Remember and Review – Traveling with Smart Devices

As part of Strategic Results’ commitment to service, we have come across two articles that – especially in this day and age of travelers with smartphones, tablets, and e-readers – we think will aid you in your travel arrangements.

The Wall Street Journal’s Scott McCartney has recently written about traveling with smart devices – or rather, two big things that travelers forget.

One is the fact that roaming charges, especially on data plans and with automatically updating devices, can send your mobile service bill into the stratosphere (as “Stuck with a $10,000 Phone Bill” shows).

The other is the device itself: travelers of all ages have been forgetting to pack up their Nooks, iPads, Kindles, and other devices, with airlines often finding them in the planes (“Oops! I Forgot My iPad on the Plane – Now What?“). There are many issues here, from the various policies of the airlines regarding lost property to the policies of the device manufacturers regarding retrieval, but Scott McCartney does provide some tips on what to do to remember your device, and in case you do forget that electronic right hand of yours, what to do about it. Some manufacturers, like Apple, provide services to help you find registered devices and to remotely wipe data or restore factory settings; it may be worth it to read those notifications on your device and learn more about such services, before anything happens to it.

Traveling is stressful enough. Prepare ahead of time, and know your options.

Going anywhere this week? Use any of the tips? Let us know!

Wi-Fi in the Sky

You’ve probably come to expect Wi-Fi in your coffee shops, your bookstores, maybe even your hotels—it’s near ubiquitous. But on your transcontinental flight, 30,000 feet above the closest Starbucks? Well, according to Scott McCartney of the Wall Street Journal, you might just expect that, too.

More and more planes are starting to provide Wi-Fi service, and more passengers are taking advantage of it. Virgin America and AirTran now offer access across their entire fleets, and other airlines like Delta, U.S. Airways, and Southwest are catching up. Already, 8% of passengers use the service, and that number is on a sharp ascent.

The issue—as is so often the case with newly-offered services—is how to put a price tag on it. Right now, passengers on Delta, American, and other airlines where Gogo, Inc. provides the service, find themselves paying “$9.95 for a flight up to three hours or the $12.95 price for either a 24-hour pass or a flight longer than three hours.” But that doesn’t mean they’re happy about it. Most think they should pay between $2 to $5 for the service. That’s what Southwest charges—$5 per flight—and they plan to offer Wi-Fi customers targeted discounts in the future, but they have yet to equip the majority of their planes with the service.

Another issue is what type of system to offer. Gogo relies on a ground-based system with 135 antennae spread across North America, but other providers like Row 44 are opting for faster, more globally-available satellite systems. The latter are less tested, but they’re becoming more popular: both United Airlines and JetBlue are planning to implement them in the near future.

So what do people use the Internet for when they’re flying across the country? Mostly what you would expect—book downloads, flight tracking, and social media. Some passengers use Twitter for questions and complaints they used to direct towards flight attendants, like inquiries about flight delays. But primarily, passengers are just looking for ways to pass the time.

Airlines are reporting good revenue from their Wi-Fi services, so it seems Wi-Fi access in planes is here to stay. Soon, there won’t be a place on Earth where you can’t check Facebook.

Playing the Luggage Game

If you fly often, you’ve probably had to struggle for overhead space more than a couple times. Scott Mccarthy of the Wall Street Journal recently detailed the increasingly infuriating phenomenon he’s called “The Luggage Game”. It’s gotten worse in the past few years thanks to the introduction of baggage fees; everyone is trying to fit all their belongings in a carry-on.  As a result, according to McCarthy, “more domestic customers now are carrying on the biggest bags that carry-on rules allow.”

You might scoff, but it’s a serious problem—heavy arguments and delays have ensued because of competition for the coveted overhead space. And while fights or injuries from falling items are rare, they are entirely possible.

Airlines are responding. For example, Delta Air Lines offers free drinks or headsets to those whose bags don’t fit in the overhead bin. They also bump the estimated average weight per passenger on the plane—used to calculate its balance during flight—from 190 to 195 pounds in winter, anticipating more gear and heavier carry-ons.

Other airlines are redoubling their efforts to stop overhead overload in the first place, scouting the gates to send passengers who are over the carry-on limit back to baggage check-in. It’s worse on full flights, so sometimes they may even make announcements urging passengers to gate-check any bags they can. Spirit Airlines, much to the ire of some travelers and congressmen, has gone as far as to charge extra for carry-on items, and in doing so has reduced the total volume of baggage to less than half of what it was in 2006.

The fight for overhead space is a brutal one, but hopefully that’s one aspect of travel that will improve in the next few years.

Applying Science to Science Meetings, Part 2

If we didn’t make it clear with our last update, scientific research is beginning to feed into meeting design more than ever before. Last year’s International Association of Conference Centers brought psychologists and brain scientists on a panel together with planners, architects, and accountants to discuss the future of meeting creation. This MeetingsNet article  by Sue Pelletier and Alison Hall cites Andrea Sullivan, president of BrainStrength Systems, as saying “Our biological state has a huge impact on everything that goes on around learning and meetings… We need different stimulations. When everything is firing, we are thinking better and learning better.” Sullivan stressed novelty as one of the most important attribute of memorable meetings.

The panelists discussed ways in which knowledge of a variety of disciplines is necessary to plan the most effective meeting possible. For one, if you don’t know how to measure return on investment (ROI), you’d better find someone who does. ROI is a precise, formula-based methodology for gauging meeting success—the kind of hard data companies want to back their investments.

You also should get used to designing meeting architecture with a strategy in mind. Don’t just create a layout that will look cool—work with the conference center to make a space that will help accomplish the meeting’s objectives.

Hybrid meetings—those with in-person and online components—were, as always, a focus of the 2011 IACC, but it’s not just about putting content online; it’s about what content you put online. Rather than using the conference and the Internet to repeat the same information, you can put important information on the web beforehand and center the meeting on discussing and integrating that information.

Basically, every aspect of your meeting should forward your meeting’s educational goals. If you think differently enough, you could probably improve nearly every step of the meeting process in some way. The ideas the experts at the IACC came up with are a start, but if you want to transform your event into a personal, innovative experience, you had better start thinking outside the box yourself.

Applying Science to Science Meetings

We don’t tend to think of meeting planning as a particularly scientific endeavor, but Dave Kovaleski at MeetingsNet has put together a very interesting list of science-tested tricks that can stimulate your attendees’ attention. You can tell these tips are the real deal: they came straight from Jonathan Bradshaw of the Meetology Research Institute, an organization founded specifically to “study… the sciences affecting human behavior and performance at meetings.” Take a look!

1. Play – Reduce stress, raise energy levels, and get people talking at the same time.
2. Diet – Eat (and provide) brain food: spinach, salad, fish, walnuts, eggs, tea, and chocolate. Don’t skip breakfast, and drink plenty of water. The food you eat is your energy for the day.
3. Meditate – A little meditation time during meetings will let your attendees calm down and focus.
4. Music – Organizations like Song Division will create icebreakers and team building exercises centered around composing and performing music. Or if that’s beyond your scope, a little Mozart in the background never hurts.
5. Exercise – Running, yoga, or pilates will give your attendees a break while increasing the flow of oxygen to their brains.
6. Distract them – People can only focus for so long at a time – give them some breaks every once in a while.
7. Arouse the senses – Create a sensory experience that people will always associate with the event. Marriott hotels use the same scents at every location so guests will feel at home wherever they are. Do the same thing: think about the smells, sounds, and sights attendees encounter at your conference
8. Colors – Believe it or not, the color blue tends to promote creativity while red promotes attention to detail. Choose your colors according to how you want attendees to think.
9. Stimulate – Caffeine and other stimulatory drugs might help if all else fails.

If this list intrigues you, we recommend you stay updated with the Meetology Research Institute. It may be a young company, but it’s looking to become a fantastic resource in meeting-related research. They’ve got a Twitter feed with links to recent studies and seem to have some consulting services down the line; this looks like a company to watch.

A Few More Cheap or Free Online Tools for Meeting Planning

If you’ve read this blog for a while, you must have realized there’s no shortage of cheap or free apps and online tools to help you with all kinds of business chores—probably because we keep reminding you. Well, we have a few more now, this time courtesy of Corbin Ball over at MeetingsNet.

Amiando: A multifaceted tool for meeting registration. Amiando is free unless your event is not—in which case they charge 99 cents per registration plus 2.95% of the registration fee. The tool also works with Facebook so attendees can invite friends and receive discounts.

Floorplan Genie: A tool for exhibition planning. It’s fairly comprehensive, but if you don’t want to pay anything, you can only use it three times a year, and the event must spread across 10,000 square feet or more.

Babycad: A 3D-design tool used for planning booths. You can try it for free or pay a monthly fee for the less limited Pro version.

Ootoweb: An all-purpose product for attendee management and registration. Ootoweb costs $49 a month for meetings with less than 200 participants, and $2 more for every extra attendee after that.

Google Hangout: A tool that lets you videoconference with up to ten locations at once for free. EventCamp used it to host an event across all of Europe.

Prioritizing Audience Participation

Our last post– almost a month ago, but we’re back for good now– dealt with the phenomenon of participant-driven events. That’s all well and good, but maybe you’re trying to rework your annual convention now and you’re interested in seeing some specifics. If so, take a look at this list we’ve compiled of some of the most innovative, audience-engaging meeting formats we know.

Exchange Cafe: Each table has a unique assigned topic and a facilitator guiding discussion. Attendees can move around and discuss different issues at different tables.

Round Table: Attendees suggest topics on the spot and a facilitator guides discussion.

Cards: Facilitators deal out cards containing common disease scenarios. The attendee answers according to his experience, and if he does not know what to do, he can get clues from the facilitator or the audience.

Pair-Squared: Ask attendees to pair up and discuss a specified issue or question—give each person in the pair a set time to talk while the other listens. Next, let each pair find another pair. Attendee A shares what Attendee B said, and vice versa; the members of the other pair then do the same.

Circles: An inner circle discusess an issue while an outer circle listens and takes notes. Participants in the outer circle then share their observations. The groups then switch and repeat the process.

Critical Incidents: In a paragraph or two, present a real or fictitious situation for which participants can discuss possible solutions or outcomes.

Structured Note Taking: Provide some graphical representation that frames the discussion or lecture, such as specific questions to answer or fill-in-the-blanks.

Breakout Choices: Following a keynote, offer several breakouts—one to discuss the lecture, one to work on a case study, and so on.

Body Voting: Ask the audience to take an action based on a series of questions—for example, let them stand or sit down in response to a poll.

Human Spectagram: Make a statement. Let one corner of the room represent “strongly agree,” and another, “strongly disagree”. Attendees stand along the wall according to how they feel on the issue, acting as a quick guage of audience sentiments.

Q&A via Text: Set up a system whereby attendees can text their questions to a certain number instead of speaking into a microphone—this opens the floor to those who might be scared of asking in front of others.

iPad Dinner Quiz: At each table, participants collaborate on two or three iPads to give answers to fun, engaging, and relevant questions.

Twitter Feedback: Use Twitter with PollEverywhere to let audience members respond to questions.

Twitter Questions: Create a Twitter account devoted specifically to fielding audience questions, comments, and complaints during the meeting.

Of course, don’t try to implement all these changes all at once. Start small, and make sure you communicate clearly with attendees prior to the meeting so they know exactly what to expect. Also, give the new format a few years to catch on– don’t expect immediate 100% satisfaction. Some of these ideas might make participants uncomfortable at first, but once they’ve grown accustomed, they might never want to go back.