6 essential cross-platform apps

July 3rd, 2017 @ Brandt Krueger

A lot of times when people meet me in person, they’re surprised to see that I’m not “all in” on one of the major technology platforms. Apparently, as an event technology nerd I’m supposed to help people pick a side. “Oh,” they say, “I would have guessed you were a Mac guy,” as they notice my oversized Android phone.

The fact of the matter is that I believe very strongly in using the right tool for the right job. My home computer runs Windows, my kids’ tablets are Amazon Fires, my work computer is a Mac, my phone runs Android and my tablet is an iPad. I’ve chosen these platforms carefully over the years, and I’m constantly re-evaluating whether or not they make sense. I was extremely close to pulling the trigger on a Chromebook for our next family computer, but we still have a few programs not supported by the platform. Sounds like my kids are going to get Chromebooks from their school though, so we’ll get to add that to the mix soon enough!

A result of having so many devices in so many different camps is that I’ve been accumulating a group of apps and services that work across all platforms, and aren’t confined to the Apple, Windows or Google universes. So without further ado, here’s my top six list of cross-platform apps for meeting and event professionals.

1. Wunderlist

A good to-do list app is the cornerstone of the digital age. Wunderlist is simple, customizable and can parse things like “April 1 take the garbage out,” which automatically creates an item called “take the garbage out” with a due date of April 1 (it’s amazing how many apps can’t actually do that in 2017). You can set priorities, have multiple lists and the data all syncs seamlessly to all of your devices. You can even share lists among co-workers or family, helping everyone stay on task.

2. OneNote/Evernote

Everyone needs a cloud brain to store all those useless bits of information, so that your real brain can go back to cereal ad jingles. I used to be firmly in the Evernote camp, but not needing the Pro version, I became frustrated by how strongly they were pushing me, almost biweekly, to upgrade. Nonetheless, some people swear by it, and it almost has to make this list based on principle. If you’re ready for a change, however, Microsoft has been making strides in establishing their apps across all platforms, and OneNote is solid. I find the syncing a little kludgy at times, but overall it’s a great note-taking application. Combine it with OfficeLens, which is a mobile app for scanning documents, receipts, whiteboards or photos, and you have a powerful digital filing cabinet.

3. Fantastical 2/Business Calendar

OK, I’m cheating a little on this one. I haven’t found a truly cross-platform calendar that I love, but this one-two punch is pretty close. For iOS and macOS, Fantastical 2 is incredible. If you’d have told me I’d shell out $40 for a calendar app, I’d have said you were nuts, but as the timer clicked down on my free trial, I knew I was going to have to do it. It’s simple on the surface, but incredible under the hood, and seamlessly syncs all my calendars from all over the web. On my Mac it lives up in the menu bar (and also understands natural language like, “Meeting with Tom Smith at 1 p.m. on Tuesday”), and I have a keyboard shortcut so that I can highlight any random bit from an email and it will automatically create an appointment based on whatever it can parse from the info. On iOS, it’s easy to swipe into multi-window mode and access Fantastical from whatever app you’re in.

Business Calendar is an Android app, done by some very cool German developers. It has a similar look and feel to Fantastical, and has a beautiful home screen widget for my daily agenda. They work perfectly together, and I’ve been using both for years now.

4. PowerPoint

Yep. You heard me. Believe it or not, this is another app that Microsoft has been trying to make work better across all platforms. It works quite well on all of my devices, including my phone and tablet, though I still prefer Apple Keynote for my own personal presentations. As time goes on, PowerPoint has fixed most of the issues that used to plague it, and, as a result, I’m finding it harder and harder to justify the $2,500 for a MacBook. To be honest, almost all of the Microsoft Office programs work quite well these days across all platforms, so don’t be afraid to stick with what you know, even if you start dipping your toes into another platform pool.

5. Audible

Now that the workday is done, you need a little relaxation as you hop a plane for home. Once we had kids, I found I didn’t ever have time to just sit around and read a book or magazine any more. Audible—and podcasts—to the rescue! I’ve “read” more books in the last five years than I probably had in the previous 20. Whether I’m on the plane, mowing the lawn or doing a few dishes, I pop in my earbuds and I can get lost in a story. I like to alternate between fiction and non-fiction, just to keep things interesting. My library is synced between all my devices, and I have cloud access to every book I’ve ever purchased from them should I feel the need to re-visit something.

6. LastPass

For years now I’ve been screaming into the wind that event professionals need to start taking cyber security seriously. As more and more conferences and meetings use sophisticated ticketing, registration and conference app technology, more and more of our attendees’ data is being taken into the cloud. If your registration back-end password is Monkey123, you’re putting your attendees at risk. LastPass is a password management service that’s been vetted by top security professionals. You can use it to create long, random passwords that aren’t duplicated across websites, so even if one of your websites gets hacked, they don’t have a chance of hacking any more of them. “But what if the service gets hacked?” is the most common question asked. Though it’s theoretically possible, LastPass does not hold the keys to your account, so it cannot surrender the data to either cyber criminals or government agencies. If the service was hacked, all they’d find was a blob of unreadable data. That is, of course, unless your LastPass password is Monkey123.

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Category : Blog and Industry News

Top tools for audience engagement

June 21st, 2017 @ Brandt Krueger

If you’d asked me late last year to identify the big event technology trends of 2017, you’d probably have gotten an answer similar to what a lot of other folks were writing about on their websites and in their magazines: big data, artificial intelligence, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality—and maybe drones thrown in for good measure. So far, however, the No. 1 thing people have approached me about this year is regarding audience interaction.

I’ve been asked to host webinars on the subject, clients have approached me looking for recommendations and even while I was speaking with a candidate for our local city council, the subject of audience-interaction apps came up as soon as he heard about what I do. Recently at an event I was working, the CFO of a major financial institution seemed shocked to see two microphones on stands in the audience for the Q&A portion of his session.

“Don’t we have any of those foam microphones we can throw around?” he bellowed from the stage.

And now, I’m writing an article on the subject.

It seems the industry as a whole has decided that 2017 is the year to focus on audience interaction and attendee engagement—and that couldn’t make me happier. Because while drones are cool and VR is fun, we’re in the people business, and communication is at the heart of most of our meetings and events. Let’s take some time to dig into the latest and greatest when it comes to getting our audiences engaged in the conversation.

Low-tech: Re-evaluate your space

First, let’s start with some of the low-tech trends. Savvy planners continue to experiment with non-traditional seating. While there are a lot of reasons to do this, when it comes to audience engagement, the main reason is that theater and classroom seating can automatically lock us into a sit-back-and-listen mode of thinking. Even the setups themselves can prohibit interaction and engagement, as it can be difficult to navigate the rows and tables, discouraging a would-be question-asker from getting up and going to a mic stand or slowing down a potential mic runner. There are ways around that, but let’s come back to them in a moment. For now, just think about opening up your floor plan as much as your space allows, making it easier for people to move around.

Why would you want them to move around? Well, because one of the best ways to grab, and keep, an audience’s attention is to get them out of their seats and get the blood pumping again. My friend Adrian Segar has literally written the book on low-tech audience engagement—The Power of Participation is a field guide for getting people moving around, brainstorming and, above all, participating in a meeting or event, with little or no technology involved. It includes advice on room setups, voting techniques and even ways to display complex information such as graphs and charts using zero PowerPoint slides—just the bodies in the room. Any company or organization looking to break the bonds of the same old boring meeting should definitely give it a look.

High tech

Sometimes, however, you can’t break out of the old seating tropes. Maybe your room simply isn’t big enough to handle much in the way of creative seating, and you have too many attendees to even accommodate them comfortably at rounds. Or the schedule is packed to the point that full-on discussion sessions aren’t an option, but leadership would like to gauge the feelings or mood of the room. Now is a great time to inject a little technology into the mix to allow attendees to weigh in on a question, simply and accurately. There are a number of great apps and services out there, but I’d like to highlight a few that are on a short list for me and my clients.

Sli.do

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting the Sli.do folks a few times, and even used the service as an attendee. I always enjoy doing that, because it gives me a much better idea of how the service will be received by an audience, something no GoToWebinar sales demo can ever do. It was easy to use, and allows not only for polling but also open-ended Q&A. Additionally, questions can be up-voted, so the most popular questions rise to the top. Because it’s web-based, it’s incredibly easy to integrate into existing mobile event apps or to a live stream of your event so that remote audiences can get involved as well.

Catchbox

If for some reason you haven’t heard of this yet, I’d like to be the first to welcome you back to Planet Earth. These are exactly the foam microphones the CFO was referring to at the event I described earlier. A Catchbox is a soft foam cube with a wireless microphone inside it. Instead of a participant having to get up and walk to a microphone, you can literally just throw this one to them. It’s fun, it makes people laugh, you can brand it with your logo and it just works. It’s easy to plug into existing AV setups, and the internal gyroscope senses when it’s being thrown and automatically cuts out the audio so you don’t hear the jostling around.

PollEverywhere

PollEverywhere has been around for some time now, but it still warrants inclusion in this listing of the latest and greatest. I’m a fan of their pricing structure, which is based on the number of responses, and they have no problem with moving your pricing plan up or down from month to month. That’s perfect for planners and companies whose attendee counts vary wildly from client to client or event to event. I also feel they’re one of the only companies that effectively implements SMS text messaging as a form of response to polls and open Q&A sessions. This can be huge for an audience that might not be as technologically savvy, but can handle sending a text message.

Evenium/SocialPoint/Podiobox

Like I said, there are a lot of companies out there providing interaction technology for events. Most of the major app manufacturers are starting to bake basic polling and Q&A technology into their meeting and event apps. Evenium is a mobile app company with amazing polling and interaction pieces, including real-time slide sharing directly from the presenter’s computer and screen overlays of polling results. Smaller companies such as SocialPoint and Podiobox each have features that can be appealing to certain groups. SocialPoint focuses on audience engagement and data capture in trade show booth. (Full disclosure: I’ve done some freelance work assisting SocialPoint with on-site management of their services.) Podiobox is one of the lightest-weight apps I’ve ever seen, making it a great choice for events at which bandwidth might be an issue. So don’t be afraid to look at some of the smaller audience engagement companies out there—they might be just want you’re looking for!

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Category : Blog and Industry News