Working Smarter By Christopher Durso

Take Away

Pages Without Pages

A new application successfully tested at two recent major medical shows is taking the e-reader from beach books to conference content

WhenBeth Croll,CMP,bought Barnes&Noble’s Nook electronic-book reader, it was supposed to be a Christmas present for her husband — a “technical guy”who“subscribes to lots of differ- ent journals and books,” said Croll, senior manag- er of the Scientific Sessions program for the Amer- ican Heart Association (AHA), “and every few years they publish a new edition.” But then came Scientific Sessions 2009, held on

Nov. 14–18 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, during which theAHApiloted OASIS, anewapplication fromCoe-TrumanTech- nologies thatmade its 550-page final program, as well as its exhibitor guide, available as e-book downloads fromthe 21,000-attendee event’shome- page. That meant that people with a Nook, an Amazon.com Kindle, a Sony Reader, an iPhone, or

2009, held on Oct. 17–21 atMcCormick Place in Chicago.Thecompanywasresponding toavariety of forces, Jenkins said, including greening, the desire to cut costs, and the need to move content more quicklyandfluidly.“There’s this intersectwherecon- tent is evolving,” Jenkins said.“The challengewas, we would survey association staff, and they were telling us consistentlythat they personally don’t use these devices.Wewerescratchingourheads, because we see plenty of attendeeswho appear to use their phones and othermobile devices to see content.” Coe-Truman’s instincts turned out to be pretty

good. Amazon hasn’t released sales figures for the Kindle—themost popular e-reader on themarket by far—butbusiness analysts have estimated that the company sold three million last year alone. Barnes&Noble debuted theNooklastOctober—

“I love to read, but when I buy a paper book, I feel guilty now.”

most other portable wireless devices could eschew hard-copy versions of the program and exhibitor guide infavor ofpaper-free, easilynavigable e-pubs. Or they could download e-reader software onto their laptops, and look at the pubs thatway. About 2,500 people visited the e-book section

on the Scientific Sessions homepage, according to Jon Jenkins, product manger for OASIS, with 684of themactuallydownloading thepublications —“which reflects 27 percent of conversions to download, which is great.” Behind the scenes, Croll herself was hooked.

“Since [Scientific Sessions 2009], … I love to read, but when I buy a paper book, I feel guilty now,” she said, laughing. “I feel like I’ve got to share it with multiple people or I’ve hurt a tree.” Coe-TrumanworkedonOASIS for a fewyears

beforedebutingit atbothScientific Sessions2009and the Society for Neuroscience’s (SfN) Neuroscience

only to announce amonth later that it was sold out for the holidays.Apple has sold more than 40 mil- lion iPhones worldwide since launching the device in 2007, and its iPad, announced in January, has generated a lot of buzz. Eventually,Coe-Trumangathered enough data

to approachsomeof its clients, including theAHA andSfN,abouttestingOASIS at their events. In addi- tion to being more environmentally friendly than printed materials, e-book pubs offer a certain ease of use —including search and bookmarking capa- bilities. That’s not an insignificant selling point when you’re talking about a 550-page program, evenona small screen. “Itwassurprising to see the uptake of basic session content on devices like the iPhone,”Jenkins said.“Whatwe’ve foundis that if you’realreadycarryingadevice with you, it’sapret- ty natural derivative to checkacalendar or program on that same device.”

ON_THE_WEB: Visit the AHA Scientific Sessions 2009 e-book portal at www.scientificsessions.org and the Neuroscience 2009 e-book portal at www.sfn.org/am2009. To learn more about Coe-Truman’s OASIS application, visit http://home.abstractsonline.com.

20 pcma convene March 2010 ILLUSTRATION BY GREG MABLY

Papered Over The e-book option at theAHA’s Scientific Sessions 2009 was as much about providing “one more electronic method” for attendees to access content as it was about saving the planet, according to Beth Croll,CMP. Not that greening

isn’t a priority for the AHA. “We are abso- lutely trying to partici- pate in the green initiative,” Croll said. “We’ve put together a plan of several things we’ve done and plan to do. [The e-book application] isn’t something we thought of, but it absolutely fits into this.” Is going completely

paperless in the future for theAHA? “Yes,” Croll said. “But not quite yet. Definitely a long-term goal.”

Christopher Durso is executive editor of Convene.

Working Smarter is sponsored by PSAV Presentation Services, www.psav.com.