Every conference attendee needs to network, keep track of information, and manage conference information in one place, and now SpotMe makes all of that happen in one place in addition to offering a whole lot more.
SpotMe is a handheld device—about the size of a smart phone—that is given out to conference attendees and provides a simple way to communicate, meet new people, and to keep track of sales leads and conference information.
One conference describes the advantages of SpotMe as the following:
SpotMe combines:
• Social networking
• Messaging
• People radar, with unique “spotting” function and electronic business card exchange
• Personalized conference agenda
• Hotel maps and room locator
• Lead retrieval
• Post-conference download of all data collected
Meet More People
From conference attendee profiles to radar that alerts you when someone you want to meet is nearby, SpotMe cuts down on the amount of time you’ll spend by yourself.
In fact, SpotMe ensures you can meet all of the important clients and colleagues attending a conference and keep track of everyone’s contact information on your SpotMe device for download after the event.
Donna Sanford paints the following scenario at Expo Web: “Picture it. You’re attending a 2,000-person event, and you’ve been handed a device that lets you slice and dice the reg list to identify the 20 people you’d most like to meet.
When one of them gets within 30 feet of you, the device vibrates to tell you they’re nearby. Conversely, you see someone headed your way but can’t recall her name. Don’t panic. Check your device for her name, title and company.”
Keep Track of Conference Details
Besides providing a simple and compact conference schedule and workshop details, SpotMe can be used to create a customized schedule. The days of carrying around a large binder at a conference are on their way out.
Abhishek Baxi writes at Techi Buzz about using SpotMe at a conference in 2011: “The attendee features and location functionality make for supercharged networking experience using the device. The device also facilitates logistics and information dissemination by providing maps, navigation, agenda and venue information, and other event details.”
Convenience
Sheerin Florio of SpotMe’s United States operation suggests that the best part of SpotMe is the convenience of having all of your conference tools in one place.
She shared in an interview:
“There is a messaging feature that’s quite similar too an e-mail or an instant messaging, so some you can access snaps, the binder content and the agenda for the meeting. So, all of those are quite familiar but what’s unique about SpotMe is that you can use them all on one tool. So, really able to kind of focus your attention to the meeting and you won’t have to necessarily be flipping through lots of papers.”
Compile Better Feedback
SpotMe is an ideal tool for networking at a conference, but it can also provide immediate feedback to conference organizers, something that is still ad hoc and limited with tools such as Twitter.
Donna Sanford points out: “Because the demographics of each attendee are tied to their devices, live audience response data can be immediately analyzed and displayed. What percentage of those who believe ‘A,’ for instance, are CEOs vs. managers? The best suggestions or responses from all sessions can be compiled each day and e-mailed to participants as a daily wrap up.”
Get the Most Out of SpotMe
As conference attendees become used to working with a single device to manage all of their conference communication and logistics, there is a chance that some may resist a tool like SpotMe.
In fact, one writer at Social Woot describes the following scene when SpotMe was given out at a conference: “There were quite a few who struggled to figure out how to use the device. They were unsure of what it did and why they couldn’t use the familiar methods to reach out to people they knew or where around at the conference.”
If you want to effectively use SpotMe, be prepared to offer a lot of support at the start of the conference. Between staff and user-friendly manuals, help conferees get off to a strong start as soon as they pick up their devices.
Despite a slight learning curve, SpotMe promises to deliver stronger networking and improved conference logistics in the future. In fact, 97% of attendees at a recent pharmaceutical industry conference said that SpotMe improved the conference experience.
The majority of conference attendees are already using similar technology, and therefore integrating a device like SpotMe into future conferences will only become easier.
This guest post is written by Lior Levin, a marketing consultant for a css company, and who also consults for a company that offers a variety of neon signs for businesses and individuals.
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Donny:
Thanks for covering SpotMe in your article….I’m happy to announce that we’ve recently launched the SpotMe mobile app. We’ve taken all of the great audience engagement tools we had on the SpotMe device and brought them to smart devices. For those events that still require 100% adoption rates (like the pharma training you mention), we’re still supplying devices, just new iPads or iPod Touches. We have over 1,000 of each. Reach out to me and I can give you a brief demo…Cheers!