Education is now about filtering information, not finding it

Last week at the MPI Texas Hill Country Education Conference in Fort Worth, our session panel discussed the application of social networks to events and event planning. We clearly had overwhelmed most of the audience with the vagaries of Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, Pathable, etc. They knew that "everyone is doing it," but they weren't sure what it would do for them.

For example, look at a typical "share this page" icon bar like the one on the left. The social network world asks you to connect with everyone you've ever met, and then to share everything you do with all of those people, plus the people they know, and so on. As "connecting" and "sharing" have become easier, the amount of information bombarding you grows exponentially. Things are completely out of control when CNN reports live Twitter feeds from Iran as "breaking news", without any clue as to what is true and who is providing the information.

The Way Education Is
This reminded me of a recent experience. I was helping my 4th-grade son Cade with his homework - a research paper on piranhas. Like any Generation Z student, he first Googled "piranhas", and then started browsing through the top 10 results (out of 1,820,000). He already had more information than I possibly could provide for his two page paper. Shaking my head at the advantages he has in school over my experience, I went downstairs to finish some chores.

A few hours later, I returned to our playroom to find him still at the computer, hitting keys like a madman and laughing hysterically. "You've got to see this!", he screamed as he replayed "7 piranhas kill and eat frog" on YouTube. I looked at his Word document and saw that he had formatted the title and date on the top of the first page, but nothing else.

The Way Education Was
During my education, the hardest part of the assignment was finding information. Given the same research assignment, I would have had to get a ride to the library (during the hours it was open), search through the card catalog, write down the Dewey decimal codes for a few books on the topic, find the books and browse through them to see which ones looked the most promising, check out those books, go home, read the books (or at least the table of contents) while taking notes on key facts, write the paper, and then finally type it in the mandated format. This process would take me at least half a day.

My children, however, could accomplish the same task in minutes with Google and Word on their home PC. Yet Cade spent about the same amount of time to finish his paper as I would have without his technological advantages.

The New Task of Education
That made me realize - my education was about finding information and storing it for future retrieval. Cade's education (and my ongoing education) is about filtering the flood of information coming at you every second.

In the past, it was so difficult to find information that once you found it, you better memorize it so that you could retrieve it quickly the next time. Thus open-book tests did not help the unprepared.

Now, you get more information thrown at you in 5 minutes than we had in 5 days, before the Internet and Television. The key is to figure out:

• What is true
• What is important
• Who I can trust

And, as Cade demonstrated:

• What should I ignore

Social Networks can help you filter, or they can flood you with more information

Back to the point of this analogy. The best aspects of Social Networks are ones that help you connect with friends, and through mutual association help you answer the question of "Who can I trust?" The worst aspects of Social Networks are those that increase the flood of minutiae, unsolicited marketing, spin, and out-right lies.

Hopefully, we will improve our mental filters as part of our ongoing education in an environment of limitless information.

How Social Networking Will Affect Privacy and Data Security of Your Events

Last week, Certain Software exhibited with other meetings technology companies at the HSMAI Affordable Meetings conference in Washington, D.C. The show hosted a separate Event Technology Expo for companies like ours, whose booths surrounded a 40-seat demo area where vendors spoke each half-hour on event technology topics. Rather than repeat the product sales pitch that I used in our booth, I elected to speak about the emerging data privacy and security issues as social networking applications work their way into face-to-face events.

Event Technology Expo Short Seminar

I prepared these slides before I read my speaker instructions and learned that the 15-minute presentation was audio-only. But these are the talking points that I used at the expo.

Twitter: I don't get it, but I'm going to give it a chance

I set up a Twitter account long ago, but I have never used it. Today I decided to give it a chance, so if you are interested in following my short posts then go to http://twitter.com/rborry and subscribe.

I don't follow others on Twitter, but I just read an article about how Dell used Twitter to clear out refurbished inventory at rock-bottom prices to the tune of $3 million. So maybe, like the Web itself, there are both good and bad uses for Twitter. I will try to follow a few rules:

1. I'll post when I learn or do something that could help others immediately. For example, last night I stayed in a 9th-floor suite overlooking Union Square at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco. What is amazing, however, is that Yahoo Travel offered a package with the room and flight for only $60 more than the flight alone at Virgin America.
2. I'll only post when I'm doing something out of my normal routine

This is an experiment, so please give me feedback on your experience with Twitter.

Alliance Tech Acquires Leading Face-to-Face Social Networking Technology

I heard today that nTag emerged out of its December 2008 bankruptcy in the arms of Alliance Tech. While I admired the nTag technology and founders, I was never fully convinced of its value relative to some of the pricy products and services offered. In general, I think that Social Networking as applied to face-to-face meetings is in its infancy, and we are seeing some products over-priced and some over-hyped. But in the long run I think that someone like Alliance Tech is going to hit the right value proposition and finally put Social Networking into the professional event planners' standard toolkit, along with online registration, Web sites, site selection, and email marketing.

Press Release

AUSTIN, Texas – March 23, 2009 – Alliance Tech http://www.alliancetech.com/, the leader in RFID enabled event measurement, announced today the company has acquired the technology and assets of nTAG, a pioneer in face-to-face social networking technology and the creator of the world’s first interactive name badge.

The acquisition of nTag’s technology further strengthens Alliance Tech’s position as the leader in event marketing intelligence, and will add significant value to the company’s overall portfolio of offerings.

“We are excited to offer our clients more value by incorporating the nTAG solution,” states Art Borrego, CEO of Alliance Tech. “nTAG’s on-site social networking system, combined with Alliance Tech’s intelligent event solutions—lead management, surveys, RFID attendee reporting and marketing business intelligence—provides event planners with the industry’s most comprehensive suite of technology to measure events in real time, ensure meeting objectives are achieved and increase return on investment.”

A cornerstone feature of nTAG’s solution is real-time monitoring that provides event directors with dashboard views on session, exhibitor, and event evaluation, interaction levels among attendees, as well as networking connections shared between attendees. Evaluating these activities allows planners to make necessary adjustments onsite and for future events. Additionally, conference managers are able to effectively engage and communicate with attendees, as well as have the ability to view information on what attendees are doing during the conference.

Event attendees who use the wearable technology benefit from targeted networking opportunities via networking contests, real-time audience feedback and increased satisfaction from better connections. The nTAG technology has been used at events for IBM, Procter and Gamble, Alcatel-Lucent, WellPoint, MasterCard, General Electric, Freescale Semiconductor, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Pfizer, and many others.

Mike Taylor, a former Vice President of Sales at nTAG, now working at Alliance Tech states, “nTAG’s solutions are complementary to Alliance Tech’s current offerings which focus on marketing intelligence for events. nTAG clients will be able to seamlessly transition to Alliance Tech for implementation at their future conferences.”

Alliance Tech will assume nTAG’s assets, and will retain key staff to ensure a smooth transition and consistent implementation of each solution. nTAG is now on solid financial ground, as Alliance Tech is rated 1A1 which is the best credit rating of Dunn & Bradstreet’s business appraisal system.

For more news about Alliance Tech visit: http://www.alliancetech.com/

About Alliance Tech
Alliance Tech enables companies to increase their return on investment (ROI) of tradeshows, conferences and events through an industry leading marketing intelligence platform. Alliance Tech is the leader in intelligent events that utilize radio frequency identification (RFID) to track attendee interests and preferences. Alliance Tech solutions include RFID attendee reporting, lead management, surveys and social networking. Alliance Tech is a two time winner of Corporate Event Marketing Association’s (CEMA) technology shootout award, and the 2008 Top Technology Supplier by Meeting Tech Online. To learn more, visit http://www.alliancetech.com/.

Contact: Alliance Tech
Allyson Albertson, 512.320-5774
aalbertson@alliancetech.com

Security for Web 2.0 presentation at MTE in Washington DC.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to present at the Meetings Technology Expo in Washington, D.C. I modifed my Web Security presentation from the Chicago show to include "Web 2.0" technologies. I loosely define "Web 1.0" as technology where the site owner pushes content to a user. "Web 2.0", by contrast, includes technologies where the site owner provides a platform that allows users to publish, consume, and interact with each other in a community. (For example, Blogs, wikis, social networks, forums, etc.)



Security for Web 2.0



Below are the slides from my presentation. Click on any image to see a larger version.

Wow, we created a community - now what?

Our online registration and event management software is a behind-the-scenes tool. Millions of people register for events and receive email invitations and confirmations without knowing what application did the grunt work - they only know the name of the event they want to attend.

Several months ago, I sat next to someone on the airplane and through casual conversation discovered that he was flying to an event sponsored by one of our customers, and yes, he had registered online through Certain Registration. He pulled out his printed confirmation page and I recognized our handiwork - I know this is small stuff for most, but for me it was a prideful moment nine years in the making.

Then I realized - wow, we make a product that affects people's lives slightly, a product that they don't know they are using, one that they take for granted and only care about when it doesn't work. It seems that I now work for a modern utility company.


Supporting the people behind the curtain

Professional meeting planners will understand that feeling. They do the work behind wonderful, educational, and entertaining events but often cannot share their attendees' enjoyment because they are mired in the daily slog of details required to bring hundreds or thousands of people together for a short time. We want our application to make the lives of these people a little bit easier every day.

As our user base has grown, we find ourselves associated with a group of people who depend on our application every day in order to do their job. Their ability to use the software and figure out how to achieve their immediate task will determine their productivity for that day - and thus their earning potential and how soon they can get home each evening. We try to make our application "easy-to-use", and when it isn't intuitive we have Help files, and when those don't answer the question we add solutions to our knowledge base. Still, sometimes you just want to talk to other people who have done the same thing that you are doing now.

"Web 2.0" - Social Networking and Communities

I was at ground zero of Web 1.0 (San Francisco 1994-99), but lately I'm feeling a bit old-fashioned. I put up a page on Myspace at my youngest sister's request, but I don't use it. Most of the people who want to be my "friends" are trying to sell me stuff I don't need or show me stuff I don't want to see. I also have a Facebook page but don't poke me and I promise not to waste your time there either. I don't care what music you are listening to today, but if you have set up an online registration form using SAML-based single-sign on standards then you have just become my BFF (best friend forever, or at least while I'm working on this project).

So the online community I want to be in consists of my co-workers and clients who actively use Certain Registration. We rarely meet in person, but we want to talk to and learn from each other, and we need to know how to do something new, what features are coming out next, and what bugs have been exposed / how they can be avoided / when they will be fixed.

Several of us at Certain have been looking at some online community applications to support these conversations, and my favorite by far is Community Server. Their application allows you to set up forums, blogs, and downloads for your registered users. The great thing about the application is its flexibility - you can put photos, files, and even Web videos into the "Downloads" area to make it a truly on-demand interactive training resource. Blogs can be used for quick announcements, release announcements, scheduled downtime, etc. in addition to articles (such as this one). Forums allow users to post questions and look for answers from anyone in the community (instead of relying solely on our help desk during its normal business hours).

I'm looking forward to having a tool like this to help bring together our global community. But please let me know if you have another community-based application that you like better.