Update: Apps for Meetings

Soon, says David Weil, mobile apps for events will be the kind of ubiquitous technology that makes us look back and say, "Remember when we didn't have these? Wow."

Weil, vice president of event services for Chicago-based association management company SmithBucklin, has seen app use spread quickly among clients. "It just started bubbling up, big-time, about a year ago," he says. "I would say probably 20 percent of our clients are getting into it now, but there's also just more awareness across the board."

These are the event-specific apps attendees can access from their mobile devices, and which typically provide a wealth of event information: schedules, speaker lists, attendees lists and the like.

"Planners are coming at this from all different levels of expertise," says Jessica Levin, CMP, president and "chief connector" of Seven Degrees Communications, a social technology consulting firm based in Edison, N.J. "They're intensely interested in this."

In fact, mobile app development was the number-one hot topic at the Social Tech Clinic booth that Levin and business partner Midori Connolly oversaw at the Americas Meetings and Events Exposition, held this past June in Baltimore.

The interest has spread just as rapidly among meeting attendees who have used apps as it has among planners who want to provide them. "Attendees will soon be asking, 'Where's the mobile app?' " says Weil. "It's just really going to be standard operating procedure at some point in the next two to three years."

It was attendee demand that convinced the New York City-based Cardiovascular Research Foundation to create an app for its annual conference in 2010. "We'd been thinking about app development," says Johnnie White, CMP, executive director of meetings and educational services for the foundation. "But to be honest, what pushed us to actually go with it was that a couple of other conferences some of our attendees had gone to had apps, and those attendees kept telling us to do this."

Following is a look at the phenomenon and how planners can best integrate apps into their events.

What apps can do Before embarking on app selection and design, planners should first consider their motivations for using one. While it can be tempting to incorporate the latest technology for the coolness factor alone, event apps can serve a number of basic purposes. Levin cites these benefits:

• Make a show greener. In most cases, an event app won't yet take the place of a printed program, but it is a step in that direction and can allow for a reduction in printed materials and associated costs. For the Cardiovascular Research Foundation's upcoming fall conference, Johnnie White plans to reduce the program's print run by 10 to 15 percent -- a potential savings of $10,000 to $15,000.

• Provide quick access to information. An app can provide all of the information packed into a show program, and more -- and it's lighter, ideally faster to navigate and a lot easier to update with late-breaking information. "The minute you have a session change or a speaker change, or schedule a quick meeting, it's a great way to get the changes out to your attendees," says David Weil, "whereas in the past, we had to do a quick 22-by-28-inch sign, and get it out there and hope people would read it."

• Add sponsorship opportunities. Sponsors are always looking for more exposure, just as planners are seeking additional sources of revenue. While the platform is relatively new, app sponsorship is becoming more commonplace. "An app can definitely pay for itself," notes Weil, "and it's a revenue opportunity." (For more, see "Apps: Who Foots the Bill?")

• Enhance social interaction. "Mobile technology can do a great job of aggregating social networking tools," Levin notes. And it's easy for most app developers to build in easy access to whatever social media platforms are being used for an event, whether Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, etc., as well as event-customized platforms such as Pathable.

• Facilitate polling and surveys. Such uses are factoring into future plans for many apps. The immediacy of feedback has a powerful appeal to planners, and White expects such functionality to make an appearance in the next CRF event app. "The idea is, if you're going to a session in the morning, there will be an area in the app where you can go to evaluate the program right then," he says. The hope is that such convenience will improve both the rate and specificity of attendee feedback. White also sees the potential for integrating audience response technology so polling can more easily be done during sessions, with the results immediately visible. He's currently discussing with tech suppliers the possibility of building that functionality into his app.

• Improve customer service. Via an app, organizers can provide instant answers to basic attendee questions -- the same kind of information offered by an on-site help desk.

• Offer destination information. Depending on the event and its location, it can make a lot of sense to partner with the venue or local convention and visitors bureau to provide information about public transportation, restaurants, maps and whatever else attendees might need to get the most of out their visit.

Getting started The time it takes a developer to churn out an event app varies widely, depending on the degree of customization required. The time it takes to publish the app must be factored in as well -- those that run on Apple devices, for instance, must be approved for the Apple App Store, which can take two to three weeks. And if an event app isn't ready in advance of the event itself, its value is enormously deteriorated. Developer QuickMobile, based in Vancouver, British Columbia, recommends a lead time of at least three months to create and launch an app.

Johnnie White started work on the Cardiovascular Research Foundation's app nearly four months before the 2010 conference, and he made sure to involve all key stakeholders at the organization -- the education group, marketing, creative services and the website group.

"We discussed what we wanted to accomplish with this app, and what we wanted to include in terms of content -- things like city information, details about our organization and facility-related stuff," White recalls. "We had to establish what our audience needed."

The CRF then researched a handful of app developers -- all with at least some experience developing meetings apps in particular -- before sending out requests for proposal. "We asked our IT vendors for recommendations of companies they know who were in this business," White explains. He and his team also looked at other meeting apps and noted the developers of the ones they most liked. As soon as the foundation contracted with an app developer (AppBurst), White gave the supplier a copy of the previous year's conference guide, "so they knew what our expectations were," he says.

In development As White and his team found, mobile app developers offer a huge variety of products and price points, as well as different pricing models. SmithBucklin's David Weil, who has negotiated with suppliers for a variety of different association events, says there is no one-size-fits-all solution. "We vet suppliers and look at all different kinds of apps, in terms of what makes sense for a particular client," he explains.

Event organizers also must consider the features they're likely to need and use. QuickMobile, for example, currently offers 65 features from which to choose, according to Trevor Roald, the company's manager of sales engineering and product experience. But the most common features and uses still are based on what attendees are accustomed to finding in print. "That's where this started from," Roald explains, "taking the printed event guide and putting it on steroids. And so those things make up a lot of the core features we're seeing in mobile apps now. The two main motivations we see that apps address are helping attendees maximize their time on-site, and helping them to make the connections to achieve their objectives."

Not surprisingly, such basics as the schedule and attendee list are the most commonly used features, notes Roald, but it's the way attendees can access that information that makes an app so efficient -- the ability to search through or sort the data as they require. "One feature we have that is very popular is called 'What's On Now,' " says Roald, "and it's so simple. You click on it and it shows you what's going on at that moment. It's popular because it's so timely."

Attendees at the CRF's conference last year loved that type of functionality, says White (who is not a QuickMobile client). "But what surprised us was the number of people relying solely on the app to navigate the entire meeting," he adds.

That led to one of the lessons learned for the next event. "You have to have a system in place that's going to keep this app updated nonstop," White says. "The individuals using it are now expecting the most updated program information to be in there. They're no longer looking at the book for that."

While attendees have grown accustomed to printed programs being somewhat out-of-date, White acknowledges, they're not willing to cut any slack for inaccuracies in the mobile platform. "When there was a situation like a speaker change that wasn't reflected in the app, we would hear about it," he says. "They'd come to one of our offices and tell us."

As apps become more widely used at trade shows, having interactive maps and exhibitor lists are fast becoming essential app ingredients, too, says Roald. "They help attendees make the best use of their time on-site. You can provide them with an interactive trade show floor map, where not only can you sort the exhibitors contextually or by what they're supplying, you also can link to them or click on their booth and go directly to a map." 

FOR MORE "Update: Apps for Meetings":

> Embracing the iPad

> Tomorrow's Apps for Meetings

> Games Attendees Play