When most people think of business events, they think of the huge mega-conferences like SXSW, or industry expos like MIPIM, CEBIT or Mobile World Congress. With monstrous budgets and high profile press coverage, a lot of event technology and other service providers gravitate toward them. Yet the reality is that most business events are far smaller – sales events run around the hotels and meeting rooms of the world, or internal staff conferences or ‘town hall meetings’.
While the big events get the headlines, it’s these day-to-day gatherings that grease the wheels of industry, bringing people together to make contacts, communicate key messages and thrash out decisions.
How many of these are there? Estimates range from 5 million to 20 million annually depending on what you include in the figures and what you read. If you include internal meetings and events, then even the 20 million figure looks very light.
So where does event technology fit into internal communications?
When we think about internal communications events or meetings, what’s the technology we imagine being used? Pretty much the first thing that springs to mind is PowerPoint – the granddaddy of presentation software tools – and the default option for most organisations looking to spread a message to a room of people, and make sure it sticks. Much maligned, but ultimately effective at communicating to people, when in the hands of a competent presenter.
But is one-way communication what internal comms is all about? I certainly don’t think so. If you want to convey a simple message to a group of people, there’s a lot more convenient tools at your disposal than there were 30-odd years ago: Intranets, social media groups, share documents, video even.
So the reason for actually bringing people together is clearly different. First, it gives you the chance to convey passion, credibility and energy that flat documents just can’t do, and a level of personalisation and approachability that video lacks. But secondly, and perhaps more importantly, bringing people together allows for their opinions to be heard as well, and for that group to come together and create a group dynamic that adds to the experience and unifies teams.
Where’s the event tech?
And that’s the issue. PowerPoint is great at presenting the facts of an internal communication, and a skilled CEO, Sales Director or Head of HR can convey the meaning behind the message, but we’re still lacking in how we gather and capture the views of the audience.
‘Hands up for Q&A’ just doesn’t work that well – junior or introverted employees might not feel comfortable asking questions in from of a crowded room. Post-event surveys aren’t as effective as they could be – by the time they’ve come out you’ve lost momentum and the opportunity to create a conversation or discussion around the feedback.
That’s where audience response systems like Glisser come in. Far from being reliant on the clunky clicker pads of the 90s, or the expensive iPad-hires of the more recent past, current solutions are all cloud-based and bring-your-own-device. That’s means costs stay right down and the solutions are designed to be as simple as setting up your slide deck.
They provide an easy means of collecting feedback and employee data in a live environment, pushing it up onto the stage monitor for presenters to answer (with moderation of course…) and creating an engaging session where everyone gets their say.
They encourage more questions and interaction from the quieter members of the team that might otherwise get shouted down, which can often lead to better decision-making and better business outcomes. In fact, decisions can be made by real consensus using audience polling – whether that’s to pick the new company logo, select a charity to support for the year, or the location of the office Christmas party – it gives employees a transparent vote.
Meanwhile, staff happiness surveys and feedback collection is made far more engaging in a live environment, and can be conducted more frequently, rather than an annual online survey with hundreds of questions, that only the very happy or very unhappy really answer with any gusto.
So, for companies that consider their employees their most important asset, the question is ‘why are you not using technology to engage them and ask their opinions when you bring them together?’