Successful Meetings - August 2008 - (Page 62)

Meetings Technology > New & Improved Bean Counting away from the meeting; Three—detailing attendee actions that took place as a result of the meeting; Four—gauging subsequent impact of the meeting, such as greater productivity or sales, or reduced errors; and Five—arriving at an actual return on investment garnered via the previous four levels. “There’s also a sixth level, if you will, which is the impact that can’t be converted to money,” says Phillips. “This could include better branding, cooperation, teamwork, and a variety of intangibles. Every meeting has intangibles.” While results might be attached to specific meetings in theory, it’s not easy in practice, which may be why so many planners fudge things by talking about ROO—Return on Objectives. “That’s probably a nice way of saying, ‘I can’t possibly put numbers on this,’ ” says Steve Mapes, vice president of creative services with Dayton, NJ-based Impact Unlimited, whose Eventrends technology is a player in the field. “But you could say you met 20 new customers who might buy your product, or educated 300 physicians on how to effectively administer a particular drug.” Nevertheless, planner focus remains solidly on the “I” in ROI, and there are several technologies today that nudge ever closer to that mecca of meetings measurement. Let’s consider some of the automated tools out there that promise, to greater or lesser degrees, a means of getting to Jack Phillips’s vaunted Level Five— the actual ROI of a meeting. Comprehensive Services ROI tech tools can be broken up into two broad categories: the “onestop shop” and the “niche measurers.” Let’s start with the technologies that aim to do it all. MEETINGMETRICS The New York-based GuideStar Research’s MeetingMetrics is one of the leading technologies in the field, simply because it does it all, bringing the power of its technology, based on Phillips ROI methodology, to bear on meetings. “Before we met them, they had been doing a great job with Level One measurement,” says Phillips. “They were doing pre-meeting assessments to find out the content that needed to be covered and that required assessment, and in fact that’s been their strength. We’ve been working with them for three years now to add Levels Two through Five, in capturing learning data, and doing follow-up surveys on the application and impact of meeting content. And they’ve now got the tools to convert everything to money, capturing the ROI.” MeetingMetrics’ online application was launched at the 2007 Professional Convention Management Association (PCMA) meeting Going Mobile One of the problems with surveys, even when delivered via e-mail, is that the attendee’s sense of the meeting may have faded by the time she gets back to her computer. Thus, technologies that beam surveys to handheld devices, such as PDAs and smart phones, are gaining ground. Companies like Spotme and nTag are leaders here, but they are not alone. Other players include VisionTree Conference Enterprise in San Diego, which collects data from audience input into the company’s smart phones. The technology supports audience polling, live Q&As, surveys, and real-time graphical presentation of group data. Poll Everywhere, a Chicago-based company, offers a simple text message voting application for live audiences. People vote by sending text messages to options displayed on-screen, with a PowerPoint or Web page display updated in real time. Advanced uses include text-toscreen for large general assemblies, texting questions to a presenter within sessions, and Web voting. “How you manage this data is an entire other thing,” notes meetings technology consultant Corbin Ball. “That’s where companies like MeetingMetrics and others will help you. But you need to ask questions to begin with.” mimegasite.com AUGUST 2008 SUCCESSFUL MEETINGS Spotme’s handheld tool The nTag interactive badge 62 http://mimegasite.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Successful Meetings - August 2008

Successful Meetings - August 2008 Contents Editor's Note Industry Trends Industry Events On the Record Technology Calendar Websites of the Month Personal Success Technology Talk Food & Beverage Pre-Event On Site Tools of the Trade Pre-Event Crude Awakening Oil’s Well Betting on Development The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of No Spa, No Dice New & Improved Bean Counting Places & Spaces Cleveland Palm Springs, Desert Resorts Midwest Meetings San Antonio Yucatan Peninsula Gurus

Successful Meetings - August 2008

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