Hey! This is 2014, the decade of numerous advancements in technology to help make our lives and businesses easier to manage and more comfortable. With recent advancements in science and technology, conferences are becoming more productive and more engaging than ever before. New technologies are being used in conferences to help boost audience engagement and collect feedback. However, even with all the technological advances none have come close to beating out text messaging as one of the best conference technologies.
Why is that? The answer is simple. Text messaging is easy to use, affordable, doesn’t require extra instruction for people to use it, and doesn’t require any additional equipment.
You will see there are a number of different conference technologies to choose from when planning a business conference. You may even be tempted to use some different technologies instead of text messaging. However, these newer technologies have some drawbacks. Your audience may not be familiar with the technology and will need some additional help to use it, resulting in lost time, or lost feedback. However, almost everyone and their brother knows how to write a text. So, nobody will have any issue in asking a question or supplying feedback.
98% of people have a cellphone. They are pretty much universal, and most people never leave home without one. This is a huge benefit above using another audience response systems as you won’t need to rent any equipment or pay people to install it. Everyone brings their own. Also, some audience response systems rely on using microphones, and for that people need to wait their turn to use it. With texting, everyone can submit their feedback or question, whenever they want.
Your company can not only save a lot of money by not needing to rent any additional equipment, but it’s also more aesthetically pleasing as you don’t have a bunch of wires running all over the place.
Text messaging is also very affordable, and many people have a texting plan with their carrier. Also, besides the fact that an attendee can provide their feedback or ask their question anytime they want, they can also do so anonymously. Organizers of the conference can also send out any important announcements regarding times, venues or special alerts via text message as well.
For all the above reasons and more, text messaging is still at the top of the list when it comes to conference technologies to help improve audience engagement and participation. Be sure to check out text messaging for your next conference, before thinking about an expensive audience response system.