Corporations across all industries are calling for the consolidation of their meetings and events organization-wide. Certain's Dr. Rick Borry discusses how event management software plays an important role as corporate meeting and event planners face this challenge.

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When it comes to creating software simulation and training, I’ve found Adobe Captivate is easy to use and makes polished video tutorials. Not only can you demonstrate how a software application works, but you can also create interactive simulations for learners to practice using the application. In addition to screen captures, Captivate also provides quiz and survey features and is flexible enough to allow you to import images, audio, Powerpoint slides, and Flash files.

I've seen training videos produced using TechSmith’s Camtasia, but it doesn’t offer the simulation component that helps make for a more active learning experience. As a learner myself, I find simple demonstrations fall short of effective instruction. If you are mainly interested in recording a presentation, then Camtasia might work well for you.

As an online registration technology provider, Certain Registration is committed to giving customers the tools and solutions you need to manage events successfully. That’s why we’re developing on-demand training videos to help your registration specialists and meeting planners get up to speed quickly on our application. Look for our videos online later this spring!

As an online registration provider, we strive for 100% availability of our event management software.  This is very difficult to achieve in practice, and we occasionally have outages ranging from a few minutes on all servers to intermittent performance for hours affecting only specific customers.  Our customers' reaction to these hopefully infrequent episodes ranges from understanding ("oh well, I have a lot of other things to do right now - I'll check back later.") to complete outrage ("I'm losing paid registrations!  I have to get this report to the hotel now!").

This article, On-Demand Outages the "New Normal"?, takes the interesting view that as people become more familiar with daily usage of Software as a Service (SaaS) such as our online registration technology, users will realize that these outages are inevitable and they will adjust their expectations and actions during the occasional downtime.  No one is immune to the problem - the article references recent and period performance troubles at major SaaS companies such as Salesforce, Blackberry, and Google Apps.

I remember the early days of Windows when the "blue screen of death" was an unwelcomed part of my daily routine.  Reboot, stand up and stretch, login, get some water, wait for the programs to open, pick back up where I left off.  The blue screen probably did me more benefit ergonimcally by interrupting long sessions slouched over at my PC than they caused me harm - that is, once I learned to control my temper.

I'm not excusing poor performance or saying that we won't get better (as we have in the past).  But maybe we as users need to begin to consider intermittent outages of SaaS as unavoidable and expected, and thus we should create contingency plans for what we will do when they happen (besides freaking out). 

Here's to effective meeting management!

While researching what Youtube clips exist out there on the meeting and event planning industry right now, I chanced upon this retro gem. From the looks of the hairstyles and clunky, old-school computer monitors, I am guessing this is from right around the early 1990's. Not too, too long ago, but definitely the pre-online registration days when things were still done manually with a huge paper trail, a simplistic desktop event management software program and shipments of slick marketing brochures.


 

Fast forward to the glorious digitized world of meeting and events planning in 2008 where business and communication are driven by the powerful engine of the internet. The hard way - manual processes, paper forms and printed collateral - have been replaced by convenient online registration websites that are hard at work for you 24/7.

These days, when you start planning a meeting, event, conference, convention or training program, you have to build a website first. And in this Web 2.0 era with so many great developments in sophisticated web design, social networking and back-end functionality, planners can't just publish rudimentary websites anymore. Your online registration website has to be creative, interactive, secure and.....in short, awesome.

WEB 2.0 FOR AWESOME ONLINE REGISTRATION WEBSITES

According to IBM social-networking analyst, Dario de Judicibus, as quoted from Wikipedia's Web 2.0 section:

"Web 2.0 is a knowledge-oriented environment where human interactions generate content that is published, managed and used through network applications in a service-oriented architecture."

This can be applied to create more appealing, effective, relevant and secure online registration websites.

TIP 1 - Custom design your websites

Even the least design savvy of people have grown accustomed to sleek, professional web design, so making your online registration websites have an engaging and sophisticated look & feel is just becoming a given. As a meeting and events planner, you are either creating a unique buzz around a specific special event or you are trying to conform to your client or organization's corporate branding standards. Good Web 2.0 online registration site design does not mean you need an art school or marketing degree, just access to an application that allows you to customize every element.

The number one guideline for Web 2.0 and beyond design is calculated simplicity. Make it readable, use clean typography. Use sophisticated color palates. Layout all the elements within a planned grid that makes them visible in the browser without scrolling down. Choose high aesthetic value, quality graphics.

If you aren't doing all this yourself, choose an online registration provider who offers event build services so you can engage a highly skilled web design professional with meetings and events industry experience to design the project to your specifications.

TIP 2 - Incorporate new media elements and relevant links

Well done Flash and video elements can deliver messages to potential registrants. A visionary address from the Board Chairman can put a face on an association and encourage old and new members to participate. A quick tour of a conference destination's amenities could entice more attendees to register. Increase program attendance by offering dynamic thumbnail previews or links to guest presenters' websites.

If you do not have the resources to create original pieces, look for ready-made media elements to incorporate from your host city's visitors bureau, hotel, conference venue or guest speakers.

TIP 3 - Optimize your websites for search engines

Optimizing websites to pop to the top of the list when people are searching on Google, Yahoo or other search engines is key, and even online registration websites can be search engine optimized. Determine what top keywords apply to the meetings, events, conferences or training programs you are marketing. Optimize every registration site by incorporating those keywords into the URL, web page titles, content and metatags. Because URL's are the very first part of any website that get crawled by Google, Yahoo and the other search engines, the ability to customize your online registration website URL is also incredibly huge, and not all software providers offer this capability.

TIP 4- Find ways to incorporate social networking and interactivity

In a sense, online registration is a social networking tool that is designed to bring people of similar interests together to meet face-to-face. But before that in-person meeting, you could offer ways for attendees to network with each other online before and after events. Create a Facebook page for the event, a Google group or a blog where attendees can have conversations with each other on specific topics. While these may exist independently of your online registration websites, offering them as "Meet Other Attendees" links within in your sites or in your email communications could be highly effective.

TIP 5 - Use hosted technology providers

One of the greatest things about how sophisticated meetings and events planning technology is today in the Web 2.0 era is that it is hosted. Unlike the days of paper and desktop applications, the availability of hosted Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions brings meetings and events planning professionals many more advantages. You gain the flexibility of on-demand technology that allows people to register 24/7 and you to track registrations up to the minute from anywhere. Because online registration websites capture so much personal data including credit cards information, hosted solutions offer a higher degree of security as well.