Can Event Technology make 80 Million Dollars for your Charity?

Going Digital Show 2 IML and the Robin Hood Foundation

Meetings Podcast – Going Digital Show 2

This show talks about the latest event technology, talk digital event strategy, and try and interview smart people that are using digital technology to shake up events.

Welcome to Going Digital with Samuel J. Smith and Mike McAllen

Sam is an event technology consultant or “Digital Strategist” he helps event owners identify interactive meeting technologies that are the best fit for their event objectives and budgets. Also, Sam writes a great blog called Interactive Meeting Technology and can be found all over the twitters and social media sites.

Mike McAllen is the co founder of Grass Shack Events & Media. He helps companies save time, energy, and money for meeting production. His focus is on educating, motivating and getting his clients audiences networking.

This show is all about IML

Robin Hood Benefit Uses New Design Team, Sets Another Fund-Raising Record

Robin Hood  Raises Record $88 Million to Help New York’s Poor

Launch of the New IML Connector

Mail bag question from the audience. From Michael: What are our thoughts on the iPad for events?

Question for the audience?
What smart phone Applications do you like? For iPhones, Blackberrys, Android phones. Useful? Not useful. Next show we are going to talk about all of them! Full credit of course for your input!

Please leave us a question or comment, which we will try to address on the show ASAP!
What we said:

Mike McAllen: Welcome back to Going Digital with Samuel J. Smith. My name is Mike McAllen. I am with Grass Shack Events & Media and today, Sam, first of all, hello.

Samuel Smith: Hi, Mike. How are you doing?

Mike McAllen: Good. Very good. Thank you again for joining me for Going Digital Show Number Two. We’re just tearing through them.

Samuel Smith: Yes, well, we have to. We have so much – there are so many topics and we have so much to say.

Mike McAllen: Yes, we talk around about an hour and a half just about what topics to talk about. [laughs]

Samuel Smith: That’s right. We should just start recording it and just going.

Mike McAllen: Maybe the making of each show and then the show. [laughs]

Samuel Smith: That would be good.

Mike McAllen: So, what are we talking about today?

Samuel Smith: Well, we decided on three different topics. So, the first question, I think, that people need to think about is, “Can event technology help your organization raise $88 million?” And the answer is you bet it can and so, you should probably stick around and listen to the story of IML and what they did for the Robin Hood Foundation, help them raise an enormous amount of cash. I think that’s a good story to be talking about.

The second one that we want to talk about also comes from IML. Just two weeks ago, they launched this new handheld device called IML Connect. It has got a lot of interesting new types of features so we want to talk about that some more and the third topic that we have comes right out of the mail bag. We were asked about the iPad. What do we think of the iPad? So we’re going to talk about that a little bit.

Mike McAllen: Very cool.

Samuel Smith: So three big topics.

Mike McAllen: Very cool. Yes, this whole money raising opportunity they had, pretty crazy amount of money they raised.

Samuel Smith: Yes, it’s – you know, last year they raised about 70 million or 72 million. Well, first of all, we should take a step back. So, there’s an organization in New York City called the Robin Hood Foundation and they provide a bunch of services to people in the city of New York that don’t have the capabilities and they can’t get them from the government or any other means. And so, the Robin Hood Foundation provides these services and what they do each year is they have a gala dinner where they – oh, basically, they have a gala dinner where they raise the money and have a big fundraiser and last year, they asked IML to bring their keypads and their fundraising technology to their event and they used – last year, they used Jon Stewart and they had a full game, had an interactive game where people would make a pledge and the pledge, the total pledges would show up on the screen. People would see the amount and then they created a little competition where one side of the room was competing against the other side of the room.

Now, Mike, for me, this kind of thing is really interesting because typically when you do these fundraisers, they ask people to fill out a card and kind of submit it in secret. They don’t really know what the totals are. There’s not like any peer pressure to say hey, you didn’t participate over there, Mike. I didn’t see you punch in a number. Why don’t you help out the team and punch in a number. It’s for the – it’s for a good cause, right? And so, by using the technology, not only were the people in the room able to see how much they were raising but then they were able to kind of recruit the other people at the table around them. So I thought that was this really awesome and amazing story around for how you can use technology to raise money.

You know, the other thing that came out of this, they said – that they said last time or in the very first event they did, is that usually in these types of events, you get about 10 percent of the people to participate, you know, and be silent. I will make my pledge and contribute. And here, what they were able to get is about 60 percent of the people to contribute and I think that’s just …

Mike McAllen: That’s amazing.

Samuel Smith: It’s very impressive. And then of course, the – that’s called the sequel if you will. That took place just a week ago maybe in New York City again and this time in a better economy, you know. So the 72 million they raised last year was in 2009 which we all know is a terrible year for doing anything with money.

Mike McAllen: Right.

Samuel Smith: There was [Indiscernible] [0:04:48] million dollars which is about 50 percent more than they had raised the year before. Then this year, they raised 88 million which is – it’s just impressive so I think the message for me and for the people that are listening is that you can use technology inside of your fundraising events and inside of your galas to raise money because it will help you get more people to participate, get more people to be included in it and it seems like there’s probably several different ways that you could actually execute it with the technology tools.

Mike McAllen: Yes, it’s completely crazy but they – in this thing too for this [Indiscernible] [0:05:28], I mean, it’s like Oprah Winfrey kind of people sitting around. Right? That’s who they get to come to the …

Samuel Smith: Yes, yes, yes. So let’s – we should also be clear.

Mike McAllen: [laughs]

Samuel Smith: Right. I’ve seen …

Mike McAllen: You know you say your next event, yes, you should look into this but this is amazing. The star power there – or in there. And was it Jon Stewart was the host of the …

Samuel Smith: Yes, so Jon Stewart was the host and then I think Brian Williams was the host this year but yes, I mean, the people that are there are like Tom Hanks and Oprah Winfrey and those kind of caliber people. For some of the people that are listening, you know, they might not have that type of star power but they might be getting pledges that are much more – let’s call them much more closer to like say the $2500 or the $300 or maybe even the $80 …

Mike McAllen: Right.

Samuel Smith: … type size and for me, the – what I thought was cool was just the way to get all the people to work together towards this cause and get them all to kind of chip in and there’s this indirect peer pressure as you sit at a roundtable and you see that like, you know, that guy over there, he didn’t – he didn’t contribute. So let’s tease him a little bit, you know. Let’s give him a hard time. And maybe he puts in 50 bucks and it was 50 more bucks than he would have given …

Mike McAllen: Right.

Samuel Smith: [Inaudible] [0:06:43] it said anything or if they had given him a card and so, I think that those kinds of things are important if you’re going to do this, use this format.

Mike McAllen: And so, was there a gaming kind of thing behind it? I mean, I kind of read a little bit about just the ILM – the IML. Sorry, I keep saying ILM. But IML company is how they – you can pick one side of the room against another side of the room kind of a thing and they have all kinds of different ways of getting people involved in it too.

Samuel Smith: Yes. You know, their technology, it does two things. First of all, it knows who – the person at the seat has a little card that has their information registered into it so they put that into the device and it says, oh, hi, it’s Mike McAllen. Your – I have your contact information. I know about you. Okay. Mike McAllen. Mike McAllen, what would you like to pledge? I’m here like to pledge 50 bucks or – in your case, Mike, I know you’re rich so you’re going to contribute 1.5 million. So you put in 1.5 million and hit submit or whatever the button is then that gets recorded in the database which then is summarized with all of the other pledges that come in and they’ll know which side of the room you’re on. They have the ability to kind of figure that out so then they put on the screen. The left side of the room had 600,000 before but now, we’re at – they’re up to 2.1 million. Right? Because they got your $1.5 million pledge.

So then that helps to ratchet the numbers up and then it allows people to get real time feedback about how they’re performing. Right? So it makes it a game and I think that’s really cool. I think, you know …

Mike McAllen: I do.

Samuel Smith: It makes it very collaborative and a very team-based way to go out and raise money so …

Mike McAllen: Yes. And even using them in different ways of, you know, for any sort of a meeting that you could split the room up and do questions and have the room going against each other. I mean, that’s an audience response kind of a thing but it’s very cool, very cool technology.

Samuel Smith: Yes, yes, I think so. And, you know, Mike, your point is right on. There are other types of audience response tools and including this one, where you can create games and divide the room either into half or divide them into say, one division versus another or whatever you want and get those people to work together so I think that’s pretty cool.

Mike McAllen: Yes, and the event itself was beautifully done, everything they did. I was looking at the pictures of the event and we’ll have a link on the – in the show notes so you people can go take a look but even the middle little center pieces they had, these little skylines and they had the places for the controllers which was kind of a cool – they incorporated everything in everything.

Samuel Smith: Yes, yes. So the – and the – by putting those controllers on the tables then the people didn’t have to collect them and carry them around and have this thing they had in their pocket. They would just use them on the table during the voting. In the first year, I think it – I don’t know the exact details of what happened this year but I know there was much more information on the internet about what happened last year and I understand that it took them only 20 minutes to raise the $72 million in 2009 in 20 minutes.

Mike McAllen: Wow!

Samuel Smith: Right? So it’s not even like it took forever. It was 20 minutes so if you think about the amount of time that these attendees needed to use these handheld devices, it wasn’t that long. It was only for maybe 5 minutes or 10 minutes. So you used it and then put it back in the middle of the table and they didn’t need to use it, carry it with them or anything like that.

Mike McAllen: And then last year was supposed to be the strip down year. I was reading about that too when they did that too. They kind of stripped down this thing but they still made that much money which was great. So this year, I think they pumped it up a little bit more obviously.

Samuel Smith: Yes. No, I think so and Mike, we should post the link probably to BizBash and also to the Wall Street Journal because those two, as I was preparing for our show today and I was looking at both of those sites, and they had some excellent pictures of the overall events so even if people are just looking for an example of what could a rocking gala fundraising event look like, you know, this would definitely be a good …

Mike McAllen: Right. Oh, I agree. I really agree.

Samuel Smith: Should we move on?

Mike McAllen: Yes, I think we should. First of all, I would like to thank our sponsor which is Audible.com and you and I talked a little bit about before about some books that we wanted to recommend for our listeners. I also wanted to tell a little bit about what our listeners can get. They can get a – it’s called the AudibleListener Gold Free Trial Membership and it’s a 14-day risk free trial and then it’s 14.95 a month afterwards but you can use it for those 14 days and just cancel it and with that, you get one free audio book so that’s kind of a cool little thing to go on there and do. And just as you were talking about the Wall Street Journal, with this, you get a complimentary subscription to the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal so it’s kind of a cool little, trial that they’ve given us to give to our listeners.

Samuel Smith: Oh, that’s awesome.

Mike McAllen: It is.

Samuel Smith: And if I could make – you know, it’s hard to – I try to read a lot. I’m not that good at it but I try. If I could recommend one book to read with your free subscription, I would recommend that you read the book Crush It by Gary Vaynerchuk because to me, this book is kind of like the adult’s version of that Dr. Seuss book, Oh, the Places You’ll Go! And if you think about that book, they often give it to high school graduates or college graduates but I think Crush It is a much more of an adult’s version of that and is a very – Gary is a very emotional guy and does a real good job of making you – I’m out of words of what to say but he does an excellent job of inspiring you and getting you to give it your best at anything that you’re doing but it’s a – but it’s definitely a good analogy to the Dr. Seuss book.

Mike McAllen: No, I agree and he reads it too which is cool and he is a very passionate guy so it’s fun when you get the authors that read it, somebody like him. And I met him a couple of times at these podcasts in conventions. He’s a really nice guy.

Samuel Smith: Is he exactly – I’ve never met Gary. Is he exactly as he is in the book and on his Wine Library TV?

Mike McAllen: Yes, he is – he spoke at one of them but I met him before like when he first started doing this and it was, you know, the phenomenon of his wine podcast but he’s a real little guy but he has got a lot of energy and very passionate about what he feels so I read that book too also and I really, really liked it and I don’t – I didn’t listen to it. I actually read it but listening to books is a really great way to go.

For me, I do – I listen to them all the time when I’m doing yard work or, you know, riding my bike or running. You know, going to the gym and the book that I wanted to pass on is a similar book actually. It’s by Seth Godin and it’s Linchpin and it’s Are You Indispensable? And it’s the same kind of a vibe as the Crush It book. It gives you a lot of stuff about – you know, you got to make your own way in this world these days, you know. So, that’s my pick. I’m not going to go on and on about it because we should get on to our topic.

Samuel Smith: Okay, okay. Well, and – alright. Alright.

Mike McAllen: But thank you to Audible.com so …

Samuel Smith: Well, I’m going to – actually, I’m going to download that book because I’m driving to Chicago this weekend so I’m going to take the new – I’ll take Linchpin and add it – download it from Audible.com and include it on my ride.

Alright. Next topic. So still on IML, it’s kind of an IML day here.

Mike McAllen: It is.

Samuel Smith: Because they have two big news items that the next news item that they have is that they launched a new handheld device for events just a few weeks ago. They made the announcement in February but they actually made the – kind of let’s call it the formal launch in February or actually, to me in May in just a couple of weeks ago and what I think is interesting about this device and why our listeners would be interested in it is they’ve taken a standard voting keypad.

They’ve now – where they – and their voting keypad used to also have Q and A and it had a microphone in it. So that was the IML one and that was already ahead of most of the rest of the market outside of the Spotme device which did a whole bunch of other things in this kind of in a class on its own but the IML device now, this new one, they’ve upgraded the microphone. They added a full QWERTY keyboard. So, for the people at home that are wondering what is that, just think about like the 2007 BlackBerry keyboard. That’s essentially what they’ve put on it.

They’ve made the screen multidimensional so that it’s active. So you can put different – you could have different types of animated graphics on it and other kinds of interactive things on the screen. They also have included a speaker and what’s cool about the speaker is that you can put headphones on and you could have different channels. So Mike, in Europe and in Asia, this is what – you know, there’s a lot of simultaneous translation devices out there and then they also use audience response keypads.

Well, now they only need to use this IML device so to save the events a few bucks. Here in the United States, that kind of thing won’t be of too much value but for sure, in the European markets and in Asia, at those events, or at events in those markets, they will be using the speaker system, simultaneous translation. So I think that those kinds of things are a – those are part of this new device. I think it’s really cool. It will be interesting to see where this device goes.

Mike McAllen: Yes, it looks like a BlackBerry which is interesting. It looks just like a BlackBerry.

Samuel Smith: Yes, it does. I mean, that’s – not the new one, not the brand new one but …

Mike McAllen: No, but like an older one. Yes. And they – and it is interesting that to have other languages hooked right into it. We’ve done a lot of that with having the booth in the back of the room where people are doing the, you know, interpretation of the languages and I think it will work here too because a lot of the tech companies and stuff would really dig that because they’re pushing their stuff out all over the place. So – and, you know, the multicultural events.

Samuel Smith: Yes.

Mike McAllen: A very cool idea.

Samuel Smith: One I think that, you know, you and I also talked – were talking before the show, one of the challenges with whether you have a simultaneous interpretation equipment or handheld devices is how do you get them returned and they get lost and who had it and where was that guy that had it. And so, instead of having to pass up two devices here, they are just passing out one. And so, it will be interesting to see how it comes together. The microphone thing, I’ve never seen it in action so I don’t know how well it works. Mike …

Mike McAllen: Yes …

Samuel Smith: … you deal with this kind of stuff all the time. What do you …

Mike McAllen: Well, I see – I don’t understand how it works exactly. But when you say high quality microphone is that where you don’t have to walk up to the microphone? You can actually just speak into that and talk to the presenters. That’s basically what I’m thinking. No?

Samuel Smith: Well, there’s a microphone in each device.

Mike McAllen: Yes …

[Crosstalk] [0:18:42]

Mike McAllen: … so I was thinking are they able to turn that on? Then how do you – for production-wise, you know, usually you have a – you know, you know who’s at the mic so you can raise their microphone up whereas, you know, how many people are talking in the set one at a time.

Samuel Smith: That’s …

[Crosstalk] [0:18:58]

Samuel Smith: … and I think – and it’s my understanding, Mike, that I do have a little bit more insight on that, that you can kind of say hey, I would like to ask a question and you …

Mike McAllen: You get in the queue.

Samuel Smith: How to punch a button. You get on a queue then they know who you are and turn you on and say, oh, it’s Sam Smith. He would like to ask a question. Sam, why don’t you [Indiscernible] [0:19:19] your question? So that seems reasonable to me. You know, for me, Mike and you would have more insight on it than I would but I thought this would be good for small events quite honestly like down at the 50-person level or even smaller and it may – and I might be wrong on this but I – I thought it was – it would be useful because it cuts down on your total AV need, right? You could use the voting. You could use the questioning and you could use the microphone in a small event. Maybe you don’t need to have a whole bunch of tech support on there because you just have the one device and the one interface. I don’t know. What’s your take on that?

Mike McAllen: Well, owning a production company, I don’t think it’s a good idea.

[Laughter]

Mike McAllen: No, I’m just kidding. I think it’s great too that we don’t know how we can use these things and that’s the fun thing about it is that we can – it might be perfect for a small event that they’re probably thinking larger events are the way to go with this to get more people interacting. But you’re right. Maybe a smaller event would be good and I’m not sure how the interface – how does it work then for projection? Is it one person – does IML send somebody out there that runs the board? Is it another person you’re adding back there or not adding or maybe that’s the only person you have there? I’m not sure how it works which I probably should look into more of it and then get back.

Samuel Smith: Yes. So, well, you know, maybe what we need to do is go get them and bring them on the show and have them …

Mike McAllen: Right.

Samuel Smith: … tell us about it. So, anyway, in which we should so let’s make that as an action at them. We’ll see if in a few shows if we can get them to come on and talk more about what they’re doing.

Mike McAllen: I think that’s a great idea. So …

Samuel Smith: And maybe it’s – and maybe this is an idea that just for our listeners so we don’t bore them with this but let’s say if we were to do that in the fall after these guys have more experience, they’ve just launched this today. Maybe we should wait until they get some experience, have some customer references and do it then.

Mike McAllen: Right. So in case that isn’t how it worked.

Samuel Smith: Yes. And good and bad so …

Mike McAllen: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. It does look very interesting though so people should take a look at it again. We’ll have the link in the show notes so they can look at this and …

Samuel Smith: Alright.

Mike McAllen: … see a little bit about it.

Samuel Smith: So big news, last week, we had – our last show we had InXpo. This time, we have IML.

Mike McAllen: Right.

Samuel Smith: A lot of going on in event technology right now.

Mike McAllen: I see us getting a lot of sponsors coming up from these people.

Samuel Smith: Is that right?

Mike McAllen: [laughs]

Samuel Smith: Alright.

Mike McAllen: No, I don’t know that. But [Indiscernible] [0:21:49] have them actually so we can talk about them.

Samuel Smith: Yes, exactly.

Mike McAllen: With an open mind.

Samuel Smith: What do we – so what’s our next item? Question from the audience.

Mike McAllen: Yes.

Samuel Smith: So, you know, we got to ask the question that – about the iPad. What are our thoughts on the iPad? And I assume – and for events, what are our thoughts on the iPad for events? This comes from Michael and, you know, this is – Mike, for me, this is a really interesting thing because the iPad is basically just out. Sure, two million people or a million and a half or however many it is, people have this but it’s still very, very new. And so, there’s a lot of speculation around the device and what it can do for events and I’m not sure if you had any – I mean, have you tried it yet? Have you checked it out?

Mike McAllen: Yes, and I spent quite a lot of time because I was thinking about getting one but – and I have a few friends that have them and I’ve played a lot with them and I’ve had some talk with – a lot of the meetings that my company produces are sales meetings like national sales meetings and internal biotech [Phonetic] [0:23:07] meetings and they’re all sales people and I’ve had a lot of talks with the different – a couple of different companies saying, you know, these are – this is a good – you know, it’s a great – when you’re selling something, you of course want to talk to someone and you don’t want to just come right out and start talking about it, whatever your product is but if you have ways of starting conversations, these things are amazing, you know, which you can show the rich media on there, you know, right away.

For example, one of the last meetings I had, we did some – shot some quick video of one of the presenters on stage and then he went off and then I said, well, I’ll find you later. You can come back and take a look at what we’ve edited up and then he said, oh, great, you know. So I went back and I was talking with my editor and he was editing up the little shot to see if he liked it and then he said [Indiscernible] [0:23:54]. He says, “Can you go get him?” And I said, “Well, why don’t you just save it for my iPhone and then I’ll find him and I’ll show it to him on my iPhone.” And so he just did it, saved it from my iPhone. We put it on my iPhone. I found the guy and I was, hey, look at this. And he was so amazed that you could do that on the iPhone but imagine if he could really see something big on there. I guess I’m kind of getting off topic but …

Samuel Smith: No, I – no, Mike. I think you’re right. I mean …

Mike McAllen: So, and that company – what was that company? They were talking about giving them all out to their salespeople, to go out because [Inaudible] iPads. So, they go out on the road and they have them and have built-specific apps that they could plug in things on to their iPads. So that to me means that opens up a whole thing for that – you know, solutions for events, things you could put on there

Samuel Smith: Yes. Well, you know, that for me, the – the very first – I’m an iPhone user. I also use a MacBook and the iPad is kind of a device that fits in between the MacBook laptop and the iPhone and the very first thing I thought about when I saw the iPad come out is the larger fonts and the larger screen size. So, I was thinking about people that don’t have young eyes, right? And allowing them to have better readability. Alright? Not only can the words be bigger, they can have more words on a screen or on a page and that’s just easier on the eyes where sometimes, the content that comes through on my iPhone is so small that it’s really hard to see but [Inaudible] [0:25:44]. But if you brought that same content through and scaled it appropriately for the iPad screen, it would be perfect or, you know, close but you also mentioned the multimedia capability and I don’t know if you’ve seen the Wired Magazine demo but what they did with the content is they took this content and they showed different ways to interact with it. And I think that that’s important for people that are going to be using that or for the people at home because you need to think about not just saying, okay, I have a website and I’m going to put it on an iPhone. I have a website. I’m going to put it on the iPad.

Well, people don’t use the iPhone and they won’t use the iPad the same way as they do their desktop PC. Right? Where they’re using the tool, how they’re using it will be much different and so I think that this new iPad, as we get more experienced with where people are using the devices, how they would use them and where they use them, I think we’re going to see much – some very interesting applications built around that on – I think that will be pretty cool.

The other thing that I thought would be perfect is, you know, kind of living or going right off this Wired Magazine demo is if you could take the guide, the show guide and then convert it into an iPad application that includes lots of photos, lots of video and other types of interactive elements where you could ask questions, rate things, make comments, whatever. I thought that would be really cool and those are things you could do with an iPad. You could do with them in a booth. You could do with them at a lounge. You could do it at a kiosk. You could do it – I sound like Dr. Seuss.

Mike McAllen: [laughs]

Samuel Smith: You could do it here or there. You can do it anywhere. Anyway, I think …

Mike McAllen: [Inaudible] [0:27:42] Dr. Seuss reference. That’s perfect.

Samuel Smith: I know, I know, [Indiscernible]. So …

Mike McAllen: [laughs]

Samuel Smith: … I’m on a roll. So anyway, I think that we still have to wait and see with this but we’re going to see a lot of people experimenting and trying out things with the iPad. Anyway …

Mike McAllen: I agree.

Samuel Smith: … so to answer Michael’s question and summarize it, I think we were talking about more multimedia, more demos, a lot of experimentation to find out how it will work or where it will work or will it work. And then we’re going to see some custom applications being built for it.

Mike McAllen: Oh, yes. And then comes into fact too even for when you see the event – you know, any one of these events, I’ve been on there. Some meeting planner walking down the road with her binder which is like, you know - you know, it’s like two feet in diameter thick of paperwork. You know, she could carry instead that iPad.

Samuel Smith: Yes, I know that would – I mean, that’s an excellent example from a – whether that’s for a meeting planner of for a technology partner or for any other vendor that’s associated with an event. Right?

Mike McAllen: Yes.

Samuel Smith: I think that kind of thing, we could easily see that happening especially if they’re using a tool like base camp or one of these online project management suites.

Mike McAllen: Right.

Samuel Smith: You know, you could just put the files in there, move it around or there’s a tool called MeetingMatrix. I might have the name a little bit wrong but basically, what they do is you can download the floor plans for a venue, configure it the way you want it to. They give you the inventory of the tables and chairs and everything so you can design a room however you want and then shoot it over to them and get them to quote you a price.

Mike McAllen: Oh, that’s awesome.

Samuel Smith: But you could just – maybe they can make that for the iPad. That would be kind of cool so you can make the changes right there on the fly. Maybe you do it mostly on your computer but then later on, you do it on it but I don’t know. Just thinking out loud.

Mike McAllen: And I know that we’re running out of time here but it also kind of goes into that factor of that we were just talking about. Like would you hand out these at an event? Could you go and have them? You know, you could have a whole application for your event [Indiscernible] [0:30:00] handing them out at the door as they come in, you know, and then they – you would have all this rich media about all the speakers, about all the people as you were just talking about instead of an event guide that here’s your iPad, you know, and then you could send stuff to your own, you know.

Samuel Smith: Right.

Mike McAllen: So there’s just all kinds of things you can do. It’s very cool. It’s very exciting to see how it goes.

Samuel Smith: Yes, and some events, I think we’re – some events are going to hand those out. They’re going to say, hey, this is also our give-away or hey, this is your new sales force tool so we’ll have an event app but then also you have this – your new [Indiscernible] [0:30:31] sales force on a road where your kind of applications. So, I think we’ll see a lot of them.

Mike McAllen: Yes, and one other thing. So I was talking to Steve Miller, not the singer but he’s an editor buddy of mine that I work with all the time. Great guy and he was talking about that. He’s working with a company right now and they want to have – they’re giving those out to their sales team but they want one. They enter the room for the opening video that they’ll have them all propped up on all the tables and then the big screen which [Indiscernible] [0:31:00] widescreen technology. They’ll have the same video going on at the same time with all of the iPads …

Samuel Smith: Small screens.

Mike McAllen: Yes …

Samuel Smith: Well, that’s awesome.

Mike McAllen: On all the tables. I have no idea how they’re going to do that. It’s interesting to – it will see how it all works out. Maybe I can have him come on and talk about it if they accomplish it but …

Samuel Smith: You know, that – I can just tell you that that kind of thing is possible to make that happen and there are technologies out there that do it. I’ve seen it done on Windows netbook kind of devices but I haven’t seen it done on the iPads but I’m sure it could happen. So …

Mike McAllen: Yes, somehow having them network together somehow to …

Samuel Smith: Yes, there’s a lot of – there’s going to be a lot of the black box stuff that happens behind the scenes but that effect can be created, I’m pretty sure. Alright, sir. So what do we – what’s our call to action today?

Mike McAllen: Our call to action today is …

Samuel Smith: Oh, that’s me. I’m sorry. I’ve got it …

Mike McAllen: No, I was just looking at my notes. I’m sorry. But yes, that is you.

Samuel Smith: Alright. So the call – I’m sorry. I did it wrong.

Mike McAllen: [laughs] There is no wrong.

Samuel Smith: We like to have fun here on Going Digital. So here’s what we need your help with. We want to know what smartphone apps whether that’s for the iPhone, for the iPad, for the – for your DROID, for whatever – what other smart – your BlackBerry, whatever smartphone you’ve got. What apps do you think are useful for event professionals? Now, this could be for attendees, for creating an attendee experience. It could be for, as Mike said, help the planner onsite or even before or any of those kinds of things. So any iPhone apps that you have – would like to share with us that you think are useful for event professionals. We want to know about it because in our next show which will come out in June sometime, we are going to talk – we’re going to go through the list of iPhone apps for event professionals and we’re going to kind of have a jam session on these events. So if you send us one, we will be sure to give you full credit for it and tell us why you – and be sure to tell us why you like it.

[Crosstalk] [0:33:24]

Mike McAllen: Or they could even tell us ones that they don’t like too which …

Samuel Smith: Oh, yes, tell us that too. We like that too.

Mike McAllen: Yes, because the bad ones are good. It’s good to know the bad ones so you don’t …

Samuel Smith: Right, especially if they cost money so people can just …

Mike McAllen: Right.

Samuel Smith: … forget about it.

Mike McAllen: Right. Alright.

Samuel Smith: Why spend money? Alright. Go ahead.

Mike McAllen: So that’s it. We’re all done, huh?

Samuel Smith: Well, thanks to everyone for listening and we look forward to your comments on the smartphone applications.

Mike McAllen: Yes, and that’s at MeetingsPodcast@Gmail.com so please go ahead and you can even leave a comment on our – on the site too if you want to leave it there or email it, whatever is easiest for you. And then you could Twitter it to us because you can find us on Twitter and – let’s see. And where else can they find you, Sam? You’re at SamuelJSmith.

Samuel Smith: Yes, at SamuelJSmith on Twitter. Sam@SamuelJSmith.com or at InteractiveMeetingTechnology.com or I live in Minnesota so you can come by and see me anytime.

Mike McAllen: [laughs] You’re all over Minnesota?

Samuel Smith: If we can go fishing, then no problem.

Mike McAllen: [laughs] That’s great. And you can find me at GrassShackRoad.com or here at the Meetings Podcast site and I am on the Twitters as MikeMcAllen or MMcAllen and also Sam, we also have Meetings Podcast out there too which I started using …

Samuel Smith: Okay. So Meetings Podcast on Twitter. Good.

Mike McAllen: Yes, yes.

Samuel Smith: But can I – before we cut off, why do you have two Twitter IDs? Are you that big?

[Crosstalk] [0:35:03]

Mike McAllen: The problem I had was this that I started Twitter about four years ago and so I had this MMcAllen and I had all these people that were not – just random people and then I started talking to more of the event professionals type people and so, I started another one so I could keep track of those people and that was kind of in between the time of where you got these neat things like TweetDeck for your desktop or you could divide people.

Samuel Smith: Oh, okay. Okay. So you have like a social version of you and then there’s like a work version.

Mike McAllen: Sort of, yes, yes. But actually, I use the TweetDeck and I use both of them all the time because I can – I never – anyway …

[Crosstalk] [0:35:41]

Mike McAllen: I’m not in control with the Twitter so …

Samuel Smith: Alright. So …

Mike McAllen: Cool. [laughs]

Samuel Smith: Well, hey, Mike …

Mike McAllen: Alright.

Samuel Smith: … it’s great talking to you again today.

Mike McAllen: Yes, yes. And again, thank you to our sponsor Audible.com and Sam, I will see you next time.

Samuel Smith: Alright. Sounds good, Mike.

Email us at meetings podcast@gmail.com or below here on the MeetingsPodcast site.