4 More Ways to Get Creative With Your Abstract and Speaker Management Site

Posted by: Sean Lawler

Tuesday, July 10th, 2012

I recently wrote an article explaining how we’ve been noticing a trend where our customers are using abstract and speaker management sites in new ways, such as collecting information for awards nominations that are tied to their event or organization, or grant applications. To encourage other unconventional ways the system can be used I thought I’d list some other novel applications of the software.

Customized System for Unique Collection Processes

Just how many uses does the Omnipress abstract and speaker management system have?

Here at Omnipress, one of the nice things about our online collection system is it’s very modular. We can shape it to fit many different processes. Specifically, the ability to have more than one form available within a customer’s site can be exploited in unusual methods. Most of our customers only need a single form in their collection site – a place where their prospective speakers/authors go to fill out their presentation and personal data, an abstract and maybe upload a presentation or handout. There are plenty of variations in the processes we encounter, but when it comes down to it the outcome is the same. You get the data you need to gauge whether someone should be involved in your event, and collect the appropriate information and content from them.

However, a small portion of our customers need additional forms. Typical reasons are they have different questions and/or deadlines between types of presentations. Maybe their workshops and posters have wildly contrasting requirements, so they need to be in different forms. That’s not a problem in our system, as you can take advantage of its ability to have multiple forms within a single site that all flow into a single administrative area.

But what are some other ways you could implement this feature?

4 Ways to Take Advantage of Your Abstract and Speaker Management System

• Call for Reviewers – This is becoming a more common practice for our customers. You may need to collect the personal information and skillsets from potential reviewers so you can build an effective pool of peer reviewers and accurately assign them to the submissions they are qualified to review.
• Nominations/Applications for the Board or Other Positions – This is probably more useful for larger organizations. If you have a lot of nominations that you have to compile and rate for positions on your board of directors (or committee(s), etc.).
• Directories – Another manner a form can be employed is to gather data to populate your association’s member and/or member organization listing.
• Party RSVP – I’m including this because a customer was really considering using their site for this unique function. I’m confident it would work, but it would have been overkill to put it mildly.  I think they found a more modest solution, and I bet it was a great party.

What other unique ways can you think of to take advantage of an online collection system?  Have you had an experience collecting something other than the ordinary event abstract submission?  Let us know in the discussion forum.

When Sean Lawler saw Pong for the first time at a childhood friend’s house, his love affair with electronics and computers was born. A Commodore 64, numerous game consoles, PC’s, and an iPhone later and Sean hasn’t changed a bit. As the Director of Product Marketing and Event Services for Omnipress, Sean enjoys creating solutions that integrate multiple types of technologies while at the same time fulfill his customer’s unique process needs.