Foursquare & Conferences
Enhancing library conferences with Location-based services
I used Foursquare and other location based services to enhance major librarian conferences over the last year. Here is what we did and what is next.
I created custom locations, set up rewards, and gathered statistics with the goals of enhancing the conference experience, creating learning spaces about these technologies through direct engagement, expanding mobile/social opportunities for professional networking, and maximizing the market for exhibitors.
What we did at select conferences, lessons learned, & next steps below.
Takeaways:
We have been fabulously successful in meeting the goals of exposing librarians to this important suite of techs and playing together to learn together. I noticed more and more hands going up when I asked if anyone in the audience was a Foursquare user at events I spoke at during this time period.More people are checking into conference events and spaces, and less time is needed explaining the tool. Well done librarians, let’s keep growing and learn about the changing uses of this type of technology and the next thing(s).
Computers in Libraries 2010, Washington, DC:
- Created Foursquare places for the conference and the exhibit hall ahead of time.
- Asked attendees to leave tips and use the venue to network with others.
- Rewarded the mayor of the exhibit hall with a prize to encourage visits with conference exhibitors.
- Worked closely with the conference chair, Jane Dysart, to plan the official launch and secure the prizes. Jane Dysart was fabulous to work with and the Information Today conferences are the best professional development events about libraries and technology.
- Created a Gowalla Spot on site (at this point Gowalla was still running head to head with Foursquare).
- Marketed the program on Twitter and with a post on the official conference blog by JD Thomas that briefly explained the technologies and outlined how to participate.
2010 Special Libraries Association Conference in New Orleans:
- I was lucky to work directly with Gowalla developers to create a custom Stamp with branded icon for the conference.
- Created a Foursquare location for the conference.
- The official event planners were not interested in this project so I kept it basic.
- Announced the winners (Foursquare mayor and Gowalla leader board victor) at the end of the conference on Twitter.
- Also ran a program for my individual unit of the association, The PAM Division, which included Foursquare venue links and maps on the programs and in QR codes.
American Library Association 2010 Annual Conference, DC:
I created a Foursquare location that was very heavily used; users even won the Swarm badge for checking in.- Custom Gowalla stamp. Again – very lucky to work directly with Gowalla on this.
- This project was so successful because I was able to work with Jenny Levine of ALA as an interested staff member.
- There was an independent SCVNGR scavenger hunt by Librarian JP.
Reference Renaissance 2010, Denver.
- Created a custom Gowalla Stamp.
- Chose to use one central Foursquare location for a conference of this size.
- Being on the conference board was a big help, and getting great support from the rest of the conference planning board and the staff was crucial to making this a success.
- Also worked with the conference organizers to create QR codes for the program and for each event.
Internet Librarian 2010 in Monterey, CA:
- Over 700 check ins!
- Internet Librarian is my favorite conference. I had the honor of serving on the conference board and working with the conference chair in designing programs for leveraging Foursquare and more.
- Created one Foursquare spot for the conference itself and another spot for the exhibit hall to drive traffic. I set up both locations and claimed the venues several months in advance.
- Prizes for each location: conference staff provided great prizes including an iPod nano.
- At the closing session of the conference we announced the mayor of each venue as well as the attendee with the second most number of check ins.
- No official Gowalla usage to focus our energies on the leading LBS.
- We also ran a QR Code scavenger hunt to promote deeper experience with conference events.
I focused on in game rewards for these events, but other approaches include maximizing the marketing power, or using LBS to engage and reward behaviors.
Next steps:
Location is now a standard background element for engagement that new mobile technologies are incorporating: think Augmented Reality, QR Codes as a digital enhancement to a location, Instagram/Path/Color, Hashable, Bizzy, Group messaging apps. The focus is shifting towards location as layer of interaction across tools.
Location-Based Services should definitely still be leveraged for events, but we did not pursue a formal program with location based social networks for this year’s Computers in Libraries (CIL) conference because I felt that we had accomplished our primary goal of exposing librarians to the technology and providing them with real-world opportunities to learn through playing. Librarians are aware of and using Foursquare now, let’s learn about the next technologies.
For the Mobile Trends & Practices Track at CIL11, I focused on the next wave of hot emerging mobile/social tools (see this recent post for details):
- Getglue – I created a Topic on Getglue (the social entertainment check in service) for attendees to check in to and socially engage the physical events/content through its virtual representation in this mobile friendly tool.
- Instagram: I hosted a competition to reward (with a tee shirt as prize) the conference attendees who engaged this leading location-sensitive mobile photo sharing app by uploading pictures tagged with the conference hashtag #CIL11.
- GroupMe: I created a Groupme group for the speakers on the Mobile Track to use a mobile tool for conference work. Next time we will open up the group to attendees as well.
