ILLUSTRATION BY BECI ORPIN / THE JACKY WINTER GROUP

innovative meetings

‘We’ve set up a framework where we can specify the kinds of things we want to monitor and how frequently we want to look for them. We need to start mining this data, looking for interesting patterns.’

Power in Numbers Six-thousand developers attended Google I/O in person, in addition to 40,000-plus partici- pants in 440 viewing parties across 90 countries.

to monitor,” said Amy Unruh, a devel- oper programs engineer for the Google Cloud Platform, during Google I/O’s Data Sensing Lab session, “and how frequently we want to look for them. We need to start mining this data, look- ing for interesting patterns.” Google is laying the groundwork to gain valuable insights into the attendee experience. Both Cameron and Unruh stressed that they are still experiment- ing, and every event would use this technology differently, depending on the venue. “I think that is one of the ongoing challenges,” Cameron said,

“like how do you know how many [sen- sors] to put, and where do you put them, and how dense do you pack them in?”

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Sarah Beauchamp is an assistant editor of Convene.

42 PCMA CONVENE SEPTEMBER 2013

Taking Data to Heart Scanalytics, a company that pro- duces tools to monitor consumer engagement, recently deployed pressure-sensitive mats to track attendee foot trafic at the Heart Rhythm Society’s (HRS) Annual Scientific Sessions, held May 8–11 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver. Throughout the venue, mats placed in front of wayfinding kiosks with interac- tive touchscreens recorded how many people visited the kiosks and how long they stayed.

“What we did was monitor all the impressions that came by the kiosks and how those durations and impressions changed over time,” said Matt McCoy, co- founder of Scanalytics. Organizers of the conference wanted to know

“what the experience looked like,” McCoy said, “what [delegates’] tipping points were, and how they could arrange their content better for future shows, to make sure messages were being watched.”

While the touchscreens reported how many times a monitor was touched, without the mats, HRS would have been unable to tell exactly how many visitors stopped at each kiosk. The data from the nearly paper-thin, two-foot-by-three-foot, pressure- sensitive mats — which can be hidden under tiles, carpeting, graphics, or a sponsor’s logo — revealed that the number of people visiting the kiosks was three times what HRS and

Freeman, who worked with HRS on the annual meeting, had predicted. “We were floored by that,” said David Haas, director of technology solutions at Freeman.

“The reason we were so far off,” Haas said, “was because we weren’t accounting for the people who were standing on the mat but not engaging with the [interactive] sign.” With a much larger number to report, it’s easier for organizers to promote sponsorship opportunities in those high-trafic areas. “It told us, ‘Wow, there are a lot more impressions being made, and this sponsorship is a lot more valu- able than we thought it was.’”

Not only is this technology prom- ising for sponsorship dollars, it also can help organizers custom- ize and improve the attendee experience. Scanalytics can time videos so content begins as new attendees approach, and they can set parameters so if attend- ees linger, event staff receives texts alerting them to approach the delegates and engage them further. “We have to make these [kiosks] better,” Haas said. “If people are just looking and not touching the screen, then we need to do a better job of getting them engaged.” Plus, it’s more affordable than other data-col- lecting techniques. “The problem with RFID is that it comes with a price tag,” Haas said. “The mats are a more cost-eficient solution.”

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