Those who organize events know that the success of the event depends on many things, least of them the weather. The amount of options and the connections the attendees 
create in an event will dictate if they will join you next time or not. In other words “What would I get out of it?”
Even in our connected and social media rich world, business is still done face to face. The biggest hurdles business people have to overcome are psychological; how to introduce themselves to strangers, how to portray themselves without seeming cocky and how to make the most of the time in the event.
Pathable.com is a new program that aims to create a virtual gathering place before the start of the event. It is a private online community which aims to facilitate introductions and highlight common interests. They provide an interactive space for the attendees to gather and share information.
When one registers an event, all the attendees are asked to fill a profile. Those profiles are personalized with photos and links to other sites and all other web representations in social media; Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and more.
This has the potential of introducing the attendees to each other before the event starts. People can see who they would like to meet personally at the event and start a conversation beforehand. The program even makes it easier to spot them; people with common interests are highlighted.
Starting a discussion in forums is encouraged, and because people can converse, they can also set meeting to take place during the event. The software enables mailing schedules that will appear on all the chosen attendees’ schedules at the same time.
A personalized conference calendar is available for each attendee, so they can easily build their own schedules as well. The program enables attendees to save space for private meetings and has a diagram of the conference, including all the booths and private rooms to make navigating the event very easy.
Event sponsors can create their own pages and sponsorship tools that target specific channels. They can participate in the conversation and communicate with the attendees in a non-intrusive way. It provides another place for targeted advertisement.
All those features are available in a mobile app for iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, Windows and Android as well. Easy to use and quick to respond.
Author:
@BasilPuglisi is the Executive Director and Publisher for Digital Brand Marketing Education (dbmei.com). Basil C. Puglisi is also the President of Puglisi Consulting Group, Inc. A Digital Brand Marketing Consultancy that manages professional and personal branding for Fortune 500 CEOs, Hedge Fund Managers and Small Business Owners.
Sources:
http://www.crunchbase.com/company/pathable
http://www.geekwire.com/2011/profitable-growing-pathable-raises-cash-events-social
Hi Basil,
This sounds like a good idea. It reminds me a bit of the blog about the social media airline. Is it KLM that will share information about other travelers, with their permission of course, who will be on the same flight? This way the many hours spent together in the air can take care of one of the three essential steps in networking:
1. Introduction
2. Engage
3. Relate
The introduction can be a shorthand version since there has been some information, if not contact, already made before the flight. It sounds like part of engagement can also take place.
Pathable sounds like a very good idea. I hope that dbmei will use it in the future for our events, conferences and other activities.
Sincerely,
Alison Gilbert, Digital Age Storyteller and Social Media Anthropologist