Corps. Slow To Embrace Onsite Attendee Mgmt. Tools

Such developments in onsite event data management as automated attendee tracking, data transfer and wireless options may take years to be adopted by companies, according to analysts, as corporate meeting buyers look for basic technology to automate time-consuming and low-value tasks. Compatibility between technology systems also may slow the development of attendee management tools.

Recent developments in onsite attendee management include real-time surveys and attendee feedback, tracking and wireless post-session evaluations, said Jeff Rasco, president of Texas-based Attendee Management Inc. and a principal in Tech3 Partners Consulting.

With real-time evaluations, a meeting stakeholder can adjust a conference agenda, quickly respond to crises and track attendee response, Rasco said. With online systems, a meeting manager can monitor an event from another location, he added.

Radio frequency identification is a "basic" function that buyers can use to be more efficient, Rasco said. RFID badges have an electronic chip that can transmit attendee information, location and response to a dedicated Internet site, then transmit such information as agenda changes to attendees.

One issue that needs to be addressed before event data technology tools become commonplace is data compatibility between systems, said Rasco. Current tools, such as a hotel's room-reservation Web site and a company's attendee room-booking tool may store data in different forms. A hotel might ask for an attendee's surname while a booking system may ask for the attendee's last name.

The difference in terminology can mean big problems in compiling reports and integrating the two sides, Rasco said. The Convention Industry Council's Accepted Practices Exchange has been working on standardizing the XML protocol in the meetings technology industry to allow data to be shared more easily.

"The problem exists because everybody on both sides of the fence has their own databases," Rasco said. "Each side has spent hundreds of thousands of hours and dollars on creating their own databases the way they want them to be."

RFID could be one way to automate manual processes such as attendee tracking, he said. "It has been addressed in the past, but it has been addressed by things like magnetic cards. You have to stop and do something, which creates sort of a logjam," Rasco said.

Rasco acknowledged that RFID raises privacy issues, which must be addressed before the technology can be fully implemented. Interactive name badges by Boston-based NTag Interactive Corp. embedded with RFID technology can be read by sensors up to 150 feet away. The system operates on its own radio frequency, which reduces the risk of data theft, and NTag removes the information it has gathered through the tags 90 days after the event, said Jim Rowins, director of sales for the company.

However, some buyers said attendee information is not sensitive data that needs extensive protection. John Fredette, senior manager of supplier communications for Murray Hill, N.J.-based Lucent Technologies, said he first used NTag badges in June 2004 at Lucent's annual supplier conference.

"Given the kind of information we had on the tags themselves, it didn't come up as a concern," Fredette said. Typical badge data include attendee contact information, surveys, attendance tracking and agendas.

Even though onsite attendee management technology is expected to further develop, some buyers said they only require basic online tools—particularly online registration, often the first meetings management tool a corporation adopts.

Princeton, N.J.-based Educational Testing Service plans to roll out StarCite Inc.'s RegWeb for online registration this month, said Pamela Wynne, manager of corporate meeting planning.

"I'm very excited for the cost savings. Not even the hard-dollar cost savings, just soft dollars in the form of staff hours," Wynne said. "We get more control with online registration."

Wynne said she looks for efficient, basic tools over new technology applications like RFID. Without a significant need for onsite attendee technology, ETS found many of these new technologies to be cost-prohibitive, she said.

"We don't have many meetings where onsite attendee tools would be necessary. I've seen it done where they give people a Palm Pilot and there's automatic updates and here's the schedule—all that stuff is great. I would love to be more involved if we had more meetings at ETS where we could utilize some of that technology," Wynne said.

Roxane Sobanski, meeting and event planner for Sturtevant, Wis.-based JohnsonDiversey Inc., said she looks for attendee management tools to increase efficiency and automate labor-intensive tasks. JohnsonDiversey hasn't found a need for such onsite tools as RFID tags or attendee tracking, but continues to need basic online registration.

"The only thing we've used for the last couple of meetings was [Arlington, Va.-based] Cvent for online registration." Sobanski said. "We held our first global executive conference in May with 210 people from around the world. We didn't know where the addresses were if we wanted to send them hard invitations. We had no idea where they would be, but we knew everybody would have a company e-mail address."

With online registration, Sobanski said she was able to compile pre-event reports and print attendee badges with few problems. With 64 countries represented at the conference, manual registration would have been too time-consuming, she said.

"For me, trying to manage everybody, the tool was invaluable, just because of the distance that everybody came from," Sobanski said. Automation of such time-consuming tasks as registration provides the greatest return on investment for attendee management technology, Sobanski said. "For me, it would be huge."