Meeting News - December 3, 2007 - (Page 15)

Edited by Elizabeth West elizabeth.west@nielsen.com Technology EIBTM Worldwide Tech Winners Go Wireless Gadget innovations focus on bringing people together before, during, & after meetings Barcelona—Wireless technology continues to tickle the imagination of meetings experts, with the Spotme attendee communications system taking home the top Worldwide Technology Watch prize at last month’s big European Incentive Business Travel and Meetings show in Barcelona. Spotme 2 (www.spotme.com), by Swiss company Shockfish, is the newest version of the firm’s wireless communications system for meetings. It is a handheld device that provides event information and communication tools to participants, including networking, e-mail, audience polling, scheduling, lead exchange, conference programs, and attendee lists. “The judging committee felt this product scored highly on all three criteria: innovation, completeness of concept, and value to users at events,” said Corbin Ball, a Bellingham, WA-based meetings technology consultant, and chairman of the awards panel that considered 46 entries from 40 companies. Spotme is sold as a meetings service; the base price is about $14,600 for setup and on-site staff to support the event, plus a device rental price of $37 per person per day. Discounts are offered for large events. Also getting recognition as Worldwide Technology Watch finalists were: G eTouches (www.etouches.com), an online suite of attendee management tools that includes registration, e-marketing/communication, surveys, project management, lead retrieval capabilities, and scheduling/room management. G Jambo Mobile Attendee Directory (www.jambo.net), which continues the development of mobile phones and other non-proprietary mobile devices to assist meeting professionals and attendees. It allows attendees using an Internetenabled handset to detect, search, browse, and message other attendees. G Jot Event Messaging (www.jot messaging.com), a web-based attendee messaging system providing simplified attendee search and messaging features, aimed at price-sensitive meetings. G nTag (www.ntag.com), the latest edition of a product similar to Spotme, providing a range of social networking, messaging, agenda, communication, lead retrieval, survey, and polling tools—but shrunk down to a small, interactive name badge worn around the neck. “Collaboration is what meetings boil down to, and that’s the essence of these technologies—bringing people together,” Ball said. produced video for medical devices,” said Mira Elmore, Netbriefings’ sales and training director. “Now, users can easily create archived ondemand presentations, as well as roll in pre-produced video.” Planners also might imagine its use as an event-promotion tool (e.g., a welcome message from a destination’s mayor, CVB chief, or local celebrity), in event coordination with supplier partners, or as a registration reinforcer (e.g., a CEO message). H —Section by Christopher Hosford MeetingNews 15 Amex’s Cardholders Are Cleared at Airports New York—American Express continues to expand its business travel and meetings card alliances, this time with Clear, a provider of security express lanes at U.S. airports. The new relationship offers Amex corporate cardholders an expedited means of getting through airport security. The Clear system (www.flyclear .com) gives travelers using a preapproved ID card with their encrypted fingerprint or iris images a separate and quick security lane at airports. The annual fee is $100 per year once applicants are approved by the Transportation Security Administration. With the new Amex alliance, cardholders receive preferred pricing, prebooking times for biometric scanning, and quick enrollment of groups of 50 or more via kiosks delivered to their office buildings. Currently, Clear cards are accepted at Albany, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Little Rock, New York’s JFK, Newark, Orlando, Reno, San Francisco, San Jose, and Westchester County (NY) airports, and soon Denver and New York’s LaGuardia. Four to six other major airports are expected to debut Clear. American Express has been active in liaising with other business travel enterprises to extend the value of its payment card. Most recently, Amex’s corporate and meetings card service (www.americanexpress.com/ corporate) linked up with StarCite to match Amex’s payment, reconciliation, and analysis reporting with StarCite’s e-sourcing and planning tools. www.meetingnews.com Proclaiming Your Message, With Video, Pics, or Celebs St. Paul, MN—Proclaim, a nifty web-based video communications tool that brings YouTube (and more) features to business users, has added audience tracking and reporting functionality, along with on-demand capabilities, making it a more complete virtual event tool. A product of Netbriefings, Proclaim’s video service allows users to create presentations or announcements that either can be streamed or recorded for on-demand access via a link in an e-mail or on a meetings registration page. Proclaim also allows video clips, audio bites, e-slides, and images. Proclaim requires content viewers to register for webcasts before they can watch them; this guarantees that users can identify specific viewers. The tool also tracks the duration of each webcast viewing and generates traffic reports for webcasts. “Proclaim has been particularly impactful in training, with pre- December 3, 2007 http://www.americanexpress.com/corporate http://www.americanexpress.com/corporate http://www.meetingnews.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Meeting News - December 3, 2007

Meeting News - December 3, 2007 Contents What’s Up @ MeetingNews.com MN Webcast Report Successful Meetings University Advertisers Index Live from the Forum

Meeting News - December 3, 2007

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.