I am writing in response to the recent article written in the October issue of EW regarding Fish RFID Technology and the numerous hurdles we face before successfully deploying our system in the UK. The well constructed article underscored precisely why our industry is struggling.
While other media have learned that effective marketing begins with value for the consumer, the event business clings to legacy technologies that offer no value for their consumer (the visitor) and little to no incremental value for the brand (exhibitor). Other media have discovered that “data” are not derived through interrogation or subversion, but rather through offering a high level of reciprocity that enriches the consumer experience. The by-product of this improved experience is data that empowers marketers to make better decisions.
Internet pioneer Stewart Brand once wrote “Commodity information wants to be inexpensive. Custom information wants to be expensive”. Our industry is wallowing in commodity information that drives no actionable data for exhibitors, and leaves organisers wondering how to drive value and grow their events when exhibitors are down-sizing and visitor numbers are retracting. Registration companies risk becoming dinosaurs, relics that must embrace technology as a way of driving value or face extinction.
Fish has struggled to solve the “Registration Problem”. We are hopeful that we will soon find a resolution so we can move forward in the UK. I do not know if Fish will be lucky enough to offer the technology that ‘changes the industry’, but I can assure you that “Bar Codes” and Data Pens are not the key to our future. The key to raising the value of events for all stake holders is leveraging technology that improves the visitor experience which in turn will drive actionable data which in turn will grow the event business.
Michael Gilvar
Founder and CEO
Fish Technologies
