London—Participants at the European Meetings and Events Conference held by Meeting Professionals International were all given Spotme handheld devices for high-tech networking and communication within the show from April 18-20.

Produced by Shockfish SA, of Lausanne, Switzerland, Spotme is part messaging tool and part peoplefinder with program-at-a-glance and voting capabilities to boot. It has a color screen, keypad, and wireless microphone and speaker. It is part of the new wave of social networking technology that's also eliminating the need for bulky brochures and schedules at exhibitions. Show organizers can put in delegate lists, conference programs, speaker biographies, maps (in this case, of London proper and its Underground system), and session surveys and feedback forms.

For networking, the device identifies other attendees via a searchable photo database, logs the names of people nearby for later recall, enables participants to send messages to each other, and exchanges business cards that load into Microsoft Outlook or a PDA.

Spotme is designed for meetings from 100 to 5,000 attendees, according to Shockfish. It also offers attendance tracking and scheduling and management of one-on-one meetings and personal itineraries. MPI rolled out the devices in hopes of enhancing the show's experience and convenience for its attendees. The organization has been experimenting with technology and unconventional meeting ideas.

At its mid-2007 World Education Conference in Monteral, keynote speaker Don Tapscott spoke about technology changing business communication at events, and for its February Professional Education Conference in Houston—branded "Meet Different" —MPI utilized pre-event blogs to sharpen programming and realtime session polling during the show.


Originally published April 21, 2008

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