‘Jetson’-Age Tools Click with Big-Event Planners
Trade Shows Expert Shares 3 Cutting-Edge New Technologies

Most of us think about technology on a mostly two-dimensional plane as we flick our way from screen to screen on touch glass. But today’s tech includes applications that are far from flat, says major-events expert Ann Windham.

“What if you could control all primary aspects of major events like trade shows, big weddings and awards ceremonies through your iPad or smartphone; imagine shutting everything down at the end of a long and exhausting night by pushing one button on your phone – that’s just some of what’s possible with today’s software,” says Ann Windham, president and CEO of Imagine Xhibits, Inc. (imaginexhibits.com/events).

Lights, climate control, projectors and monitors, curtains, fountains and much more can be controlled with an app, and the data that you take away from trade shows can be used to quickly follow up on sales leads, says Windham, who will be showcasing this cutting-edge technology July 9 at Trade Show Technology Summit 2013, to be held at the Irving Convention Center at Las Colinas in Irving, Texas.

The summit will show attendees how to manage technology such as QR codes, mobile apps, virtual trade shows, social media, on-line asset management, interactive media and live stream video on electronic devices as simple as a mobile phone, she says.

“We’ll show planners the newest event management tools for efficiency and streamlining tasks before, during and after their event. We’ll also have hands-on, educational workshops to show them how to use management,” she says.

Windham shares three of her favorite new technologies:

• Pre-show – Event Management Software: This one-stop source for managing every detail about your event – from Fed Ex tracking numbers to vendor contact information to photos from the show – even allows you to manage multiple events from any location. “In the past, we carried all the details for each show in one huge binder. If you were at a show in Texas and someone called with a question about the show in Oregon, you wouldn’t have that information handy,” Windham says. Event management software relies on cloud storage, so members of your team can access it from their smart phone or iPad no matter where they are. Another benefit: You’ve got just one place to input all that data.

• During the show – Remote Sensors: Sensors built into the walls of an exhibit allow you to control all of the electronics from your smart phone or iPad. Not only does it save time, it’s an easy way to add valuable theatrics during a demonstration. “Say you’re standing at the back of the room and you realize the speaker can’t be heard, you just turn up the volume on his mic, right from your your iPad,” Windham says. “Or, if you want to create special effects using lighting and room temperature, you can dim the lighting and drop the temperature.” Her favorite feature? At the end of a long day, rather than walking from one device to the next, shutting off each, you press just one button and turn everything off while walking out the door.

• Post-show – Sales Leads Follow-up: Seventy percent of percent of exhibitors who capture sales leads at trade shows don’t collect qualifying information, according to the Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR).Scanners collect only the most basic data from visitors to each booth – there’s no way of knowing whether they were a “hot” lead ready to buy, or someone who stopped by for the free T-shirt, Windham says. Now, however, event management software allows exhibitors to include qualifying information every time a visitor’s badge is scanned. “At the end of the event, you can quickly see who your hottest leads were and send them an email or postcard before you’ve even left the event,” Windham says.

For planners who’ve been hamstrung by personnel cutbacks in recent years, these new tools are lifesavers, she says.

“The days of ‘The Jetsons’ has arrived.”

About Ann Windham

Locking Up Our Future

The logical fix would require putting more money and effort into securing jobs, transitional housing, and drug treatment for ex-offenders.

Finally, there’s a sign that our national passion for locking up more and more Americans could be subsiding. Our “correctional population” is gradually shrinking after decades of robust growth.

We had 2.9 million people behind bars in 2011, down from 3.2 million in 2007, according to the Justice Department.

Sure, one in 34 Americans was still either locked up, on probation, or on parole. But progress is progress, right?

Leonard Chien / Flickr

Well, maybe not. Even with our 1.4 percent decline the year before last, the United States leads the world in locking up hordes of its own citizens. We’ve got 5 percent of the world’s population, but about 25 percent of the planet’s prisoners.

Among rich industrialized nations, we’re off the charts, incarcerating our own people at a rate that dwarfs Spain, Germany, Japan, and our other peers.

What’s driving this trend? Prisoners are mostly a profit center. No, certainly not for government — the authorities are always stuck with the tab. But it’s a booming business for the many private contractors that manage and service them. These groups have become a powerful lobbying force in favor of robust growth for our incarcerated population.

Vast prison populations cause problems. Such as costing a lot of money. Legislatures balk at the costs of true rehabilitation and often cut services aimed at helping inmates get a new start. Hence, they come back.

Similarly, budget cuts lead to overcrowding and inhumane conditions. This decay sooner or later calls down the wrath of watchdog agencies, and all too soon, the courts. The American Civil Liberties Union recently filed a class-action lawsuit against a for-profit prison accused of abusing mentally ill inmates in Mississippi. The lawsuit reads like something Stephen King couldn’t make up.

In California, the courts are weighing what to do about an airborne fungus that has already killed more than 30 inmates and may threaten thousands more at two state prisons.

Prisoners, obviously, suffer for their lack of a potent lobby. But so do all taxpayers. We’re the ones who end up footing the bill. There’s nothing new about that — we are such suckers.

The logical fix would require putting more money and effort into securing jobs, transitional housing, and drug treatment for ex-offenders. Bruce Western, a Harvard University sociology professor, says this full-spectrum attack on recidivism would cost $7 billion. That may sound astronomical, but it’s actually only one-tenth of what we’re already spending to maintain the Prison-Industrial Complex at the state and federal levels.

Emily Schwartz Greco is the managing editor of OtherWords, a non-profit national editorial service run by the Institute for Policy Studies. OtherWords columnist William A. Collins is a former state representative and a former mayor of Norwalk, Connecticut. OtherWords.org