Technology opens new doors, but face to-face interaction remains an important communication tool

IBJ - September 29, 2008
By Cynthia Sequin Special to IBJ

When Amanda Cecil was doing her graduate studies in the 1990s she regularly trudged to the library to do endless research using microfilm, microfiche, magazines and books, and inserted a treasure of coins in copy machines to print her materials.

"There was no Internet, and e-mail was just beginning to reach our awareness," Cecil said. "We struggled to find information and if we needed something located somewhere else, it was snail mail or fax."

After graduation she entered the realm of event planning and, with nary a cell phone, email account or laptop, made her; way in the real world.

Fast-forward 10 years and you'll find Cecil teaching people how to best use real and virtual technologies to get their messages across to the right audience. As an associate professor in the IUPUI Department of Tourism, Convention and Event Management, Cecil shows students how to use the latest technology in their event planning.

She has a big audience. According to 2006 U.S. Department of Labor statistics, more than 50,000 people are working in meeting and event planning, and those numbers are on the rise.

When technology first started playing a role in meetings, Cecil said, there was a consensus that videoconferencing would replace physical meetings. "There was a belief that people would not have; to leave their places of business to participate in meetings, but that has not been the case. People need to meet faceto-face … and technology can't replace that, but it does greatly enhance it."

Even those who build their businesses around technology need face-to-face contact, said Cindy D'Aoust, senior vice president of strategic meetings management for Maritz Travel in St. Louis and chairwoman of Meeting Planners International's Future of Meetings Task Force.

"I read recently that a national group of bloggers held their first conference where they could get together and talk about blogging. Bloggers need to meet in person, too."

Indianapolis-based Sensory Technologies has 70 employees who travel all and Second Life are tools to communicate, and Second Life is becoming an effective tool for virtual meetings, Cecil said, but planners must understand their target audiences and how they communicate.

"We're communicating regularly with four generations—the Silent or GI generation, the boomers, the Gen Xers and the Millennials or Generation Y," she said. Meeting planners should consider who is involved in a meeting and provide technology appropriate for the demographic. If more than one group is represented, provide a variety of ways to communicate, Cecil said.

For example, meeting planners find that boomers prefer structured meeting agendas and traditional meetings with long breaks. Gen Xers value short, tothe-point meetings without keynote speakers. And Generation Y, which has always been plugged into technology, wants two-way communication using sites like MySpace and YouTube.

Meeting planners can successfully reach all of these groups with creative thinking. Offer attendees the opportunity to e-mail questions in advance and then post answers on big screens during the meeting, for example. Add a video clip related to the meeting topic from YouTube to score with Gen Yers.

"Digital Darwinism" is alive and well, said Corbin Ball, founder of Corbin Ball Associates in Bellingham, Wash., who runs one of the Internet's most comprehensive sites (corbinball.com) for meeting planning and events technology.

"It will be survival of the technologically fittest," he said. "Boomers are digital immigrants and Gen Xers and Yers are digital natives." Ball said boomers are using e-mail and Gen Xers and Yers are using mobile networks. The trend is moving away from paper, and those who adopt and embrace technology will do better than those who don't."