Simon on: ITCM - Make event apps a necessity not a novelty

As a nation of smartphone users we spend on average more than 43 hours each month accessing content via apps – so it’s easy to see why the events industry wants in on the power of mobile.

But when it comes to event apps there seems to be a few problems – said applications are ephemeral in nature and of the ones I’ve comes across, lack a clear purpose and benefit to the user.

So how do organisers transform event apps from a novelty into a necessity?

To find out, read the whole article featured on ITCM by clicking here.

Simon on: Free Wi-Fi at events

People are still demanding free Wi-Fi at conferences because hotels and coffee shops do it so why not conference venues? Sadly, it’s not as simple as that.

Over recent years the number of Wi-Fi devices being carried by conference attendees has increased significantly. Many now have at least one smartphone plus a tablet computer and probably other kit as well.

The problem is exacerbated by the increasing number of people carrying myfi devices which, as Apple found out years ago, can create havoc on a Wi-Fi network.

The increasing number of Wi-Fi-enabled devices means that, while an organiser of a conference for just a few hundred has a fighting chance of providing reliable free Wi-Fi, those running bigger events have a choice: bring in a specialist or deal with a stream of complaints about poor connectivity.

The problem is that Wi-Fi is not an inexhaustible resource: there are only a few channels available and they can become clogged quickly, meaning that range and capacity of the Wi-Fi access points falls to the level where the service is virtually unusable.

So if you have  more than a few hundred attendees and you want stable, reliable Wi-Fi at your conference, you have to accept reality: you have to pay to provide the service. Don’t assume you can get it free.

Originally published in Conference News

Simon on: Smartphones

There is an assumption, frequently repeated, that ‘everybody these days has a smartphone’. It’s a claim that’s used to support the idea assertion that organisers need to provide services for attendees to use on their smartphones. The trouble is that the claim is wrong.

Recent analysis by research company ComScore shows that 51.3 per cent of mobile phones in Britain were smartphones in Q4 2011. Obviously the proportion will vary from one age group to another and between market sectors but ComScore shows that almost half of phones in this country are not smartphones. That said, it is true that smartphone sales are increasing but it will be a while before they become the standard.

That is a serious issue for any organiser but even that overstates the case for smartphones. It ignores the fact that some smartphone owners won’t use technology developed for the phones. They may have a smartphone only because their company provides it and they may not be allowed to use software not provided by the company.

Clearly this means that systems that rely on smartphones will be immensely useful for reaching around half of any market but organisers need to remember the other half.

 Originally published in Conference News