SMARTPHONE vs. AUDIENCE RESPONSE
WHY SMARTPHONE VOTING APPS ARE NOT THE SMART CHOICE
There has been a lot of buzz lately about smart phone
technology being introduced at meetings and events.
Meeting apps can now be used to enhance the attendee
experience by providing event agendas, meeting maps,
speaker bios, even the location of the nearest Starbucks.
But before you ask your audiences to pull out their smart phones
during your next meeting, there are a few things you should
consider before going down that road.
There was a reason why we were all asked to turn off our cell
phones prior to the start of a meeting. Ring tones and personal
conversations are obviously a distraction in a meeting environment,
but it can also be a distraction when fellow attendees are checking
emails, or taking care of personal items (Facebook) through smart phones.
It is impossible to remove the "personal" from personal devices,
especially when the meeting facilitator has requested that everyone
have their smart phone devices on and available in order to answer
questions throughout a meeting.
Another factor to consider when looking at smart phones is wi-fi availability.
Is wi-fi available at the meeting venue? If so, is there enough bandwidth to
provide a reliable level of service to attendees? What are the charges involved
with securing additional bandwidth? Traditional audience response, as provided by Audience Response Games, where the
wireless systems work via radio frequency, is completely controlled by the ARS
provider. No fuss, no worry, and no additional cost.
The last item to consider is voter participation. According to a recent survey,
only 30% of audiences actively participated to polling questions when asked to
use their own smart phone devices. However, when using a traditional Audience
Response System (ARS), participation increased to 92%. Part of the reason for
such low participation rates with SmartPhones is that they are simply not
created for audience polling. In order to cast a vote using a smart phone app,
the user is frequently asked to enter up to nine digits to respond to a simple
"yes" or "no" question presented. They have a multi-digit login number to enter
for each vote, as well as a multi-digit response like "press 6612 for "yes", or
6613 for "no". With standard ARS, one press of a button, and your vote is cast.
Audiences simply respond better when using a device provided by the event.
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