Event Tech Bottleneck: The Last Mile

In today’s crazy and ever changing world of live events, there are over 2500 new technologies designed to optimize an organizer’s performance and events: Event Management Systems to improve an organizer’s planning productivity, efficiency and automation of information; Mobile Event Apps and Wearables that capture immediate insight into attendee preferences and physical movement; Lead Retrieval Systems and Networking Apps to measure and help increase ROI. Lots of amazing devices and solutions to capture and analyze data like never before. But there’s a barrier — or bottleneck — that is preventing wider adoption of newer technologies that is event technology’s “Last Mile”.

A little insight — in telecommunications, the “Last Mile” refers to the portion of the network chain that physically reaches the end-user’s premises. Examples are the copper wire subscriber lines connecting landline telephones to the local fiber optic telephone exchange; coaxial cable service drops carrying cable television signals from utility poles to subscribers’ homes, and cell towers linking local cell phones to the cellular network. The “Last Mile” is typically the speed bottleneck in the network process that slows everything down.

Much like that copper wire slowly sending data up to lightning speed fiber, the “Last Mile” in event tech is the current state of integration that is slowing down adoption. With so many platforms available that tackle and solve one, two or three problems, an organizer’s tech stack can quickly add up to seven or eight components. Automatic data sharing through integration is absolutely critical to truly optimize and get the most out of the technology.

Using the common point-to-point approach to integrating these components requires an increasing amount of labor, resources, and time, all of which are in short supply. To illustrate how complex this gets, envision connecting 8 tech stack components. This exercise would require up to 26 point-to-point connections, which means 28 workflows to monitor, 28 workflows that can break down, 28 ongoing conversations between 8 or more development teams to manage and facilitate.

Needless to say, the typical organizer doesn’t have the capacity to take that on, so integration gets shoved to the bottom of the list of priorities. And when components aren’t integrated, that means that data is managed manually, causing potential mistakes and dirty data. The organizer doesn’t optimize the amazing technology and is limited to what they can add to their tech stack. Bottleneck. Last Mile.

So how can an organizer break through this bottleneck? Thankfully a new integration method is available that’s called iPaaS (Integration Platform as a Service). This method utilizes a “hub-spoke” platform for data flow that centralizes all mapping in one “hub” and the technologies connect their API’s to the “hub” via spokes. This method allows one party and one place (instead of 8 teams) to map, manage and monitor the data flow. It also has the advantage of being “plug and play” so organizers can easily add new components to their tech stack without having to disrupt the other players, and to build out a “Best of Class” tech stack with the most innovative components.

There’s several companies that provide this type of service, including Zapier, IFTT (If This Than That), but Built.io is the only company focused on delivering this service to the live event industry. Through a strategic partnership with The Event Guys, Built.io is helping organizers break through the bottleneck of the Last Mile by making integration easy and affordable. In addition to the hundreds of business applications already on Built.io — including Salesforce, Hubspot, Google Suites, Basecamp, Slack, and others — some great event technologies have already joined the library, including Swoogo, Hubb.me, MAP Digital, and Glisser.

Solving the Last Mile challenge through easy tech stack integration frees up organizers to optimize their technology, their time and ultimately their event performance. What’s holding YOU back?

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The Event Guys are system integrators that can help you break through your technology bottleneck. Contact us today for a free chat and consultation.

Originally published at EventTechGuide.