"...you can get immediate feedback."
"...RSVP software can identify keypads that sent no reply."
"Participants answered more freely... because replies were private..."
"Among the strongest benefits is knowing immediately... whether the
audience is interested."
"This business is... all about... designing programs that meet a
client's specific needs..."
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Meridia's Technology Makes A Connection
The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 1998
By David Wallace
No napping will be tolerated during your next
conference if Rick Baker is involved. At conferences served by Baker's
Plymouth Meeting firm, Meridia Interactive Information Services,
participants will be expected to, well, participate. And they will be
able to participate more effectively, thanks to the conferencing system
that Meridia supplies.
Using wireless keypads the size of a paperback,
conference-goers can voice opinions and ask or answer questions.
Computers tabulate and display the results. "We can collect thousands of
responses in two-and-a-half seconds," said Baker, president of the
25-person company. "By adding this element, you can get immediate
feedback."
Each keypad contains a two-way radio that sends
a signal to antennas placed around a room. Responses are tallied in a
computer, specially built by Meridia, with a radio receiver plugged into
its serial port. Software then compiles the data, converts it to a
graph, chart or numeric form, and displays it on a screen.
Snoozers can be shamed into action if meeting
organizers want everyone involved: The RSVP software can identify
keypads that sent no reply. Lee Falk, a partner at the Philadelphia law
firm Morgan Lewis & Bockius calls himself "a huge fan" of Meridia. He
used the system during a session involving employee benefits at the
Convention Center, at which 300 people participated.
Falk created scenarios based on current legal
issues and broke them into questions for the audience to answer via the
keypad. "We asked three or four questions on each case and the audience
logged in their responses. I didn't show the results right away. Then I
had a lawyer from our firm argue the plaintiff's case and the
defendant's case. After the lawyers argued the merits of both sides, we
let the audience vote again and then showed both sets of responses."
Participants answered more freely, he said,
because replies were private, instead of speaking out and risking a
wrong answer. And because participants are involved, they feel obligated
to read printed materials they receive as part of the program, Falk
said.
Meridia has been used in large conferences with
thousands of people in a single room, such as a May meeting of the sales
force for the new drug Viagra, Baker said. Other uses for
audience-response technology are in market research using focus groups
or in multiple-location classrooms. Car companies have used the system
to get feedback after test-drives.
A new keypad with a built-in microphone was used
at the TED Conference in Monterey, Calif., earlier this year, said David
Sume, program director for the event, which discusses the convergence of
the technology, entertainment and design industries. The microphones
allowed people to ask questions from their seats, while video cameras
recording the event could immediately locate speakers and put their
images on an overhead screen.
Yet interactive ability and anonymity demands
speakers do more than just prepare another boilerplate speech with
slides, said Mark Jordan, marketing director at McGettigan Partners, a
local meeting planner. Among the strongest benefits is knowing
immediately by the number of replies whether the audience is
interested.
Until a few years ago, market research companies
and even the Franklin Institute's Futures Center relied on wired,
built-in response systems in conference rooms. With wireless technology,
there are no limitations.
The price for Meridia's system starts at about
$5,000 and rises depending on the number of keypads, length of the
meeting and staffing needed for the event, Baker states.
Meridia's sparsely furnished, jam-packed office
hums with people programming the equipment and packing it in custom-made
cases for delivery to meeting sites worldwide. Their single-story
suburban office has a concrete pad outside covered by a metal awning
designed specifically for the FedEx truck that--twice daily--comes to
pick up and drop off the suitcase-sized cases.
Baker began developing a wireless audience
response product about 15 years ago. Originally created in 1970 to make
slides for presentations, Meridia specialized in meeting services. But,
technology made that work obsolete and, in the late 1980s, recession
cut travel and meeting budgets, forcing an industry-wide consolidation.
That was when Baker chose to focus only on audience-response technology.
He claims Meridia is the largest company in its field, the company grows
annually and is profitable.
"This business is an ongoing process," Baker
said. "It's all about refinement and designing programs that meet a
client's specific needs--new layouts, new features, new options--all in
the interest of providing quality customer service."
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