New Technology for Public Speakers

As conferences become more interactive, and audiences demand experiences over lectures, new technology for public speakers will take a front row seat. This is also true for sponsorship, and sponsors are asking for programs that are customized to fit their needs.

Speakers can integrate technology into their presentations before, during and after to give their sponsors the best return on investment for their sponsorship dollars. Here are some ideas of new technology for speakers:

“For meeting and event speakers, there’s so much new technology out there, that choosing the right path can be frustrating, time-consuming and expensive. However, the reality is, if you don’t tap into a strong mobile presence, you’ll lose valuable data and interaction with your audience. They expect it, they have their smartphones in hand, and they’re ready to be reminded that attending your session/event was more than worth their time and money.

Our #1 tech recommendation for speakers? Invest in (or ask your sponsor to invest in) a smart, well-designed, and easily operable app.

Whether you’re planning an international conference or regional corporate meeting, there is an overwhelming amount of information out there. The trick is, how do you make sure you’re gathering it efficiently while equally focusing on the content you’re delivering, ROI for before, during and after the event, and in-session attendee participation?

All event apps help speakers do at least one of those things, but in order to make a sound investment, you need technology that helps you achieve all three simultaneously. Here’s what we tell speakers to look for themselves or ask for from event planners (whether they choose our app or not):

• An app that tracks user behavior as it happens and gathers critical data for future outreach
• An app that promotes unique ROI for the speaker (e.g., Arcivr extends the life of sponsorship/speaker dollars (or internal promotions) through ongoing interactive ads).
• An app that allows you to easily and efficiently access the backend so you can adjust your engagement efforts in real time, based on the behavioral data you’re receiving.

“I am the founder of the Manhattan Destination Marketing Company Shackman Associates and I am an expert in running major corporate meetings that often include speakers.

We are seeing new ways customized geo- and private technologies are improving speaker-driven corporate meetings:

1. Interactive private technology: less tweeting and more networking.

While there is continuing debate on how to use social media and texting during business components at meeting, we are seeing a trend that creates a hyper-intelligent, private system to that increases face-to-face interaction.

The key is to provide speakers with more control than ever over questions, answers and even who gets asked the questions.

With this kind of technology, attendees can now ask unlimited questions, and speakers and moderators can quickly filter out ones that don’t make sense or disrupt the flow. Furthermore, because speakers can clearly see the questions being asked, they do not get lost among the noise of status updates.

2. Turn-key apps manage registration, help attendees network prior to arriving, optimize speaker sessions, geofence off-site after-hours opportunities, and create a platform for continued engagement after the meeting ends. For speakers, these apps provide a look at who is coming to the event. Speakers and attendees can conduct private chats and connect via LinkedIn.

3. We are also seeing an opportunity to run meetings without requiring attendees to download apps that might work differently on the iPhone versus a Galaxy.

Karen Shackman
Shackman Associates New York
9 East 45th Street, 7th Floor
New York, NY 10017
www.shackmanny.com

“Making the most of a presentation by turning it into a conversation that everyone feels comfortable engaging in. Two technologies that are game changers in audience engagement: 1) sli.do (www.sli.do) and 2) Google Slides Q&A (https://blog.google/products/docs/slidesqa/). These technologies let the audience ask questions during your presentation while the question is fresh on their mind. It allows people to ask questions who would normally fear the attention of the crowd. More interestingly, it lets the crowd vote on questions. So the most popular questions get voted to the top. Once the presentation is over, you can engage with the audience by answering the questions they really want to know.