As often as you’ve planned or coordinated corporate events, meetings, conferences and training sessions, you may never have considered including Wireless Audience Response. Why? Most likely you simply never gave it much thought. But in the ongoing struggle to create more effective, productive, memorable events with lasting outcomes, Audience Response technology could be your new best friend.

Audience Response is one of the most effective audience participation and interaction tools available. Not only that, there is an Audience Response technology to suit virtually every event.

Wireless Audience Response can revitalize annual meetings where audiences can become conditioned to ‘come, sit and listen’. Using this technology creates an exciting environment where the audience is actively involved, not passively absorbing information, and that makes the event — and the audience — come to life. Often, experienced presenters will specifically request audience response for their presentations to set the pace and/or focus more deeply on specific topics.

How does it work? Each member of the audience or logical grouping is provided with a wireless remote keypad that is used to enter responses to questions asked by the meeting facilitator or presenter. The responses are immediately tabulated and displayed on screen in the form of bar charts, pie or scatter graphs etc. Wireless Audience Response is very straightforward for the presenter, because the questions are preset in the system. The presenter poses the question, and the audience responds individually or as part of a team. In addition, Audience Response can be used with great success for voting and Annual General Meetings. The keypads can even be configured to register specific numbers of votes to account for proxies.

Audience Response technology doesn’t have to take centre stage. It can be used to support your event by posing questions through computer terminals and keyboards, or more advanced touch-screen capabilities. This tends to be provided in kiosks and allows event attendees to answer questions at their own pace, privately and at a time of their choosing. This is a particularly effective tool for trade shows, conferences, exhibitions etc., where the technology can not only be used to gain valuable customer feedback but also prospect feedback and data that can be mined for sales follow up after the event. This can significantly increase return on tradeshow and exhibition investment by generating post-event sales.

Breakout sessions, focus groups, trade shows, new product evaluations, seminars, team building and training sessions are all outstanding opportunities for the benefits of interactivity that Audience Response technology delivers, but those benefits are the direct result of the quality of the questions posed. Consider the following when developing questions for your audience:

Keep it Brief
Questions should be brief so they can be grasped quickly. People don’t like reading long questions on a screen or having long questions read to them. Limit questions to 1-2 sentences, and ensure they are clear. Answer choices should also be clear: “A, B, or C”, not “A, B, or a combination of C and B, or A and D”.

Keep it Real
Ensure questions are relevant. If participants consider questions to be frivolous, unimportant, or obvious they may be uninterested or even offended. There is also a risk that they will give false answers rather than providing legitimate feedback.

Keep it Current
Pose questions that pique interest — people will respond to questions they find interesting. Ensure the question is relative to a current issue, event, product or proposal. People are more likely to respond because they are interested in knowing how others respond. As a result, they look forward to learning the results — another excellent opportunity for follow up.

Keep it Fun
Audience response can be used to break the ice at a wide variety of meetings and events, taking the edge off even the stodgiest of conferences. It facilitates teamwork and communication in an engaging, professional manner that can be adapted to fit the desired event culture by incorporating fun and entertainment.

Let CCR Solutions bring your next event to life with industry leading Audience Response services and our exclusive friendlyway™ kiosks — call us today!