Tag Archives: speakers

No More Poker Face – Decoding Attendees’ Real-Time Reactions

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We've written here about how the government is looking at facial recognition to improve security and make access to places and data more efficient. While the policy and technology challenges are worked out within multiple government use cases, event planners can look to the same technology to improve how they deliver content and education.

As this article points out, surveys provide a snapshot of audience reaction to an event, but they do so in days, even weeks after it has wrapped. Additionally, there is a lot of effort that goes into getting survey responses back and analyzed, and even then, the sample size may not be statistically valid.

Good speakers and planners know the power of reading the room and adjusting on the fly to keep and increase audience interest and participation. But bright lights, sheer audience size, and general logistics make that problematic. Tracking social media can also provide a real-time pulse on how attendees are digesting and reacting to content. But getting this feedback is dependent on attendees using these platforms and using them in real-time. With facial and biometric technologies, event planners and marketers can remove these challenges and dependencies and collect attendee feedback without having to ask anything of those attendees.

Audience engagement tools using biometrics can identify attendees' emotions without identifying the face or person. In one implementation, video cameras mounted at the side of the stage film the facial expressions of the audience. This feed is run through AI-powered software to identify and track expressions of the people watching the stage and what emotion they are expressing (fear, anger, happiness, etc.). A raw look at this data is available, but within a couple of minutes the software can more fully analyze it and provide a quick view if the audience is reacting positively or negatively.

Following the event, speakers can go back through the data to see where there were emotional peaks. From there, speakers can update their content based on the points that made the most significant connection with the audience.

Pricing can vary depending on the type of technology used and the analytics being run. On average, costs fall in the $5,000-$10,000 range. Some companies offer pricing per attendee, and others have a flat fee. While this can be a large investment, if you weigh the cost of facial recognition against the costs associated with speaker fees, and the event budget in general, spending money to find the effectiveness of sessions makes a lot of sense for future planning.

What are your thought on using facial recognition technology for event planning and management? Have you tried it? Do you want to? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Resolve to be a Better Attendee

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Being a few weeks into the New Year, you may have begun to slack and are no longer on track with your well-intended resolutions. That does not mean that you should abandon the drive to better yourself as it's not too late to register for events to help you do so. Getting approval in the government community to attend events can be a month-long or more process, so now is the time to take action. Once you have approval, make sure you are getting the most out of that event to prove ROI to your organization and to yourself.

After you are signed up to attend an event, no matter if it is a multi-day out-of-town event or a local breakfast meeting, it's important to define your goal for attendance. Is it to learn? Meet new people? Network with specific contacts? Gather information for others in your department? Likely a couple of these will be a part of your rationale for attending. This article provides some great planning checklists organized by each of these goals (as well as others) so you can plan your time accordingly.[Tweet "Resolve to be a Better Attendee -- Define your goals for the events you attend. #GovEventsBlog"]

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Did We Get it Right? 2017 Government Events Year in Review

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It's the beginning of 2018, and with it brings reflection on goals and actions of the past year. Today we take a look back at our predictions for government events in 2017 to see how we did.[Tweet "Did We Get it Right? 2017 Government Events Year in Review. #GovEventsBlog"]

  • Focus on Change - Going into 2017, we knew that we were no longer looking at business as usual with the new administration coming in. While we could not have predicted the numerous changes and events of the past year, we did know that everyone involved in government was going to need a refresher in change management. We predicted a larger number of events focused on the formal practice of change management as well as change being a theme in a number of events. This year we had 22 events specifically focused on change management versus 14 in 2016, so there was a slight uptick.
  • Changes in Speaker Line-Ups - In anticipation of agency directors being replaced, we expected to see some new faces in the speaking line-ups for government events. We also thought some of the newly appointed agency heads would be speaking, leading to a fresh crop of speakers across the government event landscape. While this prediction did not necessarily come to pass, we did notice that more events were using big name speakers to draw attendees and to differentiate their shows. We saw speakers associated with interesting, high profile cases and news events. We also saw more government events using leaders from the commercial side of business to share the latest details on technologies and best practices that can be applied in government.[Tweet "GovEvents takes a look back at our predictions for government events in 2017. #GovEventsBlog"]
  • Increased Use of Data - Working with our event partners, we are seeing this trend come to fruition. Organizations are interested in feedback from us on their GovEvents' campaigns. Specifically, they want to know where leads are coming from (email vs. ads), and want to track those leads once they get to their site. They are using this information to better tailor their marketing and outreach to grow their audience.
  • More Video - The ubiquity of video on social media is making video a must-have as part of event promotion and marketing. In our recent survey we found that 31% of respondents have added streaming video to their events in the last two years. It's a trend that we're excited to see continue and evolve, as it livens up the content presented at events.

[Tweet "In a year of change, the event market for government has been a steadying force. #GovEventsBlog"]In a year of so much change and uncertainty, the event market for government has been a steadying force. Attendance at and availability of events has remained stable, proving that events provide a place for colleagues to come together and have meaningful discussions about challenges, successes, and concerns. Now more than ever, these venues are proving their worth in bringing the government community together to discuss the issues that impact their mission.

Getting a Jump on Resolutions: Update the General Session

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As we approach the end of 2017, we're already in a contemplative mood for the year ahead. While the event world has been changed by the use of social media, accessibility of video technology, and (for the government market) the constant uncertainty of budgets, the one thing that seems to have remained static is the general session/keynote. Most events still open with a keynote speaker or even a panel. Some work in a video of some sort, but for the most part, general sessions are still one-way, lecture-type presentations.[Tweet "Getting a Jump on Resolutions: Update the General Session. #GovEventsBlog"]

While there is comfort in the familiarity of this routine, we'd like to challenge event planners to be more innovative in the new year. We've gathered some thoughts on how to change up the general session routine, ensuring attendees walk away not only with more information but also with more energy. Continue reading →

Battling Short Attention Spans

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A 2015 study conducted by Microsoft found that the average attention span is about eight seconds. This gives us about five more seconds to keep your attention.

Still with us? Keep reading to learn how to do the same with your attendees.

Getting people to your event is only the first step. Once they arrive, you have to battle for their attention. Work-related emails, text messages from home, social media check-ins, and even the quest for the next level in Candy Crush all threaten to steal the focus of attendees. We've pulled together a couple of ideas to put to work as you battle to make it past the eight second mark.[Tweet "Once they arrive at your event, you have to battle for their attention. #GovEventsBlog"] Continue reading →