Drafting your Event Tech Dream Team
Is your legacy event technology having a hard time keeping up? Is it time they started thinking about retiring? Are you looking to revamp and draft the latest and greatest to your technology team?
Event technology is, or should be, a critical component of any event planner’s team of players needed to execute and deliver a win on event day for their clients. And in today’s competitive world, with the abundant availability (and low-cost) of innovative and talented technology players, there’s no reason that any planner should settle for anything less than a Dream Team of event technology.
Just like in the world of sports, teams with a variety of skills and talents where everyone is contributing perform better and outlast teams where one Superstar is carrying the day. The great Michael Jordan needed small forward Scottie Pippen, sharpshooter John Paxson and Coach Phil Jackson on his team before the Chicago Bulls could become NBA Champs. LeBron needed Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh playing beside him to win his first NBA Championship. Legacy technology systems that try to “do it all” are good systems, but they’re no match for a Dream Team of tech platforms working together, each contributing highly specialized functions.
Some words of caution. Assembling a Dream Team is hard work and requires research, planning and strategy to find the right players and the right fit. Fortunately there’s some great resources to help you along the way in your research. The EventTechGuide, the Event Manager Blog, and the Meeting Pool all offer directories and lists that are great places for research. And there are several event tech consultants — The Event Guys, DahliaPlus, Corbin Ball, and Liz King to name a few — can offer advice and guidance on strategy on event technology.
Assembling a new team also requires adapting to new ways of thinking to get the most out of your new team. Just like in sports, the rules have changed and the world has evolved since your legacy system was first built many years ago. A quality platform will have an open API that allows them to work well with others. APIs are important to ensure your new team can integrate to compete with the old Legacy system, where data sharing across functions may or may not have been built-in.
Finally every good team needs the right kind of utility players — the unsung heroes that support the superstars. Paxson and Pippen supported MJ with great passes and great pics and were key to becoming Champs. For a Dream Team of Event Tech, an essential utility player and component is an integration platform and a professional systems integrator that will work behind the scenes, creating the most efficient mapping to pass your data back and forth, at the right time and the right place.
You’ll find a ton of benefits waiting for you once you make the move to a Dream Team — improved user experience, easier access to data, lower costs, the ability to add more functionality, and increased efficiency. And you’ll have a team constantly working to improve in innovative ways.
So stop settling for less than stellar results. Make this 2017 the year you draft YOUR Dream Team of event technology.
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The Event Guys are basketball enthusiasts and system integrators that specialize in helping live event organizers connect the dots within their event tech stacks, using the Built.io Enterprise Flow integration platform as a service. Contact them direct for a free consultation on integrating tech stacks of high performing technology platforms.
Originally published at EventTechGuide.
