Event Tech of the Week: @glisserapp

Today, we’re talking about Glisser

Company/Tool Name: Glisser
Website: http://glisser.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/glisserapp
Facebook: www.facebook.com/glisserapp

What is the “problem” that your tool seeks to solve?

Glisser is designed to solve a bunch of problems all in a single app, ultimately improving audience engagement and collecting useful feedback and data. It takes away the burden of getting content (presentations that are usually emailed or printed) to attendees. It encourages audience participation, even from people who might be uncomfortable speaking in public. It speeds up and democratizes the audience questions process. It encourages social sharing by integrating Twitter. And it aids presenters and event planners by collecting feedback, opinion and data that can make future events even better.

What is the best audience for this tool? Corporate events? Social? Other? Large? Small?

We’ve tried to build something really flexible that works for both large and small events, for corporates and for event organisers, and even for professional speakers. A speaker can arrive at an event with their own iPad, plug it in, and present using Glisser. However, we expect the early adopters to be event planners – they’re willing to embrace new technology, and will recognise some of the challenges that Glisser solves.

What does your tool help event planners do better?

Glisser provides a single app that focuses on the content of an event – and content is crucial in making an event worthwhile to an attendee, and a big factor in whether they return next year. Through Glisser, presentations are shared live as the speaker presents, then can be taken away by attendees and kept electronically, or shared with colleagues. Additionally, the information that Glisser collects can be used to determine which presentations hit the mark, which slides were really popular, and which speakers created debate. This is all useful stuff when refining and planning for the next event.

How is your tool different from/better than the competition?

Glisser combines a lot of things in a single app – live slide sharing, voting/audience response, audience questions, Twitter – meaning that event planners can access a wide range of features without having to encourage attendees to use a plethora of tools. And because we focus on the content, rather than the wider event (venue maps, exhibitors, sponsors, etc.) we dovetail quite nicely with other apps that do this. The other point to note is that we’ve built Glisser ‘in-app’ rather than stream content over the internet, which gives a really slick user experience and places less burden on the venue Wi-Fi during a live presentation.

What is the single coolest feature of your product?

It’s hard to choose because Glisser’s strength is that it’s loads of tools in one package, but giving audience members the ability to draw and write on slides as soon as they appear is great fun. It’s useful for note-taking, but can also be used simply to doodle away just like people have always done on printed slide decks. Our next app release is going to let presenters draw over their slides as well, just like TV sports presenters analyzing a game. It’s going to be cool to see how people use that!

Anything else we need to know?

We want people to try us out, so everyone who registers can upload their first few presentations and add social features absolutely free. Try it out with your colleagues in a team meeting – it’s really powerful seeing it in action. Then please send us feedback and ideas – we want to make Glisser better and better, and event planners are the best source of new features.

This weekly series spotlights a new tech tool that is designed to help make planning events much more seamless. Whether it’s using event software to track every detail from start to finish or mobile apps that deliver content to attendees’ fingertips, these technologies allow planners to divert their stress to more critical issues like deciding which napkin color looks best.

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.