specific event planning tasks such as the whole online registration process for example. ( i.e : http://www.corbinball.com/bookmarks/).
Mobile apps for meetings
Due to the Smartphone expansion, mobile phone applications have been skyrocketing over the year 2010. Smartphones are used as “micro computer” and meeting planners as well as attendees and exhibitor can use several applications to get in touch with one particular aspect of the event. (i.e: networking, electronic ticketing, audience polling, surveys, pocket programs, pocket exhibit guides…
This kind of mobile apps can also be used as location-based to help the protagonists of an event to find the location of venues and accommodations – especially for business travelers for whom it could be very helpful and beneficial…
I.e: Goggles uses augmented reality to find accommodation thanks to photo recognition added to a GPS.
IPad and tablet PCs
Touch sensitive technology such as the I-pad is following the I-phone success story. The comparative advantages of this new kind of technology are: its weight, it’s easy to input while walking and can be easily used as a survey pool for example. (i.e : Quickmobile.com offers - especially designed for I-pad- conference pooling and online registration.)
HD video for hybrid meetings will bloom.
Skype’s latest version provides a HD solution for better video conference quality and also it allows up to four participants to communicate simultaneously. This technology will enable speakers not being able to attend the meeting to interfere with other speaker. Another important factor is that prices for new technologies decrease steadily and that internet connections increase reliability. Please follow this video in order to see one example for a high definition face-to-face virtual meeting space presented by the Starwood and Marriott hotels: http://bit.ly/QV7n7.
Social media is working into the mainstream for events.
Social media are playing an important role in our lives and especially in the meetings industry o
f today. Despite some meeting planner who have not yet understood how to use these media efficiently, the coming year will see an increased usage of the three most famous – Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Hootsuite (www.hootsuite.com) and other social media aggregators will be used increasingly as meeting professional try to manage multiple accounts more effectively.
Online collaboration tools will begin to replace email as a primary project management tool for events.
E-mail is an old tool which does not correspond to our needs of today. Wikis (collaborative websites will emerge as much more efficient ways of tacking conference logistics and other details among geographically meeting planners and suppliers. Furthermore, several other tools as Google Docs will see increased importance in the meeting planners’ life.
Speaker and content management systems are being adopted.
Historically, there are many separate tasks, in setting up programming for large events, each with lots of data management required, such as speaker selection, arranging program, checking audiovisuals etc. Fortunately, there are a number of companies (including Content Management Inc. www.cmcgc.com, OmniPress www.omnipress, One World Presentation Management www.owpm.com and others) that combine most or all of these tasks under a unified system greatly increasing the efficiency.
Strategic meetings management and ROI measurement is expanded and refined to improve meetings.
New is that there are several companies which are developing web-based SMMP tools with a range of pricing models (including Certain Software www.certain.com, Cvent www.cvent.com, and SignUp4 www.signup4.com). The increased competition in this field will provide better meeting procurement tools at lower costs. In addition, these new tools will improve the business process, make it more efficient by reducing wasted time. Since ROI become increasingly important for companies, ROI measurement tools are being offered. For example, MeetingMetrics (www.meetingmetrix.com) has just introduced MyROI designed to provide attendees measurement tools to track their ROI from meetings attended.
Face-to-face meetings and tradeshows will remain viable
Virtual meeting and web conferencing usage is up and conference attendance is down in these economically challenging times. However, meetings and tradeshows can still provide the best value for your education, networking, and sales budgets. Events offer unparalleled opportunities to build relationships, to brainstorm, to network. The events, tradeshow and hospitality industries are relationship-based and bring the different actors together. Although webinars are good for short information exchange, meetings offer a much richer learning experience. Meetings provide a vastly richer, more targeted, and more focused learning experience than any virtual meeting.
To conclude, we can learn from this article that there are many new technologies improving the efficiency of the meetings industry. However, these trends for new tools cannot be seen as a threat to real face to face meetings which bring special value to the meetings industry.
We chose this article because we believe that it is very important to be aware of these trends in order to adapt and not be overwhelmed by these new technologies and by the competition already using it.
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