Posts Categorized: Meetings Technology

kchopson

Tech Tuesday: How to Streamline your Call for Papers Review Process

Event Rebels Tech Tuesday

There are few aspects of speaker management that can be more painful than the process of reviewing submissions from an open Call for Papers. If the review is conducted in the classical way, the planners will find themselves buried in a bewildering collection of PDFs, Word docs and spreadsheets. Hours upon hours can be spent communicating with the review team, collating information and somehow trying to make sense of it all. In between all of this manual work is the need to give proper consideration to all the submissions and being fair in the final judgments of which presentation is... Read more »

Mobile Monday: Oscar Upgrades Tech, Doubles Down on Engagement

Event Rebels Mobile Monday

A lot of tech upgrades were made to the 3,400-seat Dolby Theatre to pull off the 87th Annual Academy Awards yesterday in Hollywood, CA. Miles of fiber-optic cables were rolled out, a 4G LTE cell tower added, and motors, seats, and a screen were removed from the theater, all in anticipation for the big night. For the first time ever, technology helped stars and their fans connect through social media during the show. This year, the Oscar green room, designed by Architectural Digest with the help of eventual Best Actress winner Julianne Moore, had Samsung tablets and a “GIF mirror” to let... Read more »

Rebel Roundup: Hilton, Travel Safety, Medical Meetings, and Meeting Attendance

This week’s rebel round-up includes articles about Hilton, Travel Safety, Medical Meetings, and Meeting Attendance!  Enjoy! How Hilton Is Attempting to Redefine the Airport Hotel – Skift (@skift) 11 Ways to Engage a Literary Crowd – BizBash (@bizbash) 5 Principles to Make Every Minute of Your Meeting Count – EventManagerBlog (@EventMB) 10 important safety tips for travelers – Smarter Travel (@SmarterTravel) How Medical Meetings Are Solving Big Issues With Hybrid Technology – PCMA (@pcmahq) 5 Creative Ways to Increase Meeting Attendance – Smart Meetings (@SmartMeetings) See you next week with more interesting articles for the event and meeting industry! Follow us on twitter for more articles like this posted... Read more »

Tech Tuesday: Improve Your Meeting Attendee’s ROI with Networking Technology

Event Rebels Tech Tuesday

A report by Conventions 2020 on the future of meetings, events, exhibitions and conferences looked at the incentives for attending events and found that 76% of respondents cited the quality of networking as the single biggest factor that would encourage them to attend events. The networking factor beat out content, interaction and use of technology to take the number one motivating spot. In addition, the average person carries 2.9 electronic devices including smartphones, laptops, and tablets. Those are powerful tools that meeting planners should use to enhance networking events in order to achieve the greatest ROI for their attendees. 56%... Read more »

Rebel Roundup: Tech Giveaways, Philly DNC ’16, Social Media Event Amplification, and Customer Complaints

This week’s rebel round-up includes articles about Tech Giveaways, DNC 2016 in Philadelphia, Social Media Amplification of Events, and Handling Customer Complaints!  Enjoy! Loews’ New OE Collection Aspires To Be the Thinking Man’s Lifestyle Hotel – Skift (@skift) 14 Gifts for Tech-Savvy Guests – BizBash (@bizbash) Philadelphia’s Bid For 2016 Convention “Unmatched” – PoliticsPA (@PoliticsPA) FreemanXP and Event Marketing Institute Study Highlights Social Media Amplification of Events – FreemanXP (@freemanxp) 5 Key Factors That Fuel PCMA’s Hybrid Success – PCMA (@pcmahq) 11 Steps for How to Handle a Customer Complaint at Your Event – Smart Meetings (@SmartMeetings) See you next week with more interesting articles for the... Read more »

Tech Tuesday: Slo-Mo Is The New Photo

Event Rebels Tech Tuesday

We’ve all seen the party photo booths with tables full of props, crazy hats, and fake mustaches. In fact, you probably have a couple photo strips from your cousin’s wedding taped to your cubicle, right? Photo booths have been a popular party trend for a while now. But, there’s something new hitting the event circuit, the slo-mo video booth! More and more companies are popping up like The Slow Motion Booth and SloMo Lounge that offer this unique video experience. This innovative event entertainment activity offers broadcast quality, high definition slow motion playback by shooting video at 240 frames for per second using... Read more »

Rebel Roundup: Meeting Bans, Decision to Attend, Catering, and Robot Hotel

This week’s rebel round-up includes articles about Meeting Bans, Decision to Attend Study, Catering, and Robot hotels!  Enjoy! Indonesia’s Hotel Industry Worries as the Government Bans Meetings – Skift (@skift) IAEE, PCMA and The Experience Institute Team Up on Comprehensive Study of the Behaviors Behind the Decision to Attend – PCMA (@pcmahq) 2015 International CES: An insider’s look with FreemanXP – FreemanXP (@freemanxp) Baltimore tourism officials say number of city conventions may have peaked – Baltimore Sun (@baltimoresun) Do-It-Yourself: A New Food and Beverage Offering for Groups – Travel Pulse (@travelpulse) New Japanese hotel to be staffed by robots – CNN (@CNN) See you next week with... Read more »

Rebel Roundup: Meeting Strategists, Airbnb, Sponsorship, and Wi-Fi

This week’s rebel round-up includes articles about meeting strategists, Airbnb, sponsorship, and wifi!  Enjoy! The Rise of ‘Meeting Strategists’ & How Hotels Should Approach Them – Greg Oates (@gregoates) How Much of a Threat Does Airbnb Pose to the Hotel Industry? – PerformanceIN (@PerformanceIN) CIC Releases White Paper and Best Practices Resources on Room Block Piracy and Poaching – Convention Industry Council (@ConvIndustry) 5 Tips To Strengthen Your Sponsorship Program – PCMA (@pcmahq) FCC to Marriott: Never try to block Wi-Fi again – CNN Money (@CNNMoney) Hotel Forecaster: Expect Hotel Rates to Rise ‘Significantly’ in 2015 – TravelPulse (@travelpulse) See you next week with more interesting articles... Read more »

kchopson

Four Types of Information that Make Up Your Organization’s Big Data

There is a lot of talk these days about using “Big Data” for the purpose of analyzing and solving your organization’s challenges. While your organization should have a large set of data that is relatively easy to access, much data is a lot less obvious in its usefulness and more difficult to compile. Before you begin the process of analyzing your data to improve your organization and events, it might be good to understand the four types of data you should consider. We will start with the “low hanging fruit” and then look at the other possibilities. Internal Structured Data... Read more »

Rebel Roundup: Airbnb, Wi-Fi, Sponsorship Value, Meetings Mean Business

This week’s rebel round-up includes articles about Airbnb, Hotel Wi-Fi, Sponsorship Value, and Meetings Mean Business!  Enjoy! Airbnb will soon be booking more rooms than the world’s largest hotel chains – Quartz by Zainab Mudallal (@Zainab_Mudallal) New app creates pop-up social networks at hotels – USA Today (@USATodayNews) The 10 Worst US Cities For Hotel Wi-Fi – Thrillist (@Thrillist) 5 Hotel Scams That Could Ruin Your Next Trip – Yahoo! Travel (@YahooTravel) Optimizing the Value of your Sponsorship – GES (@GESGlobal) Meetings Mean Business Coalition Co-Chairs Provide Industry Update for 2015 – Meetings Mean Business (@MeetingsMeanBiz) See you next week with more interesting articles for the event... Read more »

Tech Tuesday: Are Drones Ready To Take Off?

Event Rebels Tech Tuesday

The past few weeks we’ve seen a lot of predictions in event technology for 2015 and one consistent technology mentioned is drones. For those unfamiliar, a drone is an unmanned aerial vehicle (more commonly called UAV) or flying robot. Drones differ from radio-controlled aircraft, in that they are typically guided by GPS. They can also carry things like a camera or a sensor and have the ability to transmit the data wirelessly back to a base. The real questions on everybody’s mind are how are drones being used at events and can we expect them to become mainstream in the... Read more »

Rebel Roundup: Meeting Hotels, Travel Megatrends, Non-profits

This week’s rebel round-up includes articles about travel, non-profits, meeting hotels, and innovation!  Enjoy! CES 2015: Has the tech show lost its focus? – BBC News (@BBCTech) Cvent’s Top 100 Meeting Hotels in the United States – Cvent (@Cvent) Megatrends Defining Travel in 2015 – Skift Magazine by Rafat Ali (@rafat) The Serious Problem That’s Getting In The Way Of Non-Profits – PCMA via Dan Pallotta (@danpallotta) 6 Principles of “Frugal Innovation” – BizBash (@bizbash) Heightened security checks coming to U.S. airports – CNN.com (@CNN) See you next week with more interesting articles for the event and meeting industry! Follow us on twitter for more articles... Read more »

Tech Tuesday: How Hooke 3D Audio Will Disrupt Hybrid Events

Event Rebels Tech Tuesday

Hooke are wireless headphones with built-in binaural microphones that capture mobile 3D audio. It is sound captured identically to the way our ears hear it, so that when a recording is played back, it feels and sounds like you’re there. Conventional recording techniques leave sound flat and degraded. Hooke is able to record sound with its full depth and dynamic. Listen to an example of 3D audio below. Make sure you wear headphones (any kind will work). Now, what does this have to do with events? Although hooke has only just began producing it’s headphones (check out their succesful kickstarter campaign that raised... Read more »

Rebel Roundup: Airline Fees, Better Travel Tech, Embracing Second Screen

This week’s Rebel Round-Up comes straight to you from the convention floor of PCMA’s Convening Leaders in Chicago. Enjoy! 16 Fees We’d Like To Charge The Airlines – Thrillist (@thrillist) Why Chef’s Tables Are Growing In Popularity – BizBash (@bizbash) 11 Cool Things From the Consumer Electronics Show That Will Make Travel Better – Yahoo  by Chris Morris (@MorrisatLarge) The Most Stressful Jobs of 2015 – CareerCast (@careercast) Three Reasons Smart Event Marketers are Embracing Second Screen – FreemanXP (@freemanxp) See you next week with more interesting articles for the event and meeting industry! Follow us on twitter for more articles like this posted... Read more »

kchopson

How Beacons Can Help You Understand Your Trade Show

Beacon

One of the hot trends of 2015 is the use of Beacons at meetings and trade shows that work with your mobile attendee app. Beacons are small wireless transmitters that interact with the latest releases of Apple iOS and Android devices. They use BLE technology – also known as Bluetooth low-energy or Bluetooth Smart. The most important thing to know is that the devices are aimed at noticing when your smart phone/wireless device enters the perimeter of an area, such as a store or a trade show. Your phone needs to have the appropriate app installed, and probably should be... Read more »

Mobile Monday: The Battle For Wearables Begins and What That Means For Events

Event Rebels Mobile Monday

In a battle over who can make consumers keep their phones in their pockets and wear their phones on their face and wrists instead, there seems to be only one true winner, the consumer. As producers of face-to-face human interaction, event planners have a unique opportunity to utilize wearables in a way that may not be used daily. We have a responsibility of being ahead of the trends and looking for ways to incorporate new tech into our events. Google glass has found more of a home in business than the consumer sector, but you shouldn’t expect the same results... Read more »

Rebel Round-Up: Free Wi-Fi, 2015 Tech Trends, Future of Digital Media

Welcome to EventRebels first ever Rebel Round-Up! This is where we’ll be sharing with you what’s happening in the events industry and the technology industry all in one place each week. We hope you can find these articles as useful and interesting as we did. 2015 Preview: 9 Event Tech Predictions [BizBash] Google fights Marriott’s plan to block Wi-Fi hotspots [CNN Money @DavidGoldmanCNN] More hotels offer free Wi-Fi – but speed costs extra [USA Today] The Future of Digital Media in 2015 [TechCrunch] CES 2015: What the Biggest Tech Trends Will Be [ABC News] Uber Is Going to Eat Your... Read more »

Mobile Apps: Attendees Looking Down = Attendee Engagement Going Up

You stood in line 6 hours for tickets. You’ve waited months for this day to come. You’re finally seeing that band you love live! You get to your seat, the music starts, and a cloud of smoke erupts from the stage. The band starts to play and you are instantly disappointed. Not because the band isn’t everything you dreamed of and more, but because you’re watching their performance through the thousands of tiny mobile devices being held up in front of you. Nobody can deny that technology has changed the way we experience live events, and not always for the... Read more »

kchopson

Using Evernote for Business: How Evernote can Help Meeting Planners

Evernote

A common difficulty in event management is organization; keeping track of constant changes and updates is hard. Using Evernote for business can keep you organized and sync your notes across all of your devices. Ask yourself:  Have you ever walked into a site visit with a paper notebook in your hand, furiously sketching notes throughout the day? When you got back to the office, did you then take a few hours to type those notes into your laptop so you could report your findings? Have you occasionally misplace your notebook in a stack of other notebooks? If you have a... Read more »

kchopson

Making Great Connections at Conferences and Trade Shows

handshake

We all know that exhibiting at a trade show can be expensive. Therefore it is imperative that you implement good trade show practices so you do not waste the opportunity of bringing a bunch of qualified leads back to your office. Here are some critical things you should do to guarantee that your appearance is a success. Plan Early and Set Goals As soon as you decide to participate in the show you need to start thinking about how to make your appearance effective. The main thing is to figure out the types of attendees that are going to the... Read more »

kchopson

EventRebels’ Mobile Conference Attendee App is Out!

ERMobile Attendee App for iPhone and Android

EventRebels already has two mobile apps in the store for Google and Apple devices. The EROnsite app is for planners to monitor their show and, most importantly, scan QR codes on badges to track show and session attendance. Using the same QR code technology, exhibitors can run the ERLead app on their smartphone for lead retrieval. But we saved the best for last. The ERMobile app for attendees of conferences is now available for iPhone and Android! Our first releases have these exciting features: Full Conference Schedule with details for each presentation User’s Itinerary Maps of the Venue Exhibitor and... Read more »

kchopson

Seven Hot Meeting Technologies to Watch in 2014

hot

The meetings industry is riding the wave of many exciting technology trends. Here are seven to watch – be ready to make them part of your meeting! Mobile Mobile is the dominant technology of the moment. For planners, the most important application is the meeting app. At a minimum, these apps need to be the go-to place for the show’s schedule, the individual’s itinerary and maps. Apps are also taking on many other duties: social networking, exhibitor/sponsor guides, speaker directories, audience response systems, surveys, and replacing traditional hardware like those used for lead retrieval. Responsive Web Sites An individual may... Read more »

kchopson

Product Review: SpeakerBlast

SpeakerBlast

At a recent gathering of the Baltimore Tech Breakfast, I saw a demonstration of technology that could change the way A/V is used at events. The product is called SpeakerBlast and instead of using a central speaker system, it uses Internet connected devices as the broadcasting medium. So in lieu of the labor and expense of installing A/V hardware, the system sends the audio presentation through smartphones, laptops and tablets. A real life example of the technology was demonstrated at the Tech Breakfast. The most remarkable aspect of the demonstration was that the music always stayed in sync despite being... Read more »

kchopson

How Online Trade Show Floor Map and Exhibitor Management Software Can Improve Your Show

Trade Show

Did you know there is an easy way to drive trade show revenue, dramatically cut labor and paper costs, while at the same time marketing your exhibitors to your attendees? This great technology uses an interactive trade show floor map to achieve all these amazing results. Here are some of the features of such software. For the Exhibitor   The software produces a floor map of your show online with all the tables and booths.   For booths that are available for purchase, exhibitors can simply click on the booth and buy on the spot.   Anybody can see the... Read more »