With a plethora of technology solutions, apps and audience engagement tools on the market, event planners are feeling the pressure to ensure that their events are automatically ticking the technology list.
But is this tech really adding a new dimension? Are delegates and organisers getting more bang for their buck?
With the events industry traditionally slightly technophobic, the reality is that there is tech in abundance, but the uptake or adoption of this technology is nowhere near what it needs to be for everyone to benefit.
sli.do believes that the primary reason for this is the unnecessary complexity of many apps and event technologies acting as a barrier to adoption – event tech really is too taxing in many cases.
Take the example of BlackBerry vs Apple. The BlackBerry device was sophisticated and offered significant functionality but was not particularly intuitive to use.
Along comes Apple with its user-friendly style and suddenly the world is awash with smart phones and tablets.
So why is it too taxing?
Below are some of the reasons delegates will not use your technology:
1. Comfort level – if it is too unfamiliar, they simply won’t use it. It needs to be designed in a way that anyone can instinctively understand what action is required of them
2. Proof of value – they need to see almost instantly that there is a benefit in using the technology
3. Reliability – it’s an event planner’s nightmare: tech failure.
Any tech you use should be robust and reliable or your delegates will quickly move away from it after an initial try.
This was first published in the May issue of CN. Any comments? Email Paul Colston
