Click here to view the video on YouTube.

View Moab in a larger map

Click the markers to see more pictures!

1. Make sure you have working Wi-Fi and everyone knows how to access it.  In my experience, this is one of the biggest failures of businesses hosting social events. Even if you think everyone should be able to access a cellular network, be sure and provide a Wi-Fi backup for those using tablets and devices that can’t connect to cellular networks. Even if you think you have Wi-Fi covered, be sure to test it and immediately respond if anyone complains.

2. Promote the use of a Twitter hashtag in all materials leading up to the event including invites, posters, etc. Encourage everyone to follow and use the hashtag, even if they can’t attend.3. Designate someone to live tweet and monitor the stream. Having someone live tweet helps encourage others to engage at your event. It’s also very important to monitor conversations so that you can reply or retweet while the event’s taking place. For additional information about this see Social Brite’s 12-step live tweeting guide.

4. Collect Twitter usernames, especially from VIPs prior to the event. As speakers and guests physically interact, it’s important for the person live tweeting to be able to virtually attribute what they say. Having an easily searchable list of Twitter usernames will allow whoever is live tweeting to match the person speaking with a Twitter username. This gives anyone viewing the message an easy way to find out more about the person speaking.

5. Prominently display real-time media from the event. This can be done with a large TV/monitor or projector. Over the last few years, Twitter has become a preferred social network for event updates and there are lots of free tools that can help you display a Twitter feed at your event. Some of my favourites include VisibleTweets, Tweetwally, Twitterfall, Tweetbeam, & Hootfeed. Photos are also a great way to showcase your event, but unfortunately Facebook doesn’t offer an easy slide show option for brand pages.  As a work around, I would recommend playing a slideshow of photos you’ve uploaded to Facebook off of your computer. Include a link to your Facebook page at the bottom of the screen and request that attendees tag themselves so you can earn the additional exposure of their friends.

6. Use the increased engagement at events to gather intelligence. Often times people that host events don’t quite realize the potential for collecting and providing information through social channels. If you’ve followed the previous 4 steps, your social media channels will likely have a more engaged audience during the event than at all other times. Take advantage of this by posting polls, following people that are using the events hashtag, and listening to what people are most excited about. If you’re not using a social media listening tool like Radian6 or Sysomos, be sure to capture the feed using a free tool like The Archivist so that you can analyse the data after the event.

7. Give something away to those who engage the most. This can be just about anything, but the more unique it can be to your audience, the better. Depending on the event, it may be helpful to use some good ol’ fashioned game mechanics to get people talking about your brand and event online. Be sure to cover yourself and your brand by thinking this through properly and creating an official terms and conditions document that you can easily link to.

Based on my experience, following these simple steps will greatly improve any event. I would love to hear from you if you have any additional suggestions or questions.

(Image source: SiliconAngle)

This post was originally written for my blog on Metia.com

Last week I had the pleasure of attending a Seattle Web Marketers meetup on SoLoMo (social, local, and mobile) marketing. I’ve been a part of this group for a few months now and this was the second meetup I’ve attended. Social, local, and mobile marketing have been around for some time and aren’t necessarily novel, but I was pleased to learn about some of the hybrid strategies being employed by the event’s speaker, Ron O’Ferrall (@ibrand360) from UrLocus. Below are a few of the learnings I took away from it. (Image source: SiliconAngle)

Use SMS short codes that are easy to remember
SMS short codes are five or six digit numbers that can be leased by companies much like a telephone number. One of the examples given was using 425-206 as a short code for a campaign around Seattle. Both of these are local area codes that have been around for decades, 425 is Bellevue (or the Eastside) and 206 is Seattle. Using heuristics like this to help people remember will increase the success of any campaign. Key takeaway: Creatively find ways to help your audience remember your message.

Large companies aren’t the only ones who will take advantage of SoLoMo marketing campaigns
According to Ron, the focus for marketers over the next year or so will be on how small and midsize business (SMB) owners can take advantage of mobile marketing. His example of this was an SMS short code UrLocus created for SMBs in South Florida. SMS short codes are too expensive to purchase for one time use by an SMB. By creating one short code that can be used on demand by multiple UrLocus SMB clients, it becomes much more affordable for SMBs to run SMS campaigns. Key takeaway: Finding ways to scale marketing strategies used by the likes of Microsoft and Google can be a valuable tactic for SMBs and the marketing groups that serve them.

Nearly everyone uses text
UrLocus’s slogan is: “Some of your audience is on Facebook, fewer are on Twitter, but all of them text.” As a social media strategist I live and breathe on Facebook and Twitter and seldomly use SMS. So naturally I had to take a step back and think about this for a moment. Others at the meetup didn’t think twice and immediately raised their hands to share stories of signing up for SMS alerts and campaigns. Key takeaway: Don’t limit your marketing efforts to the platforms you’re comfortable using.

Using SMS for marketing is highly regulated
While we have several mobile marketing professionals at Metia, I personally haven’t done a lot in the SMS marketing space. Because I receive spammy text messages here and there, I still thought of SMS as the wild west of marketing and was surprised to learn how regulated this marketing space is. If you’re thinking about using SMS for a campaign of any kind be sure you’re working with a trusted vendor and check out the best practices section of the Mobile Marketing Association’s website. Key takeaway: Know the rules before you come up with innovative ways to break them.

Link QR codes to actions, not just content
Marketers often think of QR codes as nothing more than a visual link between the consumer and the content they want the consumer to consume. Fortunately, Ron opened my eyes to the ability to initiate a text message from a QR code. This isn’t anything new, but for me, it was a shift in the way I think about QR codes. Key takeaway: Always explore functionality that can lead to increased engagement from your audience.

Here at Metia we’re always looking for innovative ways to help increase the reach and engagement of our client’s communications. While SoLoMo marketing isn’t necessarily new, we’re continually finding ground-breaking ways to incorporate it into the campaigns, projects, and programs we manage for our clients. If you’re thinking about running a social, local, or mobile marketing campaign be sure and drop us a line, we would love to share our experiences with you.

If you’re looking for more info about the convergence of Social, Local, and Mobile (SoLoMo), check out the SoLoMo Manifesto.

Have you signed up for SMS alerts or entered to win something via SMS? We would love to hear your thoughts and whether or not you believe SMS has value as a marketing platform.

My favorites:

The full gallery:

My Research:

While doing a small research project on this topic I quickly discovered some of the key issues associated with using gestures and other forms of non-traditional computational input. My project began with investigating desktop computer applications that utilized the Kinect device to detect voice and gestures in order to control presentations or media players. I quickly learned that several companies have developed applications for this purpose and some were expecting consumers to pay quite a bit for gesture control functionality. Because I wasn’t allotted a budget for this research I settled on a free solution called KinEmote that would allow me to customize the keystrokes associated with several pre-programmed gestures. Unfortunately, voice recognition was not included and therefore my assumptions regarding voice functionality have not yet been substantiated.

After installing KinEmote, I was able to quickly configure the settings so that I could move the mouse by simply moving my hand through the air and could click by quickly pushing my hand toward the Kinect. I found this to be somewhat difficult, especially with some of the smaller buttons (i.e. Start Button) in Windows 7. It was also difficult to make the clicking gesture, the equivalent of hitting a large push button in the air. Often times instead of registering a click the program would simply move the mouse down to the bottom of the screen. I quickly realized that while this type of control may work for programs optimized for gesture or touch-screen control, it would be a tough sell for the average consumer.

Next, I moved on to customizing the gestures for PowerPoint presentations. Within KinEmote there are settings for simply sliding your hand up, down, left or right. Setting the right and left controls seemed appropriate for going back and forth between slides. This worked in theory – the controller could begin the presentation using mouse or keyboard shortcut and use the appropriate gestures in front of the Kinect to control the slides. I quickly realized though that my human instinct to use hand gestures while talking in public would be a major problem for this form of gesture control. Without the equivalent of a lock screen on a touch-screen phone to prevent false-positive gestures, my slides would advance and regress unintentionally.

While looking back the settings for KinEmote, I remembered there were two separate panes that could be used to customize the up, down, left or right hand slide. The front pane could be controlled by standing approximately 5-7 feet from the Kinect and the back pane required the user to stand approximately 7-10 feet from the Kinect. On screen the user could identify which pane they were operating by looking at the Kinect camera output preview window which showed a green outline for the front pane and a red outline for the back. Requiring the user to step into the front pane to control the presentation and remain in the back pane while explaining the slide seemed like a natural way to prevent false-positive gestures.

This method seemed to work the majority of the time, but I didn’t feel like I’d effectively solved the problem. It would be difficult for the presenter to pay attention to the camera output while giving the presentation. Taking a step forward and doing a left or right hand slide gesture would be just as distracting and unnatural as clicking the mouse or pressing an arrow on the keyboard. While doing this research I came to the following conclusions:

• Using gestures can be awkward, especially in public
• Gestures have a learning curve and can seem obtrusive at first
• Gesture recognition via the Kinect isn’t accurate enough for professional presentations

Based on the usability problems I discovered, I decided to look to other forms of input that could be used to make navigating through a presentation more manageable and less intrusive. Based on the functionality of the Kinect, voice recognition appeared to be the best option to mitigate the false-positives associated with hand gestures during a presentation.

Future Research:

If voice commands were preset prior to the presentation the user could load the next or previous slide by saying something natural like “on the next slide we will discuss (title of next slide)” and then do a simple hand gesture within 5-10 seconds to advance the slide. While I was not able to test this method, it seems to be more natural than existing solutions and would be simple to learn.

Microsoft has announced that a new Kinect will be released in Q1 2012 with improved gesture and voice recognition. They have also announced that Windows 8 will include native support for the Kinect leading me to assume that Windows 8 applications will be optimized for gesture and voice control. Based on this information it seems futile to continue research until after Microsoft releases the new hardware that can be tested with the developer beta version of Windows 8.

One of the main reasons that I decided to study abroad was to learn more about how wearable computers can be used to change the way we communicate and to better understand the technological differences between the US and Germany. For some reason I had grand illusions that Europe and especially Germany was more technologically advanced than a lot of other countries including the US. What I found was a large digital divide between regions, age groups and social classes much like we have here in the US.

Studying abroad notably affected and broadened my career goals although it didn’t cause me to want to live or work in another country. In fact it caused me to realize how lucky I am to be in Seattle. On the other hand though, studying in Germany was fascinating because of the way higher education is structured. Graduate students are paid to work full-time on their research projects instead of competing for various scholarships.

Now that I’m back in the job market I’m testing out just how important studying abroad is to employers, but so far it seems to line up with the numbers below. One thing that kind of surprised me while I was away was how many small business ideas kept popping up. Everything from bicycle tube vending machines to competing bars with self-serve touch-screen taps.

If you’re still not convinced that studying abroad is worth your money, check out this TEDx talk from November with Rick Steves. While he isn’t necessarily advocating for studying abroad, his point is that spending time away from home will likely broaden your perspective and enrich your life. While I’m by no means the world traveler he is, I would have to agree; “fear is for people who don’t get out very much.”

[single_youtube video_id="kYXiegTXsEs" video_width="640" video_height="360"]

If you’ve studied abroad or are thinking about it please let us know your thoughts below in the comments.

According to MITs Technology Review, most of the companies working on these wearable head mounted displays started out building systems for the military. My interest in wearable devices is centered around consumer products for recreation and leisure time, however it’s fascinating to see some of these companies building innovative communication products for industries like aviation and hospitality first in order to generate enough revenue and research to get themselves into the consumer market.

RECON INSTRUMENTS

One of my favorite applications for wearable displays is used for augmented reality while participating in snow and dirt sports like snowboarding and dirt biking. Recon Instruments makes micro optic displays that are are completely non-obtrusive for front and peripheral vision and provide real-time information on speed, jump analytics, distance, temperature and much more. Recon’s MOD Live GPS micro optic displays snap into Recon-ready goggles and connect to Android devices (iOS coming soon) via Bluetooth. They just recently partnered with with Smith Optics and Scott sports so I’m expecting we’ll start seeing more of these on the slopes quite soon.
[single_vimeo video_id="31574543" video_width="640" video_height="360"]
More info: http://www.reconinstruments.com/products/mod

ZEAL OPTICS

A fellow MCDM student, Derek Walker, recently posted a video of another goggle device for snow and dirt sports that records video, takes pictures and has an in-goggle viewfinder. These won’t be available for another year, but I really like the way they’ve integrated a head mounted camera.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

More info: http://business.transworld.net/84405/news/zeal-optics-launches-ion-goggle-at-outdoor-retailer/

LUMUS OPTICAL

“Offering a new way of living, working, communicating and viewing content (including Internet, movies, TV and video games) anywhere and anytime, Lumus-enabled displays take vision to the ultimate level by redefining what you see on the go“

According to their website, Lumus is the “leading enabler of wearable displays”. Their technologies are currently being used by pilots in the U.S. Air Force and U.S. National Guard. Instead of developing displays from start to finish, Lumus sells their Optical Engine Modules under OEM agreements to leading consumer electronics manufacturers, who then market lines of products integrated with Lumus technology. By doing this they have penetrated a wide range of markets but don’t neccessily have control over how their technology is being used.

One fascinating tidbit from their site helps to explain the need for this type of product: Manufacturers and cellular service providers alike are demanding a portable personal display solution that will ensure an optimal large-screen viewing experience, thereby guaranteeing the success of their products and services. Ari Grobman, business development manager for Lumus, guesses that consumer devices will appear in “two years, maybe less.”

Credit / More info: http://www.lumus-optical.com/

VUZIX

“The Company’s products, personal display devices that offer users a portable high quality viewing experience; provide solutions for mobility, thermal sighting systems, tactical wearable displays and virtual and augmented reality.”

Credit: GizmoWatch
Vuzix won two innovation awards at CES for advanced 3D glasses and a new monocular see-through head mounted display (HMD). Their new 3D Mobile Video Eyewear looks pretty slick and connects to nearly anything with HDMI or any other type of video out. They provide a big screen experience (75″ from as seen from 10 feet away) and cost about the same as a plasma TV, $599. The new monocular see-through HMD for idustrial use is intended for things like viewing the schematics of a machine while looking at it and will go on sale later in 2012 for $5,000 to $10,000.
Vuzix has been developing their display technology for military and industrial applications since 1997. In 2005 they jumped into what they call the “consumer Video Eyewear market”. The company is focused on making its video eyewear the standard mobile equipment for watching news, sports, music videos and movies, and for playing video games on the go.

More info: http://www.vuzix.com/

SENSICS

SmartGoggles are by far the ugliest head mounted display I’ve seen but they have some cool features including a 360 degree view, 720p display, built-in Android 4.0, head & hand tracking 3D processing, Wifi and Bluetooth. They appear to offer an immersive virtual 3D environment and use 11 cell phone camera mounted on the front to detect hand and arm gestures allowing the person to interact with what they see. So far they haven’t announced a price but they should be available later in 2012.

Sensics is also developing a see-through SmartGoggle for augmented reality applications.
[single_youtube video_id="fh9X-mSmUgg" video_width="640" video_height="360"]

More info: http://smartgoggles.net/

SONY

According to announcement made on Jan. 5, Sony is working on a 3D head mounted display and has already released a prototype. There’s no word on when it be available but it appears to be intended for watching videos and playing video games.

[single_youtube video_id="A4domRbuV4c" video_width="640" video_height="360"]

More info: http://www.pcworld.com/article/215745/sony_shows_futuristic_3d_headmounted_display.html

KOPIN

“Golden-i is the world’s first hands-free and wireless headset computer. Golden-i will revolutionize the way we naturally interface with computers and intuitively interact with our virtually enhanced surroundings.”

The Golden-i device has been out for awhile but was on display at CES. Like Sensics SmartGoggles, the Golden-i device has a built-in processor, Bluetooth and Wifi. It runs Windows CE embedded and is controlled by gestures and voice. This device’s display sits just below your natural line of sight and appears to be 15″ when it’s in focus.

Credit: Techiser

More info: http://www.mygoldeni.com/

EPSON

These glasses didn’t make it on stage at CES, I just really like the picture. According to The Verge, they went on sale in Japan back in November for around $643. The simulate a screen that is 320″ wide from about 65 feet away at a resolution of 960×540 and have built-in Wifi.

Credit: PC Watch

More info: http://global.epson.com/newsroom/2011/news_20111109.html

One of the things I found most interesting while researching these displays is that the software needed for augmented reality is far ahead of the hardware. The companies like Recon that are actually creating new markets have integrated software and hardware while other companies like Lumus are just focused creating the best display. At this point it’s still hard to speculate just how viable head mounted displays will become, but if they’re anything like Bluetooth audio headsets we’re in for a major transition in how we communicate and see the world around us.

Always interested in hearing your thoughts. Would you drop some cash on some augmented reality glasses and what features are you interested in? Have you heard of any others that looking interesting?