Successful Meetings - December 2008 - (Page 37)

Conference Centers ing. People often set up a back channel BDMetrics worked with The Motivation “Trade shows are where they live-comment on speakers,” Show in Chicago this year to design Motiearly adopters of says Sander Raaymakers, a technology vationConnect365, a news and informatechnology out of consultant and senior partner for Lantertion website for the September event. necessity.” Fanten, a New York-based trend-trackPamela Patsavas, an account executive ing and consulting firm. “With the right with Schaumburg, IL-based Total Event —Corbin Ball, crowd, this can really add value. SomeResources, attended and was impressed technology guru times the conference organizers insert with the quick follow-up. “I was pleasantlive links to background material, and ly surprised when I got home. In an e-mail once I saw a speaker push content into an official channel refform, I received a communication from show management listerencing site live. In effect, it was a Twitter slideshow, where the ing all of the companies I had visited with,” she says. “I know the next slide is another Tweet.” exhibitors get this information, but it is a nice touch to offer the The expanding use of streaming video has been well docusame to the attendees.” There is a green aspect to this technolmented. ComScore, a global Internet information provider, ogy as well, as business cards no longer have to be exchanged. reported that in February 2008, U.S. Internet users viewed more HAVE YOU TWITTERED TODAY? than 10 billion online videos during the month, representing a 66-percent gain versus February 2007. Another intriguing community-building platform is Twitter, which The use of video has expanded in the trade show world as enables you to tell all your contacts what you’re doing right now well. “Video is an opportunity that will only increase,” says Michael (or at least what you were doing when you typed it). It allows you Hughes, associate publisher and director of research services, to instantly communicate via cell phone without having to buy in Tradeshow Week magazine and custom research. “Video is not to any kind of software or service provider. And, at a 140-word only being used for keynotes and sessions, but to market shows.” limit, the updates take no time to read. Companies make a substantial investment to be at trade Twitter is finding its way onto the trade show floor, as compashows, and in the past when the show was over, it was over. Not nies are offering exclusive content and insights via “Tweets.” anymore. New technology vehicles allow exhibitors to continue Instead of waiting until after the event, conference attendees to promote their products and services online, in e-mail blasts, can engage in conversations through group Tweets. and even as texts and video sent to cell phones and PDAs. “In the conference field, the application of Twitter is interest- Freeman provides integrated services for face-to-face marketing and brand-building events. (www.freemanco.com) NearSpace will transform your company’s most popular pieces of collateral into useful, elegant PDA applications. (www.nearspace.com) Kaon creates 3D, interactive product models and system demonstrations to help marketers and sales teams communicate and differentiate product features and benefits. By transforming product stories into interactive experiences, customers become more engaged, resulting in increased knowledge, sales, and loyalty. (www.kaon.com) Spotme combines audience response, Q&A sessions, messaging, lead retrieval, social networking, attendance tracking, and electronic feedback forms to create an all-in-one communication service for events. Spotme is part messaging tool, part people finder, part program-ata-glance, part navigation system, and part voting keypad. (www.spotme.com) Map Your Show uses an advanced combination of technologies to create trade show mapping and planning solutions. (www.mapyourshow.com) nTAG is built around its interactive name badge, the nTAG System, which provides advanced solutions for targeted networking, session interactivity and education, and comprehensive event reporting and ROI analysis. (www.ntag.com) SUCCESSFUL MEETINGS DECEMBER 2008 TechNeat offers a wireless data collection and data management system using the BlackBerry wireless platform. (www.techneat.com) Trakkers offers portable lead-retrieval services that can handle three badge formats: 2D barcode, MagStripe, and RFID. (www.trakkers.com) successfulmeetings.com 37 http://www.nearspace.com http://www.freemanco.com http://www.nearspace.com http://www.freemanco.com http://www.spotme.com http://www.kaon.com http://www.kaon.com http://www.spotme.com http://www.mapyourshow.com http://www.techneat.com http://www.mapyourshow.com http://www.techneat.com http://www.ntag.com http://www.trakkers.com http://www.ntag.com http://www.trakkers.com http://www.successfulmeetings.com

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

Successful Meetings - December 2008 Contents Editor's Note Corporate Events On the Record Calendar Research Planner Spotlight Personal Success Technology Talk Food & Beverage Professional Development Quick Tip Tools of the Trade On Site: Retire Those Tired Power-Point Slides On Site: 12 Tips for Thriving on a South African Safari Deep Impact Recession-Friendly Speakers Showing Off Hawaii Insert Places & Spaces Mississippi Gulf Coast Fort Worth South Florida Beijing Gurus

Successful Meetings - December 2008

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.