Derek Gallo

We have returned from the ACTE conference in Miami. Overall the conference was a success, both for ACTE and for NFi Studios. ACTE reached every goal they aimed for despite a few setbacks due to inclement weather. The nQuest Event Browser supported decent usage and great feedback from attendees, particularly on the newly released features.

The Green Movement is catching wind among many associations and events. Due to this they are not releasing conference collateral or presentations via printed hard copies any more. nQuest was equipped with a new Paperless Portal allowing attendees to insert their USB flash drive to easily select and download some or all of the conference presentations. The process is almost completely automated. Overall we received tremendous feedback from users on how quick and simple the process was to grab the presentations.

Usage of the Event Browser was consistent with previous events although usage of the Messaging component was down. This was most likely due to the conference location being in the United States with a large amount of U.S. attendees that all had working mobile email devices. We tend to see higher messaging usage at overseas conferences that still have a large U.S. attendee base. Usage of the new Paperless Portal was very good despite attendees gaining knowledge of it not until later in the conference. We now look forward to future events in Singapore, Munich and Washington D.C.

Tomorrow Tom, Sterling and I head down to The Doral in Miami for another ACTE Educational Conference. Chris will be meeting us down there on Sunday. We will be heading down there to help support website updates and technology during the conference. We will also be providing our Meetings Connect solution including the nQuest Browser.

This conference will have the largest attendee count in ACTE’s history. We will be hosting 10 kiosks. It should be good times as usual at the events. We will be launching a couple new features and the skin for this conference is by far my favorite so far. I can’t wait to get some feedback on the new look.

So I am finally back from Barcelona where we went on business. After resting from 26 hours of travel and catching the Flu pretty bad I look back on the trip. We were there providing and supporting our MeetingsConnect NQuest Browser for ACTE at their European conference. Overall, the conference went great. Attendees were very happy with the programming and education at the conference and it seemed to be the least stressfull out of the 3 that I have been to. The NQuest Browser performed well and we recieved many compliments by the many users. This year the International Bussiness Lounge was sponsered by Iberia Airlines and they were especially pleased with our product. Our product is centered around sponsorship branding and they recieved tremendous exposure through it. We still need to crunch the data that we logged but I am sure that the numbers will prove Iberia’s investment to be worthy. We only came across very isolated problems with a couple of attendees’ webmail systems but gethered the info we need to fix them. We also gethered many ideas for additional features and improvments we hope to rollout by the next conference which is in six months in Miami.

Outside from the conference, Barcelona proved to be a very beautiful city. The architecture in that city is like none I have seen before. Hardly any of the buildings take a traditional shape. Barcelona is also home to one of the greatest yet primarily unknown architects, Atoni Gaudi. I was able to experience several of his works first hand. La Casa Batllo is what looks like another apartment building in the middle of the city. The outside architecture stands out however with curvy lines instead of straight and balconies that are shaped as skulls. The next that we saw and probably most amazing was the Templo de Segrada Familia. This is a beautiful cathedral that is still under construction (the only one in the world that still is). The design is amazing and hard to explain. They are currently finishing the main central tower that will stand over 500 feet high with a huge cross on top of it. The last place we saw was the Park Guell. This is a large park designed by Gaudi. One rarely makes a connection between a park and an architect but after visiting this spot you will believe that much design can go into an outdoor park. The feeling you get here is such tranquility and peace and after hiking up the side of the mountain you get the most amazing view of the city and the sea.

We had a lot of fun in Barcelona and some good beer stories have come out of it. There were 2 things I did not like about the city though. It always seem to have bad smell. A smell like stagnant water. You would get gusts of it here and there and it was pretty strong. The other thing was the food. Almost everything there was tapes(many small plates of different finger foods) and seafood. I liked very few of the spanish meals. I can’t remember the last time I was so happy to eat at McDonalds. All in all though the trip was very good and one I will remeber for a long time. I am definatly glad to be home though and resting.