Meetings tap into the high tech movement
Among the current trends in the electronic industry, these are the items that will have a large impact on meeting planning in the next several years:
1) Wireless broadband
In the age of the internet and the need for a faster connection to present a more fluid video image for mission critcal meetings on national simulcasts, wireless broadband will become an even more important tool for multi-state, multi-national conferences. A 1,000 person conference presented on a broadband connection, can instantly be transmitted to many locations via computer screens, thus saving thousands of dollars in travel, hotel, and meal costs alone. Since the "message" is becoming more important to the savvy corporation, there is no need to pay for full out face to face conferences while draining the corporate bank account. Another benefit related to the broadband connection to the different locations is the ability to record the live event for playback at a later date for people who either cannot make it to the assigned date and time or to review the presentation after the initial viewing, therefore allow for more retention of the material.
2) HD TV
As High Definition Video TV’s have gone significantly down in costs, more corporations are making purchasing of these TV’s a capital budgeted item. With these new age TV’s presenting the company videos or distant transmissions for corporate messages, attendees, employees and clients will be more inclined to view these messages.
3) ARS systems
A popular item for many years, but more so now, Audience Response Systems are a great way to instantly poll your live audience on many topics from attitudes of your employees or clients, to having a little fun via "game show" formats in which they have to guess a correct answer on some company trivia.
4) Internet planning and registration systems
Many companies are now solely relying on internet related event registration systems such as Regonline, or Cvent. This greatly cuts down on employee costs, carrying bulk loads of boxes with attendees files, and so on. It also cuts down on the number of employees it takes to process pre-registration and on site management of checking in all attendees. Many other add on features are; online booking of hotels on site, online booking of air and ground transportation, able to download all the collateral material prior to the meeting, and so on.
5) Web 2.0
A fairly new trend in the meeting planning field is the ability to invoke pre-conference interaction between the host company and the attendees. The featured keynote speakers can also get into the act by logging in to a corporate "blog" and answer some pre conference questions thereby making the attendees anticipate coming to the conference with more enthusiasm. Corporate blogs are also a great tool in getting feedback, post conference. All attendees are able to log in and write their views, opinions, complaints, and accolades of the conference.
6) Webinars
Another fairly new trend in corporate use of high technology is in webinars. It is suggested that this be used more for instructional purposes. How this works is the attendee calls into the webinar phone-bridge line so they are hooked up to a live instructor or speaker. Secondly, the same attendee logs into a specified link that takes them live onto a virtual "whiteboard" in which the speaker or instructor can draw upon during the "live" transmission. The speaker or instructor has the ability to either turn every virtual attendee live on the phone call or mute them all out and continue as a "classroom" style lecture. This makes for a very efficient use of time for all parties involved while saving on travel and lodging costs.
It never ceases to amaze at how high technology has impacted the meeting planning field. We should embrace all the latest developments to make companies better and more efficent in every way possible.
This issue of "news articles" written by Bruce K. Inouye of www.P2 Events.com
(Please contact this author for permission to reprint in any other publication.)