Conferencing Apps

I was recently a speaker at the 2012 Vancouver Resource Investment Conference. Its one of the biggest mining conferences in the world with over 500 exhibitors and 8000 attendees. Here are a few of the apps that I like to use when heading off to a conference.

Tungle
I'm a big believer in serendipity so I dislike taking introductory meetings at a conference. I never know what I'll learn at a conference but when I'm getting an overly detailed presentation on the end uses of an element that may never be produced by the company I'm meeting, my thoughts turn to the next thing. There's always a next thing.

When I'm presented with more than one meeting request, I tend to freeze up. I'm not good with choices. Tungle solved my "deer in the headlights" scheduling issues. I was able to share blocks of times with people who wanted to meet with me and they picked the time.

I botched the time zone component for one meeting as I live in Calgary and the conference was in Vancouver but with a more diligent user, I'm sure that problem is avoidable. It did a great job of syncing to my Google Calendar. This app does one thing very well. I'll try Doodle next time to compare.

Lanyrd
This has yet to gain traction in the resource world but an open source conference guide is a great concept. Lots of ways for speakers and attendees to share what they are up to. Currently, I'm using it to document my speaking career more than anything else. If conference organizers ever figure out the benefits of pushing this app onto their exhibitors and users, it could take off quickly. This app can only get better over time.

Cardmunch


Cardmunch is not getting better over time because processing my stack of business cards is being held up. In theory, you take a photo of your business card and a few hours later you get a contact record along with a button to push if you want to connect with them on LinkedIn. Awesome! Cards aren't quite dead in the business world.

The fruits of my conferencing labours.

I hope heavy card volumes don't kill this

Cardmunch was recently taken out by LinkedIn and while the acquisition makes great sense, fickle users are not going to like any restrictions on usage, especially following a conference (apps are all about me).  I get my business cards in large bunches so if 10 cards backs up the system, I may have to find an alternative.

Twitter

Our conference used the hashtag #VRIC12 and for the first time, I saw plenty of twitter traffic around the conference. Most of it was from speakers and exhibitors. Currently, it would be foolish to ask for twitterverse questions for a panel at a resource conference but that day is coming soon It is best to be ready. I used the ever trusty buffer to schedule tweets with this hashtag over some of the conference.