Poken by GES will deploy its smart exhibition technology at UFI’s major international events, including the European Conference in Verona, and the 85th Global Congress, set to be held this year in St Petersburg on 31 October – 3 November.

The new partnership follows the successful delivery of the 84th Global Congress in Johannesburg and the CEO Summit in Cannes. Poken’s NFC-powered smart badges and content-sharing touchpoint technology provides lead generation for sponsorsand exhibitors, and behaviour-based data for organisers.

Kai Hattendorf, Managing Director/CEO of UFI, said, “We are very happy to continue this digital partnership with GES. The smart exhibition technology that Poken brings to our events combines visitor insight with a more interactive experience for our participants.”

Jason Popp, EVP of International, GES, said, “It’s great to see our partnership with UFI evolve as the exhibition industry embraces the digital age. We have received some incredible feedback from leading organisers and industry peers on GES’ smart exhibition technology, and I look forward to seeing it drive the sponsor, exhibitor, and attendee experience at UFI’s events in 2018.”

Poken and UFI’s next event collaboration is at the Asia Pacific Conference in Verona, Italy 2-4 May.

The awards night, in partnership with Event Tech Live, was held this year at Troxy, London. In its fifth straight year, the awards shine a light on event technology giants and start-ups that are making waves in the industry.

Visit and Poken won arguably the most coveted prize of the nightwith Best Exhibition Technology. The entry fought off strong competition, recognising Visit and Poken’s impressive touchpoint engagement technology at Easyfairs’ Futurizz event.

Visit also won Best Visitor Registration Technology in partnership with referral marketing platform Gleanin. The winning submission highlighted the success of visitor registration and pre-registration levels when combined with social media referral technology.

David Cunningham, commercial director, Visit by GES, hailed the wins, saying, “We are absolutely ecstatic to be walking away with two prestigious awards. This is a great testament to the combined efforts of our dedicated Visit and Poken teams, who work tirelessly to help create the most engaging and fully connected live event experiences in the world.”

Stephane Doutriaux, commercial director at Poken by GES, said, “Poken joined GES earlier this year and to win Best Exhibition Technology alongside Visit shows the great strides we have made together in such a short time.”

At the forefront of this is Poken. But Poken is much more than a tool chest for driving networking and engagement. It is a complete event management and engagement platform. Check out the full interview here.

Like to learn more about gamification and driving event engagement? Speak to one of our event professionals today.

It is thanks to our ‘harsh and unbalanced universe’ that I am proud to announce Poken’s own Allison Schmidt has been presented Exhibition News’ coveted Thirty Under 30  award. Having worked alongside Allison for several years, it’s a huge pleasure to see her professionalism, aptitude, and tireless efforts being recognized by the industry.

Also joining the coveted ranks of Thirty Under 30 -class of 2017 are Poken family members Patrick McConway and Tom Revel from GES EMEA. Well done.

Launched in 2015, the EN Thirty Under 30 acknowledges outstanding achievements of younger members of the exhibition industry. It also aims to further develop their careers, by offering opportunities to learn from each other, as well as grant access to insights from senior industry members.

Back patting aside, it should also be said that the industry is the real winner here. With such accolades often going to bright stars who hold sales positions (due to the attention such positions tend to draw), this year’s team came from a diverse range of services such as client managers and event delivery experts, showing that client needs are at centre stage.

With such hot shots coming up, our future is in good hands.

Interested in learning more about Poken? Check out our resources center for insightful whitepapers and webinars.

A capstone event for the MICE industry, Reed Travel Exhibitions ‘ibtm arabia’ is a 3 day event that hosts a community of approximately 300 exhibitors, hosted buyers, press and officials from around the world.

Rather than a traditional trade show format, ibtm arabia is a pod show, where each exhibitor has a ‘pod’ exhibit, that includes two full days of pre-scheduled, 20 minute, one to one meetings with hosted buyers. Additionally, 9 networkring events are held at the venue, as well as various locations around Abu Dhabi.

Poken employed a system of digital and physical products and services, that allowed people to engage with each other and activities, track meetings in real time, provide lead capture services for exhibitors, all the while
providing rich data to organizers.

The primary event objectives were to:

-Forster a tight community’ amongst all international MICE profs in attendance and develop relationships that serve to develop business

-Drive engagement with event activities, as well as between people.

-Gain detailed metrics about interactions between people

-Have better insight and tracking of meetings attended

Features and products utliized were:

Interactive USB devices-

Poken interactive USB devices enabled visitors to collect digital business cards and digital documents, with a simple touch, and additionally, check into meetings.

Poken Real time touchpoints-

Simply touch a poken to a touchpoint. When the poken interacive USB glows green, the digital information contained within has been collected and stored on the visitors online event portal.

Poken utilized this technology to not only share information and capture lead data, but to register interactions, so as to track meetings in real time via the nfc device, and the Poken Event Manager Cloud.

Online Visitor Portal-

Visitors could log into their online visitor portals to download all their new contacts, see the information they have collected and review meetings attended.

Event Manager Cloud-

Event Manager cloud software for organizers to manage and track meetings in real time, manage visitor information, access interaction reports and update content for distribution.

Event delivery

Before arriving in Abu Dhabi, attendees were invited to log into their visitor portals and add to their profiles. This served to not only inform them and engage them before arriving onsite, but also added to the value of the transactions, as people added social media, and profile pictures to their accounts.

On arrival, all attendees were issued a Poken interactive USB with their registration badge. For the entire duration of the event, the device acted as the person’s digital business card, and meeting check-in tool. Simply by touching the interactive USB to another person’s, the small device glows green, and the persons contact information is exchanged. The result was infectious, as people would see the glowing green hand and instinctively touch poken’s with their neighbours. In doing so, opening a new conversation and relationship, while also capturing the person’s details.

All the new contact information could be then collected on each person’s individual online visitor portal. Poken’s interactive USB not only allowed for contact details to be shared between people, but created opportunity for people to meet one another in a casual and fun way. The device was the ice breaker to foster engagement between attendees, particularly during the discovery day. The adventurous nature of the ‘discovery day’ meant that traditional business card exchanges were not suitable (as people often didn’t bring them along). Poken interactive USB devices were carried by all, and utilized thoroughly.

The result was a total of over 5700 connections made over 3 days, from a total attendance of 312 guests.

It was necessary for ibtm arabia organizers to know precisely who had attended their registered meetings and at what time. To achieve this, real time touchpoints were stationed on each exhibitor pod. The 4cm x 4cm nfc readers could track all the meetings in real time. At the commencement of the meeting, attendees simply touched the reader with their interactive USB to check in. Furthermore, exhibitors received reports detailing all the people with whom they had met, for a thorough lead generation. Poken real time touchpoints measured that approx. 88% of all meetings were attended over the course of 2 days. As touchpoints tracked meetings in real time, organizers were also given insight into periods of heavy and lower meeting attendance, thus allowing them to adjust and improve the format for the next installment.

‘Poken has come up with a solution that makes collecting information, let that be your contact information, or even information or services about a particular exhibitor much easier, with the tap of the Poken device; what we call a technology ‘high five’.

It’s very easy, its secure and its easy and quick to reproduce information for later use. We found a solution through Poken, yes. ‘

-Shinu Pillai

Exhibition Manager,Reed Travel Exhibitions.

Want to drive engagement at your own event? Speak to one of our event professionals today.

This is an exciting step for Poken. For nine years I have led a team of talented people, creating a set of products and a brand recognized in many markets. As a small company, fuelled with the “start-up spirit,” we achieved many things, catering to big-name clients and gaining recognition as a thought leader in the events industry. Our vision of providing a unique, engaging, and 360-degree digital experience to event participants and sponsors has taken hold in the market. We have played the part of a small player with a big dream, and have made it happen. In doing so, the company has reached a stage where we felt it was time scale our operations.

Joining GES will act as a rocket booster for our vision, and our ability to deliver bigger and better things to our clients. Our team is thrilled at the idea of being part of a global organisation with solid, proven processes and far-reaching capabilities so that we can focus on our own strengths: innovation, thought leadership, and building out the leading-edge products that form the broader vision that we have for taking events to the next level. This is also great news for our clients and our partners, who will benefit from GES’ full-scale live events services combined with our innovations, and be able to rely on Poken to deliver at any scale.

Our team members will continue in largely the same roles, serving from New York, Chicago, London, Sibiu and Lausanne. My new role within GES will be Group Commercial Director, leading our sales and marketing efforts in a similar capacity as I have been doing at Poken. I look forward to being able to focus on business development, evangelism, and supporting our customers better.

Exciting times. I owe a huge thank-you to everyone in the core Poken team, to our partners, our customers, and of course to all the people who have supported the company and me over the years. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Selling a company is an entrepreneurs’ dream come true, all the more so when the team can stay together to build more great things.

Onwards and upwards,

Stéphane

1. Align event tech with the objectives of attendees and stake holders

The success of technology adoption depends upon how well the objectives of the organizer (and in-turn, the objectives of the participant) align with the technology in deployment. It is about the right tool set for the right job. So the first question when devising the strategy should be ‘Why are the attendees/ exhibitors/ buyers/ etc coming to the event? What are they aiming to achieve? Often this comes back to strengthening their networks, whether it be personal or professional, driving business opportunities, and furthering their education. What is the most relevant technology to facilitate this? If a piece of technology doesn’t help participants meet their objectives, it will ultimately become noise and distract from the experience.

2. Create environments and shape the experience

Once the organizer is in tune with the motivations of the stake holders, they can positively affect adoption by looking at ‘how’ the technology will drive the desired behavior. Creating an event environment, culture and format that stimulates participation and learning will ultimately encourage adoption.

As events are physical by nature, bringing together the physical and digital event spaces is a great way to form the experience as a whole.

Here are just some of the latest technology features that event organizers and planners can place in their events to drive engagement and boost results

Gamification- Gamification is all about creating a richer event experience. By aligning event objectives with strategic incentivized challenges, not only will visitors have more fun, but they will have a much more rewarding time.

Matchmaking and meeting scheduling- A fantastic way for maximizing the effectiveness of time on site, attendees, exhibitors and buyers create profiles that identify and match them with the most suitable people, as well as schedule meeting time slots.

Event mobile apps- Provide participants with a plethora of information and opportunity in real time. Everything from agenda building and mapped floor plans, to surveys and social media are common among today’s mobile event apps. The future of event apps will see additional focus upon creating unique experiences for each attendee through targeted meetings, gamified experiences and content.

Smart devices- The best way to build adoption is to put the technology in the hands of every participant, and make it as simple as possible for them to use. Enter smart devices. RFID, NFC or beacon technologies allow attendees to network, share information, participate in surveys and compete in games in the physical event space, while harboring low learning curves or other barriers to usage.

Audience response systems- Features such as live Q and A, session polling and group discussions are changing the face of audience involvement, by turning passive listeners into contributors.

3 Recognize the barriers

It is important to recognize what the limitations may be for a particular technology in relation to the event and the participants. The classic example here is the far too common, lack of venue wi-fi. For the organizer who has just invested in a state of the art event app, or audience response platform, the adoption rates will provide a sad shock. Barriers are sometimes not only physical or defined by space, but can be due to the experience of the participant, or the process to access and use the technology. Take some time to think about the participant. Regardless of whether a certain piece of technology could greatly benefit them, if it is considered complicated or otherwise outside their comfort levels, they simply won’t use it.

4 Communication is everything

Educating your audience not only on what to expect but how it will help them achieve their objectives before they arrive is paramount. If the participant is aware of how a particular technology will benefit them, they are more likely to be excited by it and will be ready to participate as soon as they hit the floor. Is your technology partner equipped to help you communicate the benefits of the tools you put in place most effectively to your audience?

Channels to educate your participants

Host informational webinars- For technology that may require a more detailed explanation, such as scheduling meetings or advanced match-making, hosted webinars are a great tool for speaking directly to the audience, and answering their specific questions in real time. Should you have different participant types, information can be tailored, reducing the incidence of dis-interest.

Create instructional videos or brochures- Not everyone can be expected to see your webinars when they are live. Give people the option of learning about your tech features in their own time. Make it clear and make it simple.

Email Campaigns-Still the most effective way of directly getting in front of stakeholders. A steady drip campaign will mean more penetration. However, it is important not to flood your audience, otherwise they will equate the technology to being more hassle than it is worth.

Take it social- Once you have the content, share it across your social networks. People are social creatures. Sharing content that offers value not only serves to influence them, but also creates buzz around the event, so people are ready to enjoy themselves from the get go.

5. Involve stakeholders in the reviewing process

Involve participants in the process of reviewing the technology in use. This not only shows them that you are committed to improving the experience for them, but also allows you to learn what was a success, what can be improved upon and most importantly, why.

Download this Whitepaper and others at Poken’s learning center. Or click here to get started and make your event a success. 

Naomi Amoah

Among the bright lights and high footfall of the tradeshow floor, it’s always a challenge for the exhibitor to stand out from their competitors; offering value and driving richer engagement with their products and brand. This is the exact challenge that AbbVie faced at the 14th annual European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (EADV). From the 28th September – 2nd October Vienna saw EADV attract over 8,000 delegates, and 165 exhibitors.

In cooperation with AbbVie, Poken worked to provide an interactive booth experience which bridged the gap between the physical and digital event space. The aim was not only to drive engagement on-site but to extend the life of the event, by providing engagement when the visitor got home.

As attendees arrived at the AbbVie booth, their journey began when they were issued an interactive USB device. This was their key to unlocking the AbbVie experience. For the visitor, the approach was seamless, all they needed to do in order to receive a poken was to have their business card scanned by one of the booth’s hostesses.
The visitor was then directed around the booth, moving through three main areas of focus, all centered around one product: Humira.

In order to curate the way attendees interacted with the information presented, Poken stationed seven real-time Touchpoints around the booth. This allowed the visitor to gather the materials by simply touching their poken to a Touchpoint, watching it glow as they collected the collateral.

Attendees instantly received digital information in the form of:

1. A video explaining the action of Humira as a TNF-alpha inhibitor
2. A run through of AbbVie products and product characteristics in PDF
3. A detailed instruction on prescribing Humira

Poken had an alluring effect on attendees. Individuals walking by the booth were attracted to the visuals and the green glow, from the poken meeting the Touchpoint. With no learning curve to the digital experience, the AbbVie experience was open to all.

Once booth attendees returned home, they simply plugged their poken interactive USB stick into the USB port of their computer, and were directed to their personalized AbbVie dashboard. Here they could view and download the documents and videos they collected. In addition, as per AbbVie’s specifications, they could directly access the AbbVie website, Facebook, and twitter.
This interaction went well beyond the one-dimensional aspect of giving away swag to draw attendees to the booth. From the user perspective they received a detailed, interesting and cooperative breakdown of what was being presented, as well as an experience that not only memorable but one that allowed for information to be better digested. From the perspective of the exhibitor, AbbVie was able to see how many attendees came to their booth, who they were, what times of the day were most popular, how much information was collected, and which information was most popular.

Additional benefits AbbVie experience were:

• Detailed and qualified lead generation
• Insights into attendee interests
• Reduced costs for printing and handling of hard copy materials
• A greener booth

The experience fulfilled AbbVie’s desire for their materials to be presented in a non-cumbersome and attractive way. The visitor was provided with a richer booth experience compared to that of other exhibitors. Furthermore, the results provided much-needed metrics that will allow AbbVie to measure and compare their marketing activities across multiple events, and channels.

Head to the Poken Learning Center to download the Whitepaper Driving Engagement Through Gamification. Or click here to get started on making your event a success. 

We are constantly looking for new ways to improve and fine tune Poken’s technology. The team has been working hard to build a solution that provides a richer event experience to delegates over the past few years and it’s great to have been recognised for our efforts.

For us, this award confirms that the events industry shares our conviction that Poken’s gamification tool is a great way to drive visitor behaviour and encourage networking at events. It’s great to have ended 2016 on such a high note and we hope to continue this trend into the New Year!

Read more about the ETA awards here.

Check out the video case study and our Whitepaper on Driving Event Engagement Through Gamification. Or click here to get started on making your event a success today. 

Could you tell us a little about data in the trade show and event space? Do you feel that trade shows, festivals and corporate events mismanage their data and corresponding opportunities? How can Poken help with this?

The primary objective of most events is to satisfy their sponsor’s objectives.  Because of the many challenges involved in pulling together an event, and frequent last-minute challenges that the organiser faces with simple logistics or last-minute sign-ups, we often see lofty goals drawn back to the same set of basic targets at the cost of long-term strategic vision.  In this sense, yes – many event organisers miss the opportunity that collecting detailed, relevant data can provide them, especially as it relates to long term planning. One challenge is, data becomes increasingly interesting and valuable, the more history you have – so the first year you start collecting some new data points is generally the year that the data collection has the least immediate value to you and your stakeholders – you need something to compare it to. The more history you have, the more insights you can draw:  The biggest hurdle is therefore to decide to start collecting more data points. But the investment pays off in the future: That’s the benefit that we see large or more experienced organisers have – they have been collecting data for years, and are therefore more confident in making strategic changes to their events.

There are a number of different technologies and platforms in the market that can help you collect key metrics. Evolving from collecting only registration data, to measuring actual interactions between exhibitors and buyers, measuring traffic patterns in front of sponsor’s exhibits, measuring linger time, eyeballs, and event collecting what we call “intent” (an actual action from a participant, resulting from a specific touchpoint during the event) – there are significant benefits to having actual numbers for all of these angles.

What are the most required or popular products and services in Poken’s platform?

Poken started 8 years ago with the main focus of increasing, and measuring, networking and engagement at events.  We have spent the past 8 years building additional tools that seek to make the experience as seamless and effective as possible for event organiser to deploy, and for event participants and exhibitors to benefit from.  So at the core of Poken is our service to help boost event’s results, through increased networking. But this service is deployed through several different products that we present as “modules”, which are designed to fit within the event organiser’s strategy, depending on event type and on whether it’s the first year they work with us. For example, on-site networking will be enhanced (and have higher quality) if you use our pre-event “Business Match-Making” module – this tool is embedded in your event website, and it helps your participants plan their journey, ahead of time – requesting meetings with relevant buyers or sellers, signing up for the most relevant sessions, etc.  This helps everyone make the most of their time on-site.   During the event, we have some light “gamification” options that are designed to help drive people towards the content that will also make them feel that they’ve gotten the most out of their event.   But from the organiser’s perspective, the most popular is our Metrics Module, whereby they see all the interactions and the data, post-event.

How important is Latin America for Poken?

LatAm has always been a core piece of our business – we are originally a European company, so we built our platform to be fully multi-lingual, and our business started very early on in Spanish speaking countries, from Spain to Mexico and Argentina.   We have now structured our market approach in LatAm, with core partnerships including one in Colombia, with a partner, Alun Ideas, which is the most creative of all of our representatives.  That is a good fit, because from what we’ve seen Latin American events are, to be honest, more fun that a lot of events in other countries.  People enjoy networking, they are very open, and very keen to try new technologies.

In Cartagena Inspira you will focus on Gamification. Can you please tell us a bit about what you will be presenting?

At a number of high-profile events I have been encouraged to talk about Gamification, because I think in many instances it is a term that is misunderstood.  Gamification doesn’t mean integrating Pokemon Go into your event – that would tend to wreck its core purpose.  Implemented correctly, gamification takes the form of a strategy that simply, often discretely, attempts to drive your participants’ behaviour so that they are achieving more of their objectives, and feel that they’ve achieved more, at your event.   The reason we call it gamification is that you are not giving people a to-do list: You are influencing behaviour through simple incentives, through strategic communication, using technology that people must be familiar with and find very easy to use.   It’s important to educate event organisers about Gamification, because we can help them avoid making mistakes – we have learned so much in the past years, about what works and what doesn’t work, by working with sports-related events such as the Youth Olympic Games, the Boy Scouts of America,  some of the leading Sports Federations, and applying these learnings to corporate clients such as ASICS, Novartis, Microsoft, and many more.

Thank you Stephane for your time. We very much look forward to seeing you in Cartagena.

De nada.

www.cartegenainspira.com