Digital technology has become embedded in our day to day lives that it is hard to remember when it didn’t exist and everything had to be done by hand.

From registering for a conference, checking in and having handouts for a conference, now you can simply create an online registering, check in, document download site allowing the attendees to have access to all the information pertaining for the conference or corporate meeting.

What is slowly disappearing from conferences and corporate meetings are the human interactions, in the past you would have to fill out your registration form, mail it to the person organizing the conference they would then mail you a confirmation and then when you arrived at the conference you would stand in line waiting to check in. The best part was while your were checking in you could network with other attendees while you waited.

While some conferences do build in a meet and greet evening as part of the conference, this is not something that is given and the first time you may interact with other attendees is once you are in the conference sessions making it more difficult to network,  because everything is very structured.

So do I think that technology has been deterimental to the conference and corporate meeting experience … NO. I do believe that on the adminstrative and planning side it has made it so much easier to organize and stay organized during a conference.

I also think that depending on the world economy we may see more and more conferences moving to web conferencing, which has a much farther reach the having attendees fly into a city for the conference.

Eventually we will see a shift to the days where conference attendees want a best of both worlds; digitial and the ability to networking.

Until next time,

Amalia Ward
Talen Events your vision, your experience