Happy New Year! And welcome to Corbin's TechTalk Newsletter, in its
fourth year of providing the latest in technology for meetings, hospitality and travel professionals.
In This Issue:
This issue has a wide range of topics, tips and tools:
* ARTICLE: Neat Networking Tools
* ARTICLE: Improving The Bottom Line by Meeting Online
* NEWS
* 4 COOL WEB TOOLS
* 5 FAVORITE MEETINGS INDUSTRY SITES
* CORBIN'S FAVORITES FILE UPDATED: 2600+ LINKS
* 2 NEW MEETING PLANNING EXCEL SPREADSHEETS
* READER COMMENTS
* NEW INTERVIEW: The Wireless Revolution
* UPDATED ARTICLE: Virtual Meetings
...And more!
The Professional Meeting Planners Network (PMPN) www.pmpn.com
& Attendee Management Inc. (AMi) www.attendeenet.com
PMPN and AMi, our newest company, congratulate Corbin on being named MPI's
Supplier of the Year. We are pleased to sponsor this newsletter in support
of his work, and as evidence of our commitment to maximizing the benefits
of technology in the meeting and events industry.
Passkey www.passkey.com/customer_meeting_benefits.shtml Do you still pay attrition fees? Passkey's online booking engine and group
reservations and revenue management solution can help you reduce attrition
exposure and provide real-time up-to-date visibility to your event's block
and pick-up information. Take it a step further and integrate Passkey with
your preferred registration solution to deliver your attendees a one-stop
shopping experience for event registration and hotel reservation for all
your events.
Conferon www.conferon.com
Is your marketing reaching your target audience and boosting ROI?
Conferon's MRA and ConferOnline options help you meet attendance
goals.
b-there www.b-there.com
Twice the efficiency. Half the work. Discover the benefits of integrated
online registration, housing,
travel, & e-marketing solutions.
Loudeye Corporation http://www.loudeye.com/webcasting/conference_manager.asp
Loudeye is a leading provider of digital media and Webcasting services
that enables event and conference planners to leverage the Web to extend
the reach of meetings and events plus increase post-event revenue
significantly. During the past year alone Loudeye's service has broadcast
more than 6,000 events.
The meeting planner's job, on its most fundamental level, is bringing people together. Whether it is for education, business, or simply
entertainment, there is a common denominator in nearly all meetings - the need to network.
As meetings get larger, this process becomes increasingly difficult. Finding people with like interests from the sea of the others is often
a challenge and standard name badges are inadequate for the job.
Fortunately, there are some great technology tools emerging to help. This article will cover some of the more interesting ones.
NEW ARTICLE: Improving The Bottom Line By Meeting
Online
Finally, technology delivers on the promise of enabling business professionals to get more done in less time-at a fraction of the cost.
Much like email, instant messaging, and faxing, online meetings facilitate the remote communication of two or more people in real
time.
Yet, it is also dramatically different than these technologies for two reasons:
1. Online meetings are interactive-you can see and talk to someone as if you were in the same room and work jointly together on documents,
exchange information and more.
2. Online meetings can ensure complete confidentiality of conversations and data at all times.
This white paper details cost and time advantages and gives suggestions on how to choose a provider in an objective manner. It is
provided by Viack Corporation.
ARCHIVED WEB
CONFERENCE Virtual Meetings - Improving Business Productivity
Hosted by Loudeye Corporation
The web cast I gave on November 14th is now available for viewing at the link
above.
EIBTM TECHNOLOGY VILLAGE SEEKS PARTICIPANTS
Together with MPI, I will help to coordinate the EIBTM Technology Village at EIBTM in Geneva 20-22 May 2003. This is one of the largest
trade shows in the meetings industry with more than 3,000 exhibitors and 3,500-hosted buyers. This year's program will have a much
expanded technology emphasis.
WORLDWIDE TECHNOLOGY WATCH SEEKS TECHNOLOGY
INNOVATION
I will be acting as Chair for the Worldwide Technology Watch competition recognizing technology innovation in the MICE (meetings,
incentives, conferences and expositions) Industry. This will be
awarded during EIBTM. I encourage technology provider readers to with a innovative solution to apply. The deadline is 28 February 2003.
FOR FUN: Thailand Photos
Thailand is a wonderful, exotic place with some of the kindest and friendliest people I have ever met. Even in traffic-congested
Bangkok, there is hardly a honk. It is not "cool" to "lose your cool"
in Thailand and this attitude was experienced throughout our travels. My wife and I had a great time and would heartily recommend travel
there. Here are some of the photos.
4
COOL WEB TOOLS
SpamNet www.cloudmark.com
Tired of Spam? This site is one of my best finds this year. If you use Outlook as your email reader, this
download will filter out 90% of the Spam and leave the rest in tact. With a very low false error rate, it has given me back my Inbox!
Pop-Up Stopper www.panicware.com
Tired of those annoying pop-up ads that constantly appear when you surf the Web? Here is a free download tool
to efficiently eliminate them. There is also an upgraded "for-sale" version, but the free one work just fine for me.
SeatGuru www.seatguru.com
Not all airline seats are equal. Some seats don't recline, or have limited legroom or have a movie screen that
can't be seen without binoculars. This site contains detailed seat maps for most of the aircraft for many of the major carriers
(American, Continental, Delta, Northwest, United, and USAirways). In a very easy-to-use manner, it details and ranks every seat providing
the warnings every passenger should know. Thanks to David Kliman, one of the most experienced frequent fliers I know, for pointing out this
site.
Google's 2002 Year-End Zeitgeist www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html
Do you ever wonder what people search for on the Web? The Zeitgeist is an aggregate of 55 billion Google searches, or about
150 million searches a day, according to Google. The 2002 Year-End Zeitgeist enables you to look at the past year through
the collective eyes of the world on the Internet.
Eventatgeous www.eventageous.com
Lots of ideas, checklists, articles, and tools for planning
meetings can be found at this site.
ConferZone www.conferzone.com
This portal is probably the most complete site on video-, web-, and
audio-conferencing on the Web. It has loads of links, white papers, a
glossary, FAQ file and more.
Successful Online Events www.successfulonlineevents.com
This is another helpful site about holding online events, provided by
A2Zshow, with articles, links, glossary, and other info.
Survey Tips from Perseus Development Corporation www.perseus.com/surveytips/index.html
If you are planning on conducting surveys of your membership, attendees,
or clients, I highly recommend this site from Perseus. Lots of articles,
sample surveys, and other helpful ideas can be found in the "Survey Tips"
section linked above.
Comstar Interactive www.comstarinteractive.com/default.aspx
Comstar just released a new lead retrieval product at the recent I
AEM meeting in Orlando. Using the Blackberry RIM platform attached to a
small mag-strip or barcode reader, it is capable of reading most
of the tradeshow badge lead retrieval systems. Once the card/badge is
scanned, the lead information is sent wirelessly directly to your central
corporate database, in a similar manner to sending an email message using a
Blackberry PDA. The unit is small enough to keep in your pocket, so
suppliers can capture leads not just in the booth, but anywhere people
are wearing badges.
CORBIN'S
FAVORITES UPDATED
"Corbin's Favorites" is the most comprehensive list of categorized Web site favorites for the meetings and hospitality industries found on
the Internet - with more than 2,600 listings especially focusing on
meetings technology.
The list has just been updated with many new links.
Two new Excel spreadsheets have been sent in by:
James Spellos from MeetingU. www.meeting-u.com
Attrition Calculator: Is your sleeping room pickup coming in short of the block? How bad is it? With this worksheet you enter your
historical pickup pattern, your room block and your pickup to date.
It will automatically calculate the variance and note danger flags based on the amount of contracted slippage is allowed.
Rack Rate Discount Calculator: This worksheet calculates discounts off of the rack sleeping room rate including future years' inflation
increases.
If you have a spreadsheet, or other software tool(s) that you would like to post, please send them in.
READER COMMENTS
I received an email from John Nightingale, a reader from the UK regarding my online article: Sign Style Guide for Meetings:
He had a few comment to add:
"Signs are often in the wrong place, so they cause queues. In Leeds there is a theatre where the sign directing people towards their seat
is just after the ticket check, so everyone stops causing a blockage while they read the sign.
Maps should be oriented in the direction of travel (so users do not need to twist the map in their head)."
NEW INTERVIEW:
Wireless Revolution? Forward-Thinking Facilities Try To Snatch Profits Out Of Thin Air
This well researched article by Scott Dallas for Meetings411 magazines covers the range of wireless trends and benefits for the meetings and
hospitality industries. I was one of the interviewees and have a few comments and predictions in the article as well: www.meetings411.com/articles.asp?id=1878&title=Wireless%20Revolution?
UPDATED ARTICLE:
Virtual Meetings - Improving Business Productivity
You may need not to fly across the country for future business meetings. Today it is possible to save time and travel costs by using
on-line collaboration, web conferencing, and web broadcasting. These
emerging communication media can improve business communications, reduce "time to market," build customer relations, and extend the life
of your meeting or tradeshow. Although the computer screen will not replace face-to-face meetings in the foreseeable future, there are
some instances where they fit bill or expand the impact of existing meetings or tradeshows.
This article, originally written in 2000, has been updated with new information.
CURRENT SPEAKING CALENDAR
My speaking and consulting schedule for January and February will be bringing me to Anaheim (PCMA), Pittsburgh (PCMA POWER Chapter),
Orlando (Wyndham and MPI events), Melbourne Australia (AIME meeting), and Washington DC (NBTA Masters Program). I would love to come to
your city as well so please contact me and let's set a date: I would love to come to your city as well so please
contact me and let's set a date: www.corbinball.com/contact.htm
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