As technology becomes more and more integrated into our personal lives, with the explosion of iPods, Smart Phones, and HD Televisions to name a few. It is now more important than ever to embrace technology in our professional lives as well, which is why MPI makes a point to program an annual Technology Day, to educate members on innovative ideas that may help them in the future. This year’s event was located at the InterContinental Hotel & Conference Center in Cleveland, Ohio. This beautiful facility is one of three InterContinental hotels based on the world-renowned Cleveland Clinic campus.
One of the fantastic break out sessions featured was titled “Trouble shooting basics” with Matt Rouch, an Audio Visual Supervisor at the Conference Center at Northpointe, which proved to be a very worth wile session for attendees. Mr. Rouch discussed basic reoccurring problems with audio visual equipment, and what to look for if you are in a situation where a client needs assistance. Through interactive participation attendees learned simple quick fixes such as changing projector resolutions, and adjusting microphone volume and frequency levels. Attendees certainly good away a great deal of useful information and experience.
The most highly attended break out session of the day was titled “Virtual Socializing” presented by Amanda Finn with Live Technologies. The presentation featured Ruth Mulligan from Mulligan Management Group, and David Culbertson from Light Bulb Interactive, both have a great deal of experience as communications consultants. Online social networking has become one of the fastest growing mediums of communication in the world. Websites such as Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin, and Twitter have been integrated in our social as well as professional lives so much that over 272 million Americans manage a personal or professional social networking page of there own.
Lately, companies have begun to embrace the idea of social networking, in fact more than 50% of fortune 100 companies and above use some sort of social networking. Mulligan and Culbertson spoke of how important it is to participate in social networking, and gave various examples of companies receiving large increases in sales through participation in websites such as YouTube. One example discussed BlendTech, an industrial strength blender company whose sales shot up 700% by blending things such as iPhones to powder, and posting the videos on YouTube. In less than a year, there videos have each reached over 6 million views. Mulligan and Culbertson did a great job at drawing the audience in to the presentation, and received a lot of good feedback from the audience. Following the presentation it was evident that there was continued discussion on the topic between attendees.
Overall 2009 MPI Technology Day was a great educational program for our members. Although many of the ideas discussed were slightly foreign to some attendees, it was evident that everyone took away something they will use in the future.
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