The fast development of mobile technology is one of the most popular domains in all industries; its extensive use in conferences is undoubtedly inevitable. Smartphone is now not only widely accepted in people’s personal life but also in professional areas. Meeting this trend in holding conventions and conferences could improve meetings’ efficiency and also emerge professionalism as well.
Why should we care about mobile technology? The term “mobile apps” is the word of high appearing frequency as more and more smartphones arise. More and more mobile applications have started making dramatic changes to people’s ways of living, travelling as well as job meetings. Nowadays, a large amount of people depend on searching their trips’ ideal destinations through 3G or 4G internet with their smartphones, which means that hotels, restaurants, and conference centres need to be aware of their publicity and reputation on Internet. The influence brought by mobility gradually expand itself by bring individuals’ abundant information and finger-tip convenience. “ Global smartphone wholesale revenues were expected to hit $97.3 billion in 2010, according to New York City-based ABI Research -- a year-over-year jump of nearly 57 percent. ABI expects revenues to climb to more than $175 billion by 2015.” Due to the fact that majority of meeting and convention participants are Smartphone users, conference management should pay more attention to mobile technology.
According to researches, there are mainly two categories of mobile apps particularly aimed at meetings. One is for meeting planners, which allows managers to immediately input data and information into their smartphone, ipad as well as syncing with PC at any time. This application changes the traditional way that people carry big blinders which may be a little bit difficult to organize and heavy to move. What’s more, it also meets the requirements of green meetings which are completely free of
References: http://denverconvention.com/blog/details/11-meeting-trends-that-will-shape-2012 http://www.meetings-conventions.com/articles/how-meetings-benefit-from-today39s-technology/a38382.aspx http://www.industryreview.org/opinion/seven-reasons-why-twitter-hash-tags-benefit-conferences