Having 15 years of experience working in a specific field can only guarantee you one single insight – space to reflect on what you could do better
Conferences and Events eReg tools have been, up until relatively recently, a rather murky afterthought – something that is appended to an existing plan surrounding an event. There was never any budget towards the creation of intelligent online registration tools and instead it was seen as a last-minute requirement to help facilitate the responses from prospective registrants.
The hardcore corporate world of Conferences & Events has often shied away from technology and the subsequent advent of social. If not a majority of attendees, then certainly organisers were institutionalised, their ways ingrained through decades of routine practice.
Introducing modern means of technology to an industry governed, by and large, by an older generation is a challenging prospect – how do you demonstrate that the introduction of automation and technology should not be perceived as a threat, but a benefit to the business?
Our responsibility as innovators and pioneers of technology obligates us to push the boundaries that would otherwise remain static for years. Technology that can automate otherwise complex manual processes is always part of the change that humans will fear. But aside from that, the overall working benefits to the business as a whole are so vast that it would be naive of any business to build any obstacle for this progression.
Subsequently, as with a lot of disruptive technology, convincing a business they need to improve existing processes is half the solution.
The very basis of Eventogy as a SAAS (Software as a Service) technology platform is cloud based. Until recently, cloud computing has never been favoured by large, financial and legal organisations, who normally have incredibly high standards when it comes to security and legislation. The wind of change has become a tornado, and every corporate in the world now uses some form of cloud tech, with almost all large application providers now developing on web-based interfaces that have no physical on-site software installation.
demoMedia have been building conference and events solutions for long enough now but the modern era of tech platform development demanded a totally different approach. So, given that we had a blank canvas, a unique insight into the industry and a decade of data collection, we decided to build eventogy based on agile and lean methods.
Every project genesis begins with grand ambition, but in the interests of fast, agile development, it isn't in the best interests of both ours and the end users to shove endless features onto the product, which is what we did. Most of that was done without real UX research or behavioural studies. However, shortly after releasing a Beta of Eventogy (back then called Phoenix), it was quite clear that we had to take to rethink our proposal.
We made a dramatic decision to strip Eventogy down to its bare essentials
After extensive research into behavioural and user experience studies, we came away with some magical data. Monitoring and shadowing real-world users whilst engaging clients in beta feedback sessions, we were able to sanitise the product and found that actually, some clients weren't using, nor did they need, half of our offered features.
We made a dramatic decision to strip Eventogy down to its bare essentials. This was called Project Declutter and if anything, it enabled us, as an organisation, to focus with purity on the very essence of our offering.
Despite appearing to strip the product of its feature set, actually it gave Eventogy a dramatic leap, allowing us to perfect core features, such as registration form builders, content editors, reporting and email CMS tools. Alongside the design and development of the platform itself, we built a supporting marketing site at eventogy.com which details the products current feature set, capabilities and pricing plans.
Eventogy continues to gain from extensive insight and development. It is maturing on a daily basis and the ever-shifting wave of technology in both corporate and consumer worlds (we feed both) means that opportunities to continue to develop the platform are ever-present.
Eventogy is already supported by a beautiful iPad check-in app, equipped with a super-quick QR code reader, empowering event hosts with crucial, real-time information on the check-in progress of their invitees.
The forthcoming Apple Watch is already an exciting prospect as we mull over the many wonderful applications we can put this personal device through, furthering and enhancing the value of Eventogy to event managers across the world.
“It’s not easy to find a comprehensive events management platform. To me, as events manager at Linklaters, the most important benefit of Eventogy is the simplicity of it. It’s so user-friendly.”
Mesut Kaya, Events Manager
Linklaters LLP
“Eventogy trumped them all in terms of flexibility, ease of use, aesthetic appeal, technology integration and indeed cost”
Chris James, Director
Laing Gale & Accociates
Iain C Reid, Creative lead
“Iterative design through an agile project management process was key in delivering Eventogy as a product. We tried to do to much at the start, instead of making each interaction perfect. By going back to the start and ironing out each user flow through consistent UX design, we were able to make vast improvements in short cycles.”
