BizBash Magazine ran a story called  "The 14 Most Innovative Meetings" in their Spring 2011 edition. Lets highlight 3 of the 14 events, with an added twist, of additional interactive technology tool rentals that can be integrated into the meeting from your AV provider. 

interactive technology tool rentals

BOSTON SCIENTIFIC

In August 2010, Boston Scientific gathered 5,000 employees together for an interactive, participant-driven meeting intended to communicate the company's vision and value to the group. The first thing they did was make all senior management available to attendees to answer any of their questions. Before the meeting, they invited employees to ask their questions via an online community. At the meeting, they could submit questions, comments, or ideas via computer stations. They also created fun activities including a scavenger hunt. They surveyed the employees and at the end of the meeting, 73% said they were optimistic about the company's future. 

Meeting Planners can build attendee engagement in the same way as Boston Scientific by doing the following:

  • Rent iPads to allow interactivity between attendees and key management through Twitter, Facebook, or Flickr. Attendees can also ask questions or make comments during the meetings via a Twitter feed and all comments can go into a designated place via hashtag (#name of event).
  • Computer Kiosks can serve as an input tool for new ideas and allow attendees to view video presentations after they are over, at all times during the conference.  
  • Wireless Audience Response Systems allow employees to answer survey questions quickly and management can compile the results instantaneously. 

THE NATIONAL CABLE & TELECOMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION

This 3-day annual meeting dubbed "The Cable Show" provided their 13,000 attendees access to the 152,000 square foot trade show floor plan, exhibitor materials, Twitter feed, agenda, and information on the speakers and sessions on mobile devices. The results: 19,000 requests for exhibitor information, new sponsorship opportunities for the association, and a huge reduction of paper. 

Meeting Planners can integrate mobile technology — rent Tablet PCs or iPads — with custom trade show floor applications that can even have GPS installed to get the attendee to the right booth! Social media applications, agendas, and speaker bios and videos are all applicable uses of a tablet. In addition, tablets have a long battery life and can be used while walking around on the trade show floor.

IBM

IBM hosted a 5-day conference in January 2011 and decided to build a social media aggregator to pool the content of various forums into 1 online page which served as a place to broadcast videos from the 3 keynote sessions and interviews with the speakers. They also gave attendees flip cameras to video things going on around the conference and uploaded that onto the page. IBM had 5 social media cafes with large touch-screen monitors where individuals could send information directly to their email accounts. 

Meeting planners can work with a developer to build out their aggregator and allow attendees to see content on a touch panel kiosks and/or large high definition plasma displays. The event can also have social media cafes complete with tablets, laptops, and touch panel plasmas. 

AV Event Solutions can provide your next meeting, event, or trade show with state-of-the-art technology which includes iPads, Tablet PCs, Laptops, Plasma TVs, Kiosks and much, much more! Give them a call today for more information on how they can make your event exciting and interactive.