The BusyEvent Blog

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.  – - –

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