3 Things You Need to Know From @DoubleDutch

Disclaimer: This post is NOT a sponsored post. I’ve written this because I really enjoy what DoubleDutch is doing 🙂

We work with a lot of tech companies – mostly because we love them. I think that the tech companies that support the events industry are the main reason we are evolving. These companies take what we do as planners and make it better, faster, and easier. And, as a result, planners are starting to adopt these new technologies and our industry is starting to see some big changes. I love it. And every once in a while, I stumble on a tech company that really hits the nail on the head.

We’ve worked with DoubleDutch a few times before and they recently updated their platform so I sat down with their Co-Founder, Lawrence Coburn, and talked about what they had in store. Here are 3 things I heard that I think you need to know about as well.

1. The year 2014 is all about Contextual Computing
According to Lawrence, 2012 was all about going paperless. 2013 was about going social. And here we are in the beginning of 2014 and we’re talking about contextual computing. What does that mean? In a nutshell, it means that your mobile event apps should behave differently based on the context of the moment. For example, before a session happens, you should be able to add it to your agenda. As you are sitting in the session, you should be able to post comments or ask a question. And after the session is over? Of course you want to be able to take a survey!

This level of customization is absolutely key to the future of the events industry. Static apps simply don’t offer enough flexibility for our event attendees and planners want to use apps in multiple ways to reach their audience.

2. Personalization
In addition to the fact that we want our calls-to-action customized, we also want to personalize the experience for each attendee. For example, can you recommend various sessions or people to meet based on a person’s history? If so, that’s what DoubleDutch wants to do. Share trending sessions and exhibitors, draw traffic to areas of an event that are being underserved – these are all things that DoubleDutch will empower planners to do.

3. iBeacon
I love the idea of company-wide hack days – and DoubleDutch did just that. They let their developers loose on their platform and told them to create something amazing. And, as developers always do, they delivered. Now I can’t go into details quite yet on this as it’s an unreleased feature, but I can tell you that it has to do with iBeacon – something we’ve covered on techsytalk.com before and something I think you will see taking on a huge role in the industry. Here are just a few things you can do with iBeacon:

Checkin for sessions or at booths
Share offline content via iBeacon
Connect with others via iBeacon for sharing notes/slides
Meet other attendees at an event using the technology

In a nutshell, DoubleDutch has some amazing innovations in their future. I sit through a LOT of demos, but it’s rare that I leave feeling so excited for our industry. Definitely stay tuned to what they have in store and check out this case study video to see some of the cool things you can do while working with them:

Liz King Caruso

Liz King Caruso is an Event Strategist, Consultant and Speaker. As CEO of Liz King Events and techsytalk, she has helped countless thought leaders grow their audience and sell their products through in-person, virtual & hybrid events. Liz is a big-picture person – passionate about tying events into an overall sales and marketing strategy and being efficient at every point of the process. Technology is her niche and she’s obsessed with helping organizations of every size leverage technology to produce more engaging and seamless event experiences. In addition to her client work, Liz connects & educates her industry colleagues through platforms she has built – techsytalk GLOBAL, the techsytalk community & IGNITE Consulting program. Liz has been featured as Eventex’s 50 Most Innovative Virtual Meeting Planners, Successful Meetings list of 25 Most Influential People in the Meetings Industry, Top 5 Women in Event Tech, amongst other awards.