BACK TO BASICS 2: Matching conference technology to the need

It’s too easy to think that the latest audience participation technology is what’s needed to make your conference or seminar a success. However, using technology for its own sake can backfire, as the rise in Tweckling illustrates only too well. After last week’s look at whether technology is killing meetings content, Pete Roythorne asks how organisers can control the use of technology to ensure it brings business benefits and doesn’t just become a distraction.


Last week we questioned whether the use of technologies – in particular backchannels – in conferences and meetings to engage audiences was actually damaging the content. As ever, there are strong views in both camps, but the reality is that we live in a techno-centric society, so the likelihood is that the use of technology is only going to become more integrated into the meetings experience. The problem now facing meeting planers and organisers is how to control the use of these technologies to ensure that they bring real benefits to an event.

One concern for speaker and interactive meetings and events technology specialist, Sam Smith, is that people have been getting caught up in the use of technology for its own sake, without considering the implications of what they are doing and setting realistic boundaries for its use.

“Tweckling [heckling via a live Twitter stream at an event] has been a big story in the blogosphere recently,” he says. “But, in all cases where I have heard about it, the organiser did not give many guidelines to delegates for using the backchannel; it seems they just turned on the technology and said: ‘Go’.”

While today’s meeting technology tools have the power to connect audiences and engage them in structured and unstructured dialogue, these tools are not like the magic beans from the children’s book Jack and the Beanstalk. You need to think through objectives, outcomes, processes and obstacles in your planning and design stages to make these technology tools effective.

Horses for courses: Backchannels can be hugely powerful...
but only in the right circumstances

Essential guidelines
Smith continues: “In my opinion, backchannels can be a powerful tool for the audience to have a loosely structured dialogue with the speaker. However, it’s critical that organisers give delegates guidelines for its use: what should they communicate, how, when etc. Also, both organisers and speakers need to show the audience that they are listening to their comments by acknowledging the suggestions and where possible making changes.”

Smith also believes that a moderator should be assigned to catch ideas, questions and concerns that come up during the presentation. “This helps the speaker focus on delivering content without trying to listen to 500 delegates at the same time,” he says.

Petra Johansson, director of event organiser TwistedTree, agrees, adding that the event organiser needs to ensure there is a person dedicated to making sure the backchannel remains objective and constructive in its feedback. “Spam and personal attacks on specific speakers and attendees is unnecessary and should be edited out of the stream,” she says.

Johansson feels that while criticism on a backchannel is OK as long as it is constructive and objective, anyone tweckling or being abusive should be blocked out of the feed. “If a person stood up during the event and started to shout abuse or heckle someone else, they would be asked to leave the premises,” she adds, “so the same rule should apply when this happens in a backchannel.”

Key areas of benefit
But, when all’s said and done, Smith believes the benefits far outweigh the pitfalls with the use of technology, and he highlights four key areas where the use of backchannels can add value for meeting planners and organisers.

First, there are many people that are not comfortable asking questions in front of a crowd, because, for example, of fear of public speaking or having English as a second language. Using backchannel tools can give them another way to easily ask their questions.

Second, sometimes people will have questions early on in a presentation, but have forgotten them by the time the presentation ends. The backchannel allows the audience to ask these questions as they think about them.

Third, when you use hybrid events that combine a live and web-based audience, the backchannel acts as a bridge between the virtual and the face-to-face audiences, allowing them to communicate and engage with each other.  

Finally, the backchannel can provide a great learning resource for after your event as all of the comments and questions are recorded. This makes it easy for delegates to go back and review the key points, questions and answers that came up during a presentation.  

No more missed opportunities
“I gave a presentation at EIBTM in Barcelona where we used a private backchannel solution to collect questions and comments,” says Smith. “We only had one screen, so we had to keep the questions in the background until it was time to discuss them. We collected about 20 questions from the attendees, but we only had time to answer a few questions in the session. But my colleague, Ruud Janssen and I, are going to write up the answers to all of the questions and post them. If we only used the microphone Q&A, we would have missed about 15 good questions.”

Although communication trainer Steve Arrowood agrees that technology brings benefits to meetings, he warns that it needs to be controlled. “Most of us lack knowledge regarding how attention, comprehension and learning work,” he says. "If it is fun and engaging, we do it. If it is technology, it often has a new and exciting aspect to it, and we want to use it. Some people say they use backchannels to take notes or simply highlight things the presenter says. This is totally different and can be quite helpful.”

However, Arrowood is quick to pinpoint the dangers, particularly with the use of backchannels. “Because backchannels are silently communicated information, even though they are taking focus from the presenter’s direct content, they cause no auditory disruption,” he says. “When the backchannel conversation is displayed on a large screen in a room the competition factor is large.”

Arrowood continues: “Depending on the complexity and interest level of the backchannel’s dialogue, the roles can be reversed; the backchannel becomes the front channel and the presenter becomes background noise.”

Horses for courses

While he believes this is not necessarily bad or less valuable, he points out that in these cases, the presenter must be prepared to become just another channel in the room, and not expect to be able to effectively disseminate new content unless there are frequent pauses to read and interact with the backchannel’s conversation – and this is where the problems can start to occur.

“This is a very different dynamic than a straight presentation of content, and is frightening for those who are not comfortable going ‘off-script’,” explains Arrowood. “This live interaction can be extremely effective when done intermittently, and with the intent to interact and explore the participant’s thoughts rather than just acknowledge the channel’s existence.”

Arrowood concludes: “My recommendation on whether to display a backchannel screen or promote its usage is to consider the dynamic of the presentation. If there is a planned ‘talk’ or new or vital content to be delivered, then backchannels are less appropriate. If a facilitated exploration of a topic is the desired dynamic, then backchannels could be quite useful.”

There seems little doubt that modern technology has huge amounts to bring to the conference setting, but once again jumping on the bandwagon without clearly thinking about the implications can open the meetings equivalent of Pandora’s Box. Technology should be used in a discerning fashion; and with the number of cases of Tweckling growing, it appears too many event organisers are not following this crucial piece of advice.

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