TIMESAVING TRICKS

From Phi Theta Kappa
Honor Society

Instead of investing time to develop a self-contained, downloadable app, consider creating a website customized for mobile viewing. That’s what PTK did for its 2011 convention. It looked and felt like a mobile app and provided two big benefits:

1. It was much easier to update on the fly during the convention.

2. It gave PTK more flexibility to develop and customize year-after-year.


From Milken Institute

1. Start with your dream app, then sort the features into two or three tiers ranging from “must-have” features to “just a cool add-on.” Then, a developer can use the list to give you a few different price options.

2. If speakers and room changes happen fast and furiously until the eleventh hour, you'll need an API (application programming interface), which allows your database to talk to the app. Some developers have this available and some don't, but the technology saves many staff hours and prevents errors and omissions.

3. Always include someone from your IT department in the process.

4. If something goes terribly awry and you want to take your app elsewhere…you’re basically out of luck. Every developer said the same thing: it owns the app code, you own the content. You can't take what the developer built and hand it to another company.

SELECTING A MOBILE APP PROVIDER

To have or not to have a mobile app is no longer a choice for meeting planners. When attendees, exhibitors, and partners show up at events, the vast majority expect access to an app. Indeed, as devices like smartphones and tablets continue to proliferate, the ticker just shot past one million mobile apps, reports Mobilewalla, which rates and ranks them on its web platform.

Focus on the basics. First and foremost, make the app easy to use and friendly to everyone; you can make the app more robust as you move forward. “A really complex tool will stay in users’ pockets,” said Lisa Messina, chief marketing officer, ConferenceDirect. Example: Milken Institute initially wanted tools to help attendees network, so it considered a password-protected section to communicate private events by invitation only. “This was a little too complicated for our first time out,” said Bryan Quinan, CMP, senior events manager. “Most networking options were clunky, expensive and no more efficient than Twitter or other social media.”

Cue the content. What items must you supply — such as a welcome letter from CEO or chairman, agenda, logistics? Which are likely to change and how will updates to rooms, times and speakers be made? What about sponsor information?

Quinan’s team started with “great expectations,” but quickly figured out what was worthwhile and what was not. One conference app it viewed included a beautiful city guide recommending tourist attractions, restaurants and shopping. Is that “wow factor” worth the additional cost, Quinan asked, given that most smartphone users may already have a Yelp or AroundMe app on their phone with the same information?

The convention schedule; sliding animations (enabled by JQuery) gave a richer experience than static links.

A guide map of the blocks around the convention center, with icons for restaurants, hotels, and entertainment. Descriptions and average prices for restaurants allowed users to make more informed decisions on where to dine.

Important information regarding medical needs, seating assignments, badges, and banquet schedules.

Quick links to the convention’s Facebook and Twitter pages, for up-to-the-minute posts and photos from staffers and students at the convention.

Identify devices. Deciding which platforms to purchase apps for isn’t an exact science. Most app companies are barely three years old, and may have initially serviced a single type of device, Messina pointed out. That’s not acceptable today. “Find someone with the technical platform to service all products,” she urged. And as Quinan noted, “Buying for the iPad/iPhone is a no-brainer, but do you also spring for the Blackberry version?” Check the analytics to see which mobile devices are accessing your event web site and go from there.

Source smart. With no experience in conference apps, Quinan’s team downloaded dozens to use as attendees would. Stick to apps for conferences similar in size and format to your own. For example, trade shows at large convention centers need far more complicated venue mapping than an event held in hotel meeting spaces. Browse panel descriptions and speaker bios; play with the venue maps; see what unique features might be valuable to participants; and note which are most aesthetically appealing. “I quickly discovered that the ones I liked best were often by the same developer,” he said, which helped narrow the field.

Get recommendations. “Meeting professionals are very open to sharing their experiences and what they’ve learned in hindsight,” Messina noted. What best practices can vendors provide from current customers delivering similarly complex events and services? Can end-users upload photos and information so that you don’t have to deploy resources to do those tasks? “Does it work intuitively and clickthrough the way you expect it to?” she asked. If you can’t operate it, how can you expect anyone else to operate it?

Look at app ratings and reviews in the iTunes app store, Quinan added, but take them with a grain of salt. “Many complaints come from users with older phones, for instance, or issues outside the developer's control,” he said. “It's more important to contact the app provider’s clients directly to see if they were happy with the relationship.”

Plan the implementation. With your content roadmap in hand, a provider will likely take six to eight weeks to build the app. Do you want mechanisms in place to approve what end-users are posting — such as messages and photographs? Can only the conference manager post changes to rooms or alerts to attendees? What are your resources and how much do you want to control?

Ask for feedback. “Especially when something is new, you need to hear from constituents about what they liked and what they would like in the future,” Messina said.