©2012 Corbin Ball
13 Meeting Predictions for
2013
novations bubbling up to help meeting plan- ners, exhibitors, venues and attendees to do their jobs better. This annual review covers many of the ma-
T
jor events tech trends to watch for this com- ing year.
1. Meetings technology will continue to get cheaper and easier to use. This trend in software programming is
driven by continued advances in web services and open-source technology. This makes it easier, cheaper and faster to create, distribute and use technology to help in meeting plan- ning. There are hundreds of free, freemium, low cost, and do-it-yourself (DIY) options providing lower costs and more flexibility for planners. Examples include ConstantCon- tact’s new Online Event Registration starting at $20/month, a small fraction of typical on- line registration costs. Guidebook offers a free meeting DIY mobile guide app with up to 500 downloads per event. Google Hangouts On Air offers free multipoint video conferencing, steaming and recording. Joomla provides free web site building and content management tools with over 9,000 plugins. …just to name a few! These forces are also driving mobile app development with hundreds of thousands of
12
hese are exciting times. The rate of technology change is accelerating with thousands of ideas, apps and in-
free or very low cost apps available; many of them are a great help to meeting professionals. 2. iPads and tablets will make paperless conference binder a reality. The days of finding the event planner
by looking for the person carrying the thick 3-ring binder full of paper are rapidly drawing to a close. Meeting planners are trading their heavy paper “conference bibles” for svelte iPads and other tablets. These light, portable, instant-on, GPS-capable devices with large, high-resolution screens and with a host of free and very low cost apps make accessing and editing conference-related documents pos- sible. See The Paperless Conference Binder - Using Tablet Computers and iPads at Events for more detail including a listing of many of these apps. 3. Paper will not be needed for conference attendees. Paper event programs and exhibition
guides go out of date almost the minute they are printed. In addition, they are heavy, static, difficult to search, costly to print/ship, and re- quire chopping down trees. These paper pro- grams and guides usually end up in landfills. Mobile event guide apps are light, searchable, updatable, and interactive providing a much richer event experience for attendees. There are a host of options to improve the attendee experience including
Midwest Meetings Guide Book 2013
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