the monthly #builtheritage Twitter chats, but there was a real-life tweetup the first night of the conference that was great for connecting with the social-media-savvy group. I had a few people reach out to me during the conference and wanted to meet face-to-face because of the tweets I posted.”

CISCOLIVE! ciscolive.com At CiscoLive!, no tweet goes unan- swered. Dedicated social-media moni- tors respond within one minute. “We’ve had all kinds of responses, like ‘There’s these wizards behind CiscoLive!,’ said Kathy Doyle, director of global cus- tomer conferences at Cisco Systems Inc. Four years ago, Doyle said, Cisco got “really aggressive with social media,” in order to make delegates and part- ners more aware and engaged with the event. “On site, it’s a really important element of the event,” she said. “We actually have a Social Media Hub.” The program began as a customer-service

initiative, where social-media monitors would watch all the conversations hap- pening online and address attendees’ needs. “We found that the customers were getting so interested and engaged with it that we brought it out to public areas.” Now CiscoLive!’s sleek Social Media Hub broadcasts all tweets onto large screens. “They can see their own tweet on all the monitors throughout the convention center,” Doyle said. “It’s actually created more and more con- versation amongst the attendees. We also have tweetups in the social-media lounge, so it’s a great way to network with their peers, not only in a virtual environment, but also face-to-face.”

TEAM-BUILDING GAMES USING TEXTING AND TWITTER geoteaming.com When hundreds of people need to come to one final agreement, it’s difficult for every voice to be heard. John Chen, CEO of Geoteaming, a company that creates team-building treasure hunts using GPS

technology, engages attendees by having them text or tweet answers to questions projected on screens, promoting collabo- ration. “In a recent conference,” Chen said, “we gained a general idea [of what attendees were interested in] from an open-ended question, then I modified a poll on the fly using the largest categories that were given, and allowed a whole room to set the priority for the year for an association. We did it all in 30 minutes or less, and it was based off of the group’s information, not just one person decid- ing, ‘This is what we should do.’” Chen also uses text and Twitter response with Geoteaming’s GooseChase app, which he employed with 1,800 participants at the 2012 MPI World Education Congress, held in St. Louis last July. GooseChase’s photo scavenger hunt connected to attendees’ Twitter accounts, sharing photos of the event. “All these other net- works of people are learning about the conference,” Chen said. “It’s a great way to create interaction with your audience without it having to cost a lot.”

46 PCMA CONVENE AUGUST 2013

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