Meeting News - April 21, 2008 - (Page 12)

Technology GetThere, Worktopia Are Big On Shopping Of Small Meetings Southlake, TX—GetThere, an online corporate travel procurement site, has allied with Worktopia to offer online comparison shopping for booking meeting space. Worktopia provides a tool that prices and tracks meeting space, audiovisual equipment, and catering of meetings up to 100 participants within a user session. Worktopia offers small-meeting procurement solutions among a network of hotels, conference centers, business centers, and airport lounges in North America. The Worktopia connection on GetThere provides live quotes based on specific meeting requirements for more than 150 U.S. cities. As part of the new capability, GetThere allows its corporate clients to source group room nights through HelmsBriscoe, which offers special rates, promotions, concessions, and availability with major hotel chains and independent properties. “Groups with fewer than 50 participants comprise more than 60 percent of corporate meetings,” said Worktopia CEO John Arenas. “The GetThere-Worktopia offering delivers savings throughout its simple meeting procurement process.” London—Participants at the European Meetings and Events Conference held by Meeting Professionals International were all given Spotme handheld devices for high-tech networking and communication within the show from April 18-20. voting capabilities to boot. It has a color screen, keypad, and wireless microphone and speaker. It is part of the new wave of social networking technology that’s also eliminating the need for bulky brochures and schedules at exhibi- Edited by William Ng william.ng@nielsen.com MPI Meeting-Goers: Can You Spotme Now? Spotme communication/social networking devices used at trade group’s European event Underground system), and session surveys and feedback forms. For networking, the device identifies other attendees via a searchable photo database, logs the names of people nearby for later recall, enables participants to send messages to each other, and exchanges business cards that load into Microsoft Outlook or a PDA. Spotme is designed for meetings from 100 to 5,000 attendees, according to Shockfish. It also offers attendance tracking and scheduling and management of one-on-one meetings and personal itineraries. MPI rolled out the devices in hopes of enhancing the show’s experience and convenience for its attendees. The organization has been experimenting with technology and unconventional meeting ideas. At its mid-2007 World Education Conference in Monteral, keynote speaker Don Tapscott spoke about technology changing business communication at events, and for its February Professional Education Conference in Houston—branded “Meet Different”—MPI utilized pre-event blogs to sharpen programming and realtime session polling during the show. Handy Device: MPI attendees used Spotme to organize and network. Produced by Shockfish SA, of Lausanne, Switzerland, Spotme is part messaging tool and part peoplefinder with program-at-a-glance and tions. Show organizers can put in delegate lists, conference programs, speaker biographies, maps (in this case, of London proper and its Company Wants to Make Certain of Big Meetings Management Supplier San Francisco—Certain Software, which specializes in high-volume online registration, has merged with Australia’s Amlink Technologies to create what Certain is calling the largest supplier of meetings and events management technology. With five offices, the new company will operate under the Certain Software moniker, supporting a customer base of more than 1,800 clients in 50 countries and processing more than 6 million meeting registrants annually. The combined company will continue to have its applications online. 12 MeetingNews April 21, 2008 Certain Software’s flagship product, Certain Registration, manages online registration and secure payment, while Amlink—which has a big presence in Europe and Australia—specializes in the management of and reporting on large events and conferences. RemotePC Enters Online Meetings Arena Woodland Hills, CA—RemotePC, a service that allows business travelers to access their work computers from remote locations, has introduced an online meeting product called Remote Meeting. Remote Meeting is a spin-off of the remote access technology offered by maker Pro Softnet, allowing presenters to share slideshow presentations, spreadsheets, or computer applications in real time with up to 10 participants. Meetinggoers also can gain access to the desktop of the presenter’s computer. The product provides real-time participant status, as attendees join or leave the meeting, and “presenter status” can be transferred by the current presenter, meaning a meeting participant can become the new presenter and allow others to see and even control his or her computer desktop. H —Section written by Christopher Hosford www.meetingnews.com http://www.meetingnews.com

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Meeting News - April 21, 2008

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