An Independent HelmsBriscoe Associate | 636-678-7661 | jstone@helmsbriscoe.com

Jill Stone

Your Meeting Matchmaker Fairy Godmother

Must Have Technologies for Meeting Planners (and the next must have step to take)

in: Event Planning Advice Meeting Planning Experience Technology

There are many technologies that will make your meeting planning life so much easier. If you are not up on these technologies, then here is a soft nudge to get you moving in the right direction.  Don’t get left behind!

Smartphones: If you are not packing a smartphone in your tote, then what are you waiting for?  Smartphones have moved into the must-have arena. If you are still running around looking for house phones in the meeting room and waiting for the concierge to give you the name of the closest florist – yikes! A smartphone can turn the things you need right now into a close at hand reality. The next step: Get your hotel contact and meeting team to download the Voxer app to their phones. Now you can do quick messaging back and forth, while running around creating meeting magic!

Virtual Events: Okay, sure, lots of reports on budgets are coming back on line so meetings can happen. But the recession gave us some great lessons in streamlining. Webinars and on-line events can be a fantastic time and money saver for all involved. Get your feet wet in the virtual world today and put on your own online show. The next step: check out Join.me, it’s free (pro accounts with additional features are available), you can invite up to 250 people, they can even attend via their tablet or smartphone with the mobile app!

Social Media: Of the too-many-to-list here talents that a meeting planner must have, ranking close to the top are amazing communications skills and the ability to connect people with people, products, concepts and more. Social Media could not be a better fit! It’s easy to communicate your message in short, interesting, relevant bites and nothing connects further or wider than social media! The next step: create a Facebook Group and a Twitter Hashtag for your next Event!

Ipad or Tablet: There was a time where the meeting planner was pretty easy to spot; just look for the person carting a wheel barrel’s worth of paper around with them. Now those reams of paper can be digitally translated into a tablet. The next step: Get awesome apps to streamline everything. Here is a great place to start.

Cloud Service: Having an Ipad or Tablet naturally leads us to “the cloud,” as we cannot store our documents and such on a tablet, but we can store it and access it from a cloud storage service. Top picks are Dropbox, Apple’s iCloud, and Google Apps. The next step: Becoming comfortable with using your tablet like you would a laptop, and for this you will need a slick keyboard like the iType from ION.

I am extending my Happy New Year Contest! Make sure to comment for an entry. How many of these technologies do you regularly use? Which do you like or not like? If I am missing something vital, then please tell us. Let’s hear from you!

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Comments on this entry are closed.

Mikel February 8, 2012, 1:36 pm

Thank you Jill, this is great information. I regularly use my smart phone and am currently organizing a virtual conference. I have a tablet but have not taken the time to figure out how to use it – I definitely will though before my next conference. I am going to have social media ambassadors at my next conference – by which I mean student volunteers who will be posting and tweeting. = ). Thanks again!