The BusyEvent Blog

Apps Based Lead Retrieval – Why They Don’t Work

On a recent LinkedIn thread, the question was asked: “What kind of lead retrieval systems are being used at trade shows now?  I am hearing about apps that are like a lead retrieval system available on iPhones, Droids, etc…Thoughts?”

The good news is that with the plethora of personal technology, the entire lead management process can now – and some say FINALLY – be flipped on its head to provide exhibitors with truly qualified leads and event producers with tremendous amounts of actionable and monetizable information.  The bad news is that, with one notable exception, the lead management landscape remains much like it has for the past several decades – albeit with new shiny objects.

Here’s our thoughts . . .

Hi there <<Name Withheld>>

There’s a reason that upwards of 80% of the leads available from a trade show are NEVER FOLLOWED UP WITH!!!

Some things to consider:

• The technology of lead retrieval has gone from a hand shake, to notes scribbled on the back of business cards, to fish bowls, to touch screens to bar code swipers, to card scanners and now phones.  The problem?   Unfortunately, all they give the exhibitor is a list of people that stopped by their booth.  Are a list of people that got scanned at a booth truly a list of qualified leads? (READ: “Tradeshows . . . Where Good Leads Go To Die“)

• Here’s a typical lead management scenario: The attendee goes up to the booth and the exhibitor has to ‘activate’ them with a tool.  How many lead opportunities are missed because the attendee doesn’t have the time, doesn’t want to bother, never made it to the booth, or, they met the exhibitor in the restaurant, in the hallway or in the bar where the lead retrieval technology isn’t working?  Today’s technologies are all passive. (READ: “Are Your Event Attendees Lying To You?“)

• EVERY one of the phone based technologies simply collects who got ’scanned’.  NONE of them (with one notable exception) provide you information on how interested the attendee is, by telling the exhibitor if the attendee viewed or interacted with their products or services – before, during or after the event.  How valuable would it be if the exhbitor could actually ‘track, measure and report’ on who interacted with their information?

• Why is it incumbent on the exhibitor to activate the attendee after the attendee finally approaches them?  What would it mean if the attendee had the power to express interest in exhibitors without the exhibitor having to do anything? (READ: “Are Unqualified Leads Balancing Your Event’s Bottom Line?“)

There are numerous other parts to this discussion and the failures of the current crop of technologies masquerading as qualified lead management tools:

• The ‘green’ element,
• The cost of giving a list of contacts to the ’spam/cold call’ sales force
• The ’scan and wait’ versus the ‘real-time activation’ of an attendee to receive information NOW
• . . . and many others  are all significantly important to this discussion.

Find out how to solve the above and overcome the costs associated with buying the ’show provided’ solution by turning your smart phone – ANY smart phone – into a BeLinker, NOW (oh, btw, there’s nothing to download or install):  http://www.busyevent.com/belinker

Information about the core BeLinker System and BeLinker On Keypad is available at: http://j.mp/BeLinkerOnKeypad

Information about the expanded BeLinker On Mobile Platform on:
- ANY smart phones (no applications to install or downloads required) and
- ANY internet connected device via cellular, wifi and hardwire is available at: http://j.mp/BeLinkerMobile

Haven’t had enough? There’s even more . . . learn how to monetize your meetings and access the BeLinker System: Visit www.BusyEvent.com

——————————————————————–

The Old Way is Broken.

We’ll Pay You to Fix It!

Tens of thousands of event attendees already use BeLinker, the most powerful, hand held, mobile and social media platform for events, worldwide!

Now, help your event attendees connect to people, products and information and create more profits for your event – at the press of a button!

Get your share of the $55,000 BusyEvent Stimulus Package and finally get what every event producer really wants, 1 – money in your pocket and 2 – the inside scoop on your event!

Calculate your event’s ROI and
get your share of BusyEvent’s $55,000 Giveaway

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

No Longer A Secret – BusyEvent Announces Release of BeLinker On Mobile

St. Louis, MO – August 13, 2010

BusyEvent, the leader in live event solutions, has successfully launched the 3rd generation of its event communications system, BeLinker On Mobile.

“Right now technology developers are bringing out all kinds of ideas, hoping the market will accept them.  Those tools are typically good at doing one thing well, or require a download, or only work on a single phone system (like the iPhone) and that’s where BeLinker On Mobile is different” said BusyEvent CEO David Schenberg.

By providing tools that impact the business purposes for an event, BeLinker seamlessly integrates Audience Response, Lead Tracking, Document and Session Management and Social Networking from a single integrated system.

Developed for face-to-face and virtual events, BeLinker On Mobile enables a new level of connectivity, and engagement while generating increased profitability from new and existing revenue streams and provides every event participant using ANY internet connected device, real-time access to their personalized event information portal.

With nothing to download or install, event participants can collect and store their connections with people, products and information and access their Virtual Totebag using:

• ANY smart phone (iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Symbian, etc.),
• ANY internet connected device (iPad, laptops, desktops and Netbooks) as well as
• The original BeLinker Wireless Keypad introduced in 2008.

Decades of event experience have gone into the creation of BeLinker On Mobile.  By first looking at what event producers, corporate event professionals and attendees have been asking for, BusyEvent is providing a complete package of tools that no other single system offers today, which includes:

1. communication with their attendees in real-time
2. event adjustments on the fly
3. tapping into the secret conversations (social networking) at an event
4. voting, polling and audience response included
5. providing a lead management system that generates leads instead of just a list
6. ‘greening’ of the event with access to event materials, speaker presentations and exhibitor brochures in a “Virtual Totebag” system and
7. extending the event beyond the 3 days and 4 walls into the virtual and hybrid event space.

Most recently used by more than 5,000 attendees of the Domino’s Pizza 50th Anniversary Rally, BeLinker enhanced audience response, face-to-face social networking, lead management, document and session management. The Domino’s event team effectively managed thousands of event details in real time through the secure BusyEvent dashboard system.   Client Chris Brandon was quoted saying, “I was floored by how everything went all week – and considering record event attendance and a new property we’ve never worked at before, it really is a testament to the job you guys did.”



Information about the core BeLinker System and BeLinker On Keypad is available at: http://j.mp/BeLinkerOnKeypad

Information about the expanded BeLinker On Mobile Platform on:
- ANY smart phones (no applications to install or downloads required) and
- ANY internet connected device via cellular, wifi and hardwire is available at: http://j.mp/BeLinkerMobile

Haven’t had enough?  There’s even more . . . learn how to monetize your meetings and access the BeLinker System: Visit www.BusyEvent.com

——————————————————————–

The Old Way is Broken.

We’ll Pay You to Fix It!

Tens of thousands of event attendees already use BeLinker, the most powerful, hand held, mobile and social media platform for events, worldwide!

Now, help your event attendees connect to people, products and information and create more profits for your event – at the press of a button!

Get your share of the $55,000 BusyEvent Stimulus Package and finally get what every event producer really wants, 1 – money in your pocket and 2 – the inside scoop on your event!

Calculate your event’s ROI and
get your share of BusyEvent’s $55,000 Giveaway

Well, he’s done it again.

Richard Feldman, has stirred the pot once again in the LinkedIn Virtual Events and Meeting Technology group by asking the question:  Will running an online event in conjunction with a physical event cannibalize my face-to-face attendance or enhance it?

It’s a great question and a topic that’s been blunting the full-fledged embrace of virtual tools by the events industry.  As we ad smart phone capability to the BeLinker software platform, the discussion of revenue possibilities, profitability and ‘eyeballs’ has been a frequent one with our clients.

Here are our thoughts!

The good news is, there’s already a model for creating virtual access to live events.

• It’s highly successful,
• Massively profitable
• Growing exponentially every year and
• It is a model for the events industry!

Back in the 60s, professional sports leagues were having this very same debate; would televising games in the local city cannibalize attendance?  Some early experimentation led to 72-hour blackouts until it became clear that the answer was NO, it won’t cost ‘onsite’ eyeballs.  Instead, what was found is that adding ‘virtual’ channels and enabling hybrid participation expanded the audience, creating more revenue and turned time-based content into infinitely accessible, monetizable content.

Much like any sporting event, some people will want to go to the live event, some will want to watch it on TV (their computer) and still others will want to pick-and-choose their highlights later.  For each of those audiences, there is a channel (the venue, the web cast + Twitter and then videos-on-demand).

Each of those audiences can be served and each of them bring revenue and marketing opportunities which is good for the attendees (”I was there but didn’t quite hear the presentation”), good for the event producer (creating additional revenue by providing access to content) and especially good for the exhibitors and sponsors (marketing and exposure well past the end of an event plus the ability to generate once and utilize content well into the future).

The hard reality is, if the event producer doesn’t provide a virtual channel, the event attendees are going to create one anyway.  Wouldn’t it be better to promote and take advantage of its possibilities rather than continue to bury your head in the sand, ignoring what’s really going on around your event?

Given our experiences utilizing the mobile BeLinker platform, that question has been asked and answered dozens of times.  In the case of each of our clients, that answer is a unanimous “YES” to hybrid events.

Want to learn more about your event ROA? Take the BusyEvent $55,000 ROI Challenge and we’ll show you how to help your exhibitors leverage your attendee’s actions and take advantage of an event’s hybrid possibilities!

More importantly . . . can you tell when they are because, they probably don’t mean to.

When asked, most attendees will tell you what they hope to accomplish, what they plan to do and how they intend to maximize their event experience. . . in reality, they don’t have a clue.

Ask any exhibitor what they really want to know and they’ll tell you “give me data on what my prospect is actually doing – show me the action”!   An event attendees actions, then, become the true measure of their desires because nothing else matters – not even what they say.

Measuring and reporting on action, calculating Return on Action (ROA) and providing exhibitors with tools to impact their ROA at an event, is the most important aspect that event planners can leverage.  Unfortunately, with a focus on ROI and ROO people get confused by what they’re measuring and what creates value.  It’s time to face some hard facts:

• According to Brian J. Carroll upwards of 90% of event exhibitors don’t have a lead management and qualifications process and simply show up to an event/tradeshow and hope for the best.
• Zadsol Solutions found that 43% of tradeshow attendees received relevant information AFTER a buying decision had been made.
• And the hardest fact of all . . . according to CEIR, 80% of tradeshow leads are never followed up on.

Said another way, “there’s no ‘there’, there”.  Here’s a typical scenario:

1. An exhibitor goes to an event and comes back with 1,000 contacts (RFID hits, bar code scanned list tape, fish bowl business cards, etc..).
2. The old way would say that’s a good thing.
3. However, based on the hard facts, it’s probably a very bad thing. . . . frankly the worst thing that could happen to a sales force because nearly all of those leads are under qualified, acquired by the wrong incentives and are proximity based (rather than action based).

So, what are proximity based leads?

Someone enters an exhibitor’s booth and their badge gets scanned.  Or, someone drops their business card in a fish bowl because the exhibitor offers a prize, there’s a scribbled note (”follow up with Bob”) on the back of each business card and probably the worst offender, the RFID system told the exhibitor that a particular person with a particular title dwelled in their booth longer than the average – is proximity really activity?   Tragically, each of these contacts came to the exhibitor’s booth, soaked up the event specialist’s time, took a brochure and probably ate a few Jolly Ranchers – before moving on with the exhibitor’s time and money and candy!

At its core, the old events model is permanently broken due to a variety of influences and the keepers of the status quo are trying to keep it that way.  Whenever you hear someone talk about ‘proximity’ information, which typically sounds pretty cool (”You’ll know exactly where all the people walked on the tradeshow floor”), make sure to ask the business question “how does that help my exhibitor accomplish their goals“?

The silence will be deafening.

– – -  In the first article in the BusyEvent “Fixing the Problem” series (If the Events Model is Broken, What Will Work In Its Place), we focused on where we’ve been. Next in our series of posts on “Fixing the Problem” we’ll address exactly what ROA is and most importantly, what it isn’t!  – – –

Want to learn more about your event ROA?

Take the BusyEvent $55,000 ROI Challenge and we’ll show you how to help your exhibitors leverage your attendee’s actions!

We’ve seen it before.

When the internet first started, every company had to have a web site – until someone finally asked the question “why”?

In marketing, they’re known as early adopters and thank heavens for them . . . because they’ll shake the bugs out of the system and either give it enough breath to live past its early days of growth (Twitter) or kill it and move on to something else (Friendfind).

In the events industry, we’re living in a similar ‘early adopter’ phase when it comes to shiny objects – specifically, mobile and the plethora of applications providers searching for a way to wedge their solutions into the event planners world.

On the opposite side of that gold rush is the status quo (What Part of Status Quo Don’t We Understand?) whose old guard are fighting tooth and nail to maintain their position and keep things the way they’ve always been.

And, just like in real life, the best solution is usually somewhere in the middle – not acting hastily while also managing innovation-stifling analysis paralysis.

Which brings us to Richard Feldman’s recent question on LinkedIn:  TOPIC: Using onsite technology to bridge the gap between physical and virtual events.  I have done some research into vendors in the on-site networking technology space and have found two . . . I have invited both of them to comment on their technology, both hardware and software.

In response to that invitation, BusyEvent CEO, David Schenberg outlined the difference between an event planners goals and those of an event technology provider – and in doing so, overviews the operational and financial reasons to provide your attendees and exhibitors with an onsite technology that allows them to:

• do what they want to do,
• where they want to do it,
• with the tools they choose to use.

————-

Richard – Thanks for the opportunity to comment.

There are a few conversations going on surrounding this topic right now. The hottest one is in direct response to the flurry of mobile tools that have discovered how to play in the event space. In general, mobile assumes the following things are present to be successful:

1. Everyone has a smart phone and is ready to use it at an event.
2. The venue holding the event is cellular accessible.
3. The attendees are tech savvy enough to want to use their smart phone.
4. Attendees want to spend their time “heads down” in their phone building social networking tidbits to contribute to the collective.

If you look at high-profile events like SXSW where some of these “one trick pony” mobile tools were available, they were only used by a small % of the audience.

Which is why a solution looking for a problem, doesn’t work in the events space.  For live event technology to be a success it really should be:

1. Available to and usable by to at least 80% of the audience.
2. On the attendees choice of their device (smart phone, PC) or one offered by the event (ex: BeLinker keyfob).
3. Usable by the attendees without them needing to do anything to get and create value – other than registering for the event – to enable basic participation.
4. Easy to use without creating a “partial attention span” audience.

There are some excellent technologies available in a few vertical markets but integrating 3 or more of those is an event planner’s nightmare.  There are also some well integrated solutions in the $35-$75 per attendee price range, but that may not be feasible for an event of 3,000+ people.

So, there needs to be a happy medium of easy to use, a solid list of expected features and a reasonable price that allows an event planner to provide a good solution and create additional profitability.  Oh, and the data should be usable before, during and most importantly AFTER the event, feeding back into the client’s business processes.

As events look at how to cut their costs and fundamentally re-engineer the flow of revenue from 3rd party vendors BACK into their own pockets, fluffy features that don’t get used and don’t have a business purpose aren’t going to save an event any money and will eventually be dropped because of their shiny object nature.

By partnering with a company that has decades of event experience, rather than a technology provider looking for a problem to solve, an event planner will find a specific solution for their event, and the event industry’s need.

– - -  In the first article in the BusyEvent “Fixing the Problem” series (If the Events Model is Broken, What Will Work In Its Place), we focused on where we’ve been.  Next, in the first of a series of posts, we turn our attention to measurement and the false expectations that a focus on Return on Investment and Return on Objective create.  – - –

Want to learn more about your event ROA?

Take the BusyEvent $55,000 ROI Challenge and we’ll show you how to help your exhibitors leverage your attendee’s actions!

An interview with BusyEvent CEO & Co-Founder – David J. Schenberg

When did you start the company?:  August, 2006

What do you sell?:  A traditional expo, tradeshow, conference, congress or meeting comes with a high-level of inefficiency, uncertainty and expense.   Our BeLinker product enables the delivery of value to each participant.

Through a combination of Professional event services Software as a service an On-site event hardware . . . we deliver tangible and measurable ROI.

Imagine going to an event and being able to:

• Efficiently collect all of the people, products and ideas that you were interested in and then,
• Rather than trying to carry home a tower of business cards and loads of brochures you could
• Login to your Virtual Totebag, reach out, connect, share and learn more about the things you were interested in.

That’s BeLinker and it’s now available on mobile devices.

Describe the typical person who buys what you sell?:  Event and meeting planners, marketing professionals, associations, event production companies, corporate event planners and event owners.

How many people like that exist in your market?:  The event industry, in just the US, is made up of more than 3,500 unique events per year that have attendance of +/- 2,000 attendees, per event.  There are thousands of event professionals that would consider our technology in helping run those events, if they just knew about it.  In some cases as many as 3 different parties might consider our tools for the same show because we cross several vertical markets.
Why should people buy from you as opposed to your competitors?:  Buyers have a choice:  They can procure from 4-6 different suppliers and manage the communications between those teams and databases or they can choose BusyEvent and have one platform to manage it all.  BeLinker, which is our premier product, has been actively sold and purchased since May, 2009.

To date, we have supported more than a dozen events in the US, Europe and Asia.

If I had a magic wand and could grant you one wish what would it be?: 60 sales professionals to call on every event 30 days after it ends to get them talking about how we can help them make their next event cost less and deliver more measurable benefits for everyone involved.
If that wish were granted tonight while you are asleep, what are three things people would notice have changed when they come to work tomorrow?:

1. The owners would be more relaxed and pleasant
2. Doughnuts
3. Starbucks instead of Folgers

This week, Bob and Pat of the Startup Success Podcast interview friend of the show David Schenberg, CEO and co-founder of BusyEvent about new events technologies that change the equation both for organizers and attendees.

David shares his insights on why being first matters, not being afraid of creating a hardware-based barrier to entry for potential competitors and choosing a business that can scale.

We’d also like to thank Microsoft WebsiteSpark for being our first official show sponsor!  Microsoft WebsiteSpark and StartupToDo.com have free Microsoft software for designers and a six month scholarship to StartupToDo.com you may be interested in.

Download Show #68 or if you prefer, Subscribe to the podcast in Apple iTunes.

Bob Walsh is on Twitter at http://twitter.com/bobwalsh or you can email him at bob.walsh@47hats.com.

Patrick Foley is on Twitter at http://twitter.com/patrickfoley or you can email him at patrick.foley@microsoft.com

URLs mentioned/relevant to this show:

• The BusyEvent BeLinker System
• Demo competition for CEMA (Corporate Event Marketing Assn.) where BusyEvent won the Technology shootout against other event technologies.
• Microsoft Tag
• The BusyEvent Blog
• Get your share of the $55,000 BusyEvent Stimulus Package

If you follow the #Eventprofs chat on Twitter for even a few days, you’ll quickly see that some of the smartest people in the world (not just the events world) are looking at how to use tools and new techniques to re-invent the events industry, in real time.

As a company that uses enabling technologies to execute solutions, take advantage of opportunities and solve problems, we’re big fans of industries and companies that have faced what the events industry is facing, figured out a way to ‘re-engineer’ themselves and grow to even greater heights.

Examples such as our client Domino’s Pizza and their “New Pizza” campaign, Amazon.com with their ‘never say quit’ attitude, Twitter with it’s significant outage issues early in its growth and others certainly have great lessons to learn from.

It’s also intriguing to watch an industry as it re-invents itself right in front of our eyes, much like what’s going on with the traditional media and newspaper industry, the venture capital markets, the auto and financial industry and so many others, today.

In his Writings About the Internet Blog, Clay Shirky provides some interesting insights from the newspaper industry that parallel the events industry of today in his post: “Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable”.

Below, excerpts from his article edited with an events focus (our edits in parenthesis).

“If the old model is broken, what will work in its place? . . . “To which the answer is:  Nothing.

Nothing will work.  There is no general model for (events) to replace the one the (economy, technology, social networking and the need for efficiencies) has broken.”

“With the old economics destroyed, old (events) practices perfected for an era of big budgets and marginal returns have to be replaced with those optimized for a new economic, social, cultural and technological era.   It makes increasingly less sense even to talk about an (events) industry, because the core problem (events) solve — the incredible difficulty, complexity, and expense of (meeting people and engaging with other people) — has stopped being a problem.”

“When someone demands to be told how we are going to (revitalize the events industry), they are really demanding to be told:

1. That we are not living through a revolution.
2. That old systems won’t break before new systems are in place.
3. That ancient social bargains aren’t in peril.
4. That core institutions will be spared and that
5. New methods of (meeting and engaging) will improve the previous practices rather than upend them.

In essence, they’re demanding to be lied to.

For the events industry to weather the current storm (which started at least a decade ago), learn the necessary lessons from it and to once again thrive, initiatives like “Keep America Meeting“, the flood of smart phones, or simple devices that don’t generate anything other than an electronic list, proximity without any Return on Action or worse yet, simply a map, are stop gap.  They certainly won’t be enough.

Why?

Because the events industry won’t ever look like it once did.

• Improved ROIs, will have to be there.
• A focus on ROA (Return on Action) rather than proximity or expression of interests, will have to be there.
• Real engagement, will have to be there.
• Events will have to transform from 3 day ‘occasions’ to year-long face-to-face and virtual sources of opportunity and
• the costs, like drayage, shipping, outrageously priced services, etc . . . that’s all going to have to change.

Those that are ready to answer that call are what the future of the events industry will be.  For those stuck in the ‘old way’, or for those driving so far ahead of the rest of the crowd that they can no longer be seen, the march of the dinosaur’s has already begun.  Rather than a clarion call or siren’s song, what we’re hearing in the wind is our clients telling us that we’re going to have to be better for them and for the future of us.

With our focus on what the future holds and our experience implementing solutions to event industry issues, yes, we’ve got ideas (for instance, the BeLinker).

In our next series of posts we’ll be sharing what we’ve seen work in both the near term as well as for the long term future.

Watch this space for the series titled: “Fixing the Problem”.

And, if you’re interested in learning how to maximize your event ROI, reduce costs by up to 50% and produce a better event?

Contact BusyEvent CEO David Schenberg
eMail: dschenberg -at- busyevent -dot- com
Direct Phone: 888.788.4896 x111

We’ve always admired people that follow their convictions – and sometimes their families – to far flung places in support of the bigger picture.  Especially when those people are smart, open-minded and excited to share their knowledge and contribute to the larger discussion.

Samuel J. Smith is one of those people and it’s why his is one of the blogs we look to for insights and inspiration.   And, the good news is he’s baaaaack from Switzerland, having recently moved to Minneapolis, so something as simple as a phone call doesn’t involve time-zone coordination.

Through his blog and participation in the twice weekly #eventprofs Twitter chat, Sam’s is one of the voices asking the pertinent questions, challenging event professionals to be better, think smarter and focus on value, ROI and universal usefulness.

Because he doesn’t get caught up in the “shiny object” syndrome (or as Warwick Davies puts it, “adopting what’s cool without creating a business case for it“), Sam’s Interactive Meeting Technology blog is a collection of some of the most insightful original thinking about the use of technology to create dialogue with delegates.

And that core capability of BeLinker is what Sam writes about in his latest blog post, Is Your Mingle Stick Poken Attendees in the BeLinker?

Without getting lost in how to use Twitter at your conference, or coming up with a list of conference ideas for business, Sam leverages his broad knowledge of the events industry, attendee trends and the way proprietary devices can be used at events to enhance simple, but meaningful, sponsorship revenue and business driving, goals.

It’s clear that event producers want tools that:

1. accomplish real business goals
2. are easy and fun to use and
3. have a bit of ‘cool factor’ too.

We’re also looking forward to the evolution of BusyEvent in an environment where people like Sam, Warwick and so many other event professionals are working on the real issues at the heart of the events industry.

This is not an article about the new amazing Twitter App for your 4G iPhone

• Two years ago it was all about Green Meetings.
• 2009 was the year of explosive growth in social networking to bolster PR, Marketing and anything else because budgets were being hacked.
• Spring 2010 has a blooming love affair with anything social AND mobile.

Combine the words Social Media and Mobile and money will fall from the sky and land on your startup company, supposedly.  Which brings me to the primary question…why ARE we so enamored by mobile applications?

I own an iPhone and appreciate the fun and function of it all.  But I think the excitement for software providers is expressed as a percentage of all phones in existence (smart phones are fast approaching a third of all handsets).

If I’m the maker of an app that sells for $1, then this is a tempting business model.  However, if I’m counting on 80% or more of a group to have a smart phone to support a live event application, we’re probably out of luck.

For the most part this is still a science experiment akin to the early Internet days when the idea of a website was more important than the site itself.  In the panic to launch a mobile application we cannot forget the natural thing we’re trying to help make better.

For example, exchanging a business card has turned into bumping two phones together except when one of those phones is a Blackberry.  If mobile applications are to become useful for business, they need to work on just about any phone…even the no-so-smart phones.

We have enjoyed the recent flood of new ideas and applications hitting the market.  We are inspired and preparing to launch some of our own elegant and powerful tools that meet the business goals of our clients.

The next few years will require a hybrid model of live event hardware and mobile applications to satisfy the audience preference as well as the unexpected coverage and power issues we are still seeing in many event facilities.

Maybe 2011 will be the year of Hybrid tools!  We look forward to that.