Our annual convention in December was the first time we had the opportunity to showcase AARConnect (our social site) to a large group of our members.
We set up three computers. On one we had a looping slide show that highlighted the main points of AARConnect. I’ve put that in the library so you can take a look.
Slide show
On the other two computers, we had Power Point shows ready to go. Rather than trusting an unreliable connection in the convention hall, we felt it best to have a smooth demonstration that we could talk through.
Once they were engaged, we asked if we could take their picture and upload it. We had created a wall, like at the Oscars, with our AARConnect and AARC logos stamped on it. One staff member would take the photo. She would remove the SD card and hand it to another staff member sitting at a computer. The second staff member would invite the attendee to log in to their profile and then the photo would be uploaded to the profile page.
All in all, it went pretty smoothly.
I was disappointed in the traffic, however, so some sort of enticement needs to be planned for a future show.
In addition to the AARConnect demonstrations, we also had a Twitter feed displayed on a monitor in our booth. Without going into details, we used tidytweet.com (for moderation) and visibletweets.com (for display).
Lessons were learned. We’ll retool and do it even better next year.