This is a multi-post series in which we discuss participants’ digital experience in industry events and how it can be made more immersive and effective, helping the event holders and participants meet their business objectives better.
This post discusses what the future of events participation might look like, from a digital engagement standpoint.
In the earlier posts, we looked at the evolution of the events experience in the investment management industry and what can be done with current technology to make the participant experience significantly ‘richer’ as compared to what is on offer today.
The future might be GLASSy
A multi-channel event experience delivered mainly through the mobile and web channels will be a significant improvement over what exists today. However, a really immersive event experience might really be just around the corner.
Imagine a scenario where participants in an event are handed “augmented reality glasses” (the most famous example being Google Glass) as soon as they register at the venue. Or they might be prompted to download the ‘app’ onto the devices that they own.
From that point onwards, the augmented experience takes over in the event arena. Some ‘use cases’ for the augmented reality might be:
- Information: If the wearer is attending a presentation, then additional data about the subject matter can be overlayed on the screened content when delivered through the device
- Content: Video content can be remotely streamed / played back to the users, again with overlays if required
- Marketing: Depending on the micro-location of the user in the venue (e.g., near to a provider booth), targeted marketing messages and promotions can be delivered to the user
- Networking: Display user profiles (maybe using LinkedIn or even registration info) of people that you the wearer is interested in networking with
Note: The list above is by no means a comprehensive listing of how such devices can be used in events. A more comprehensive list of possible features can be found in the previous section.
While much of this can be done via smartphones and tablets too, what will differentiate the use of these devices is the sheer convenience for the users. The fact that information and content is being delivered for user consumption in a targeted fashion ‘live’ without requiring to user to look at his phone / tablet screen is a major positive. This unobtrusiveness will be a large contributor to the enhancement of the overall events experience for the users.
This match of requirements with device capabilities almost makes you wonder if these devices were made for the events industry. (For the record, the inspiration seems to have been Terminator 2 – https://slice.mit.edu/2013/05/30/google-glass-inspired-by-terminator/).
This is NOT an app for that
Given current public discourse, no discussion on augmented reality devices can be complete without discussing the privacy aspects of their use. However, in the context of their use for industry events, the good news is that the user experience will be governed by (i) the ‘app’ and (ii) user preferences.
In other words, the user experience parameters and boundaries (e.g. what can and cannot be done through the device) can be pre-programmed into the apps. For example, the app might be configured to prevent the user from clicking pictures or recording videos.
This will have to go hand in hand with the ability of event participants to define what information they want to share through the app. For example, (in the networking context) some participants might decide that they want only their e-mail to be visible to other participants, but not their phone numbers. Participants should be able to exert fine-grained control over shared information at the time of registration.
Given a combination of the above, it should be possible to use these devices at events without concerns about privacy violations. In this regard, it is important to note that this does not differ much from participants using their smartphones at events.
Conclusion
Asset and wealth management industry events provide a perfect opportunity for product and service providers to engage with their prospects and customers in a focused fashion. While event-focused mobile apps have started making an appearance, there are nowhere in number as compared to the number of events being held annually, or even the number of event organizers.
What industry participants need is to define a roadmap that helps them best leverage mobile technologies for making user engagement at events that they organize much better than what it is currently. The broad milestones in the roadmap should consist of building a mobile app (in a multi-channel context) with the most required features, enhancing it to improve engagement by leveraging technology available today and thinking of ways to leverage technology on the verge of commercialization to optimize participant event experience. Not doing this is not an option!
InRa's Blog 