Posted by

Barry Siskind

UFI’s Community Manager

Imagine this – a visitor enters an exhibition and is asked to wear a bracelet that measures such things as their movement, heart rate, galvanic skin response and more.

The technology to monitor visitor patterns has been around for nearly a decade. Many of us are familiar with the power of crowdsourcing which gives organizers the ability to draw on the behavior patterns of visitors to form the exhibition experience.

But crowdsourcing has its limitations requiring the active participation of the visitor. For example, what happens when they take the bracelet off?

In a recent post by businesslife.ba.com there is a newer and more powerful way to use visitor data called crowdshaping.

The author defines crowdshaping as “using personal data drawn from the people inside a defined physical area to shape and reshape the experience, often in real-time. Crowdshaping has tremendous potential for cities, governments and of course the exhibition industry. By monitoring visitor’s patterns you will have the ability to direct traffic in certain directions, move people to and from hospitality areas and direct people to areas of the exhibition that previously drew less traffic. The revenue potential for organizers is greatly improved when you can show exhibitors and sponsors how you can provide increased traffic.

Crowdshaping in real time will require a lot of investment in both exhibition areas and technology but it’s definitely one trend worth watching. Read the entire article and let me know what you think.

http://businesslife.ba.com/Ideas/Features/People-Power-crowdshaping.html