Hannah

National Conference Center Releases White Paper Exploring Technology in Meetings

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Hannah
This entry was posted in Announcements, Audience Engagement, Events, Meeting Planning and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

 

The National Conference Center released their spring 2012 white paper, “Technology’s Secret Potential to Empower Participants and Make Meetings Better.” In interviews with Susan Abrams of IML Worldwide, technology expert Corbin Ball, and David Adler, CEO of BizBash, the white paper explores how planners and trainers globally have implemented new technology into their programs to increase audience engagement.

According to Sarah Vining, marketing manager at The National Conference Center, in new audience response systems with open-ended polling and text messaging, results have included gathering common company themes/concerns through candid responses, increased employee morale at the meeting, increased participation, and the ability for attendees to leave the session with actionable intelligence. On average, only 5% of attendees are willing to stand up and ask a question.

As revealed in the white paper, this new technology demonstrates its potential to gather valuable feedback and give shy attendees a voice in the meeting space.

Click here to read the white paper.

 

Richard

Never turn up to a gunfight with a spoon

Posted on March 8, 2012 by Richard
This entry was posted in Audience Engagement, Business Success, Meeting Planning and tagged , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

 

Audience engagement; the right tool for the right job.

Markets change, we see that everyday, sometimes it’s fashion and other times function. Our industry is at that point, it’s changing, new opportunities are being driven and this is opening up possibilities that were previously not recognized let alone addressed. We have to adapt and adopt where appropriate.

What is interesting is the proliferation of applications and devices that are seen as the panacea for engaging audiences; tablets, smartphones and even Blackberry. How quickly purpose built solutions are knocked by those pushing only these technologies.

At IML we are also delivering tablet solutions, we see they have great value in particular situations and this takes us into new market areas, giving us reach to provide additional value to clients. However, we still see great demand for solutions that have been designed specifically for events, meetings and conferences…why? Well mainly down to technical complexities, client preference and the particular problems that they want to solve; this is our focus and we know it is theirs.

We never want our clients to turn up with a spoon to a gunfight…..it’s not terribly effective.

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Hannah

ISE 2012: IML Worldwide Offers Content Generation for Events to Maximize Participant Interaction

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Hannah
This entry was posted in Announcements, Events. Bookmark the permalink.

 

IML was at Integrated Systems Europe (ISE), Europe’s number one show for AV professionals and electronic systems intergrators, over the past few days. Watch the live interview with IML’s CEO, Richard Fisher.

 

Hannah

Things have gotten personal in the world of meetings PA

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Hannah
This entry was posted in Announcements, Audience Engagement, Business Success, Events, Meeting Planning and tagged , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

 

The following article was featured in Australian AV Magazine and was written by Andy Ciddor.
  

IML Connector – Things have got personal in the world of meetings PA 

It’s not often appreciated that the reinforcement of ordinary speech from untrained speakers is among the most demanding of PA applications. When we listen to a song, if we miss a syllable or two, we can probably fill in the blanks from memory. But when somebody is speaking, we generally don’t know the lyrics, so we have to hear everything that’s being said; without echoes and delays. And it really helps intelligibility if what we hear is in full lip-sync with the speaker or their image on a screen. At the pinnacle of difficulty for spoken word reinforcement systems is the seminar or open forum. Not only does the speech come from the presenters at the front of the room, but questions and contributions may come from any point in the room and must be intelligible at every point in the room.

FANTASY PA

Let’s sketch out the specification for an ideal PA system. It would have absolutely perfect coverage, delivering ideal listening levels to every member of the audience. It would have zero delay to every ear in the room, and would have flat frequency coverage across the entire listening spectrum. You may have read your share of brochures promising just such a system, and you may even have spent money discovering that some of the laws of physics stubbornly refuse to yield to wishful thinking.

If you’ve given it much thought, you’ve probably worked out that the nearest you’ll ever get to this ideal PA is to hand every member of the audience their own pair of high quality headphones with a volume control. Every other PA you ever build will be a compromise. Whether it falls short in the areas of consistent levels, time alignment, reflected images, time delay or phase alignment, no big-bang (large source) PA really gets it all right for every listener in the house.

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Gerry

The Socratic Method applied to ARS

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Gerry
This entry was posted in Audience Engagement, Business Success, Meeting Planning and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

 

Well, it’s that time of year again…the end of year and holiday time. For some of us, work can be a busier, more chaotic place, for others the opposite. For those of you in the later group, things (at work) seem to move a little slower, deadlines are not as stringent and meetings are not as often. I am lucky enough to be in that group and found myself with a moment of extra thinking time. Using this time for good, as it is the holidays after all, I set out to find a topic for my next blog post. As I weaved through the threads that are the information super highway, I came upon an article which mentioned the Socratic Method. Being a generally curious person and having no idea what this method entailed, I probed deeper.  That said; I was not expecting the Socratic Method to be useful to me or have anything to do with meetings or events.

To my surprise it did, and it seemed that it could be quite useful in many types of meetings. Especially ones designed to be interactive and not stagnant. As I understand it, the Socratic Method is essentially a form of inquiry and debate between individuals to reach their collective “right” answers. It can also stimulate critical thinking and help to bring forth latent ideas through asking and answering questions. Brilliant. Doesn’t this seem to be a great way to generate conversation and promote learning?

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Victoria

Why Meetings Are Critical to Corporate Success

Posted on December 12, 2011 by Victoria
This entry was posted in Business Success, Meeting Planning and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

 

The current status of the economic world is tumultuous at best. Every day stocks are rising, stocks are falling, budgets are being cut, concessions are being made and businesses and people are left to make some very tough decisions. One of the tough decisions that comes with cutting corners in the office, is deciding whether or not you have to cut meetings.  Do meetings help your business thrive or should your limited staff be spending time elsewhere? I would argue meetings are perhaps more important than ever in a struggling economy. Here are four reasons not to let them fall off the map when it comes to the efficiency of you, your business, your employees, your coworkers, your prospects, your clients and everyone else:

1.  Meetings can help to create a sense of community among team members. Not all meetings have to be based around a problem-and-solution scenario. Meetings can and should be scheduled to keep the members of your work team in contact with one another. It is much more difficult to ask for assistance on a project from someone who feels like a stranger than it is to ask the same from someone who is an asset and a partner in the office.

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Simon

Text Vote Talk vs. PowerPoint

Posted on November 17, 2011 by Simon
This entry was posted in Audience Engagement, Business Success, Events, Meeting Planning and tagged , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

 

Having been in the meetings and events game for many years, I’ve too often seen wasted opportunities at meetings.  You have your best people there, or you’ve paid for your best clients to be there, and what do we do?  We talk at them for 3 days, PowerPoint slide after slide after slide…

The learning opportunities, both for you to impart knowledge on your audience, but perhaps more importantly, for you to learn from them, are huge.  We see the likes of www.sophia.org suggest a new approach in the education world to learn from one another, as opposed to students learning from a single ‘teacher.’  The same can be applied to the meetings industry; think presenter instead of teacher, and audience instead of students.  You do require tools to do this of course, like the IML Connector, an advanced audience response system that has the capabilities to go beyond voting and start a real discussion among attendees in the controlled and focused manner that business meetings demand.  It is in your best interest, after all the time and money invested in your meeting, to harness that collective knowledge, or as James Surowiecki puts it “the wisdom of crowds,” in his bestseller of the same name.

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Matt

Engaging an Audience in a New World

Posted on October 28, 2011 by Matt
This entry was posted in Audience Engagement, Business Success, Events and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

 

I started my speaking career over 7 years ago as fresh faced 23 year old having just returned from my first expedition to Antarctica.

At that point in time I knew nothing of the industry; keynotes, half days, facilitation techniques, presentation skills, agents, commissions, direct work, and most importantly, I knew nothing about my audience and what I was supposed to do with them.

7 years later, do I know about my audiences? Well, definitely not everything. But I have learned some valuable lessons throughout those years and I would like to share some tips with you on how to engage and inspire an audience.

Research, Research, Research
Speakers and presenters can find themselves in front of a variety of audiences. From advertising executives in NYC one day, to farmers in the Midwest the next, to a sporting team in Australia the following week – no 2 audiences are the same. Thus research into the audience is essential to maximizing engagement and ensuring your message is well-received.

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Michelle

How to Use Event Time Effectively

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Michelle
This entry was posted in Business Success, Events, Meeting Planning and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

 

Any type of big event is a hive of activity. People are rushing from one corner to another, trying to absorb as much information as they can as quickly as they can. Questions are asked rapidly, contact information is swapped via mobile devices and the entire event center takes on the buzzing of hundreds or thousands of people trying to accomplish goals and make connections. When you’re trying to catch the attention of someone in this type of situation, it is incredibly difficult and to be successful there are a number of things you have to take into consideration to reach your goals, such as:

1.  Event scheduling. If you want to use your time at an event effectively, you have to be aware of everything that is going on at all times. Don’t plan demos or speakers that will attract the similar types of people at the same time. Don’t schedule a session that requires a great deal of audience participation mid-morning when people are statistically most involved in other ventures and activities. Being aware of the flow of an event helps you to work within and manipulate that flow.
 
2.  Planning.  Keeping an audience’s attention is a difficult task, so watch out for poorly planned downtime between speakers or activities. If people are left with too much time to wander, they might get distracted by the prospect of other activities and leave your event for something else. Keep downtime scheduled, short and still engaging with food and beverage to keep people at your event and occupied. Make sure the breaks aren’t too long so they get bored or too short so they feel rushed. Finding the perfect amount of time for a break will take some cause and effect research and will take time to perfect.

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Victoria

Event Technology and 2 Key Considerations for Engaging Audiences

Posted on October 3, 2011 by Victoria
This entry was posted in Events, Meeting Planning and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

 

From PowerPoint presentations to lecture halls to animated presenters, after a while just about every event planning staple starts to feel a bit stale. If you aim to gain and maintain your attendees’ attention, you’ll have to do more than recycle the same tired methods. Spark enthusiasm in your audience by making use of the best in event technology.

EventView found in a 2009 survey that 50% of respondents, chiefly marketing and sales managers, chose event marketing as the discipline that best accelerates and deepens relationships. Suffice it to say, it’s worthwhile to discover and deploy best practices that make meetings and events more effective and efficient.

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