Simon Clayton , author of Blog . ChiefIdeasOfficer . com and CIO of RefTech says contactless scanning is as intuitive as you think
s events are slowly beginning to return , we have been contacted by a number of companies asking for ‘ contactless scanners ’ for their events . All scanners work with contactless , so what they really needed was to remove the person doing the scanning altogether and create an autonomous way of tracking their delegates as they enter the event and move around it .
Following these requests , we are now launching Autonomous Scanning Pods ( ASPods ) which can sit at all the points around an event and capture the data as delegates scan their badges . But there is a caveat : we need to understand how humans actually interact in real life . People may know me as a techie , but after many years designing systems and being interested in psychology , I like to think that I also understand something of how people act and react , and I think this is often even more important than understanding technology .
A delegate may not think about reaching for their badge and self-scanning themselves into a venue . In a lot of cases , it ’ s only by being stopped by a member of staff that they actually put their badge
Right : Simon Clayton , CIO of RefTech
“ If you remove the person , then the scanning may simply not take place unless of course there is a physical barrier .”
15 Technology on ; the delegate often unconsciously relies on the member of staff to ask them to present their badge for scanning . If you remove the person , then the scanning may simply not take place unless of course there is a physical barrier . But of course , installing a physical barrier is additional expense and could create queues as it slows down the entrance to an event .
A member of staff will have to be on hand to remind delegates to scan their badges on entering , and if they are dealing with one delegate , they may miss a second delegate mindlessly walking past the scanner . But this is the new normal and delegates may be expecting an alternative process of entering an event and may be more alert .
Self-scanning into seminar sessions may be less of a risk , and could be incentivised : “ Scan your badge and get a copy of the slides sent to your email address / made available on the event app etc .” with the organiser able to manage and co-ordinate all of this in the system . On the plus side , I do think that our ASPods will remove some of the peripheral human interaction traditionally associated with events ( and focus the interaction on the exhibitors ) and therefore will go some way to helping the delegates to feel safer . Much of the confidence we need to build to bring people back to events will come from us embracing new and safer ways of interacting .
Technology is just one way in which we can enable this , but we do have to be aware of human nature .
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