Mobile Meets Meetings

On-the-go tech is transforming the way we meet

By Tyler Davidson

Remember when it was the height of rudeness to be pecking away on your smart phone while in a meeting session? Well, the days of even intermittent disconnect may be over as mobile technology becomes a social force both inside and outside of the meeting room.

Now, one may even hear an educational session presenter implore attendees to power up rather than power down, in order to tweet info nuggets across the room, to a dedicated conference hashtag or across the world via the Internet. Mobile has gone mainstream in a big way, and it is changing the way we meet.

“We’re in a business where we’re going to respond to stuff as our attendees request it,” says James Spellos, a meetings industry technology educator and president of Meeting U. (www.meeting-u.com). “Our industry and meeting planners are going to keep moving toward that as more of their members and attendees have smart phones.

“There’s a huge amount of value to all of the stakeholders in a conference,” he continues. “We’re definitely going to be there, and not in the distant future be there in a big way, starting from the planning organization to push technology, location-based marketing technology, gathering content about their members and going greener by reducing the paper trail of the meeting.”   Read more...

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