DialogLoop: Conversation with Emmanuel Gueritte

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      Emmanuel Gueritte is Marketing Director of DialogLoop, a Canadian Company. He spent 20 years creating product marketing value in international corporations like Apple, Toshiba, Motorola and Smart Technologies. He is a technology strategist, an experienced product evangelist, and a public speaker.

In this conversation, Emmanuel discusses DialogLoop.

Geetesh: Can you tell us more about DialogLoop, what motivated you to create this product, and what is the one important benefit that users will derive from DialogLoop, according to you?

Emmanuel: Sure. DialogLoop is an audience engagement and networking solution made to transform presentation into conversation. It is composed of a PowerPoint add-in, and a web platform. In one click, DialogLoop creates a complete web app out of your PowerPoint! Attendees can connect to the web app using their mobile device and scanning a QR code or typing a URL. It is easy to use, simple to operate and is free for 10 attendees.

The idea came from Dinesh Advani, our Founder and CEO. During his career, he attended many conferences and participated in many keynotes and forums. About three years ago, during a live event, it struck him to see a large number of attendees taking photos of the slides projected on the big screen, repeatedly. He noticed that many shared them instantly on social media, regardless of the photo quality. Dinesh’s aha moment was when he realized that smartphones also had decent network connectivity and, in his opinion, a well thought out technology could streamline the entire workflow–delivering an improved experience for everyone involved. The initial version of DialogLoop enabled attendees to get the slides directly from the presenter, on their mobile phone to avoid them to take photos. Working closely with customers, we then brought Content Sharing to the next level by enabling sharing supporting files, speaker notes, actionable links, presenter profiles and even embed #tags for each slide.

The very basic outcome of using DialogLoop is that no one takes pictures of the slides anymore but get them all! As we are enabling Live Sharing on social media, attendees can actually share their slide(s) of choice, in full quality, using the #tags chosen by the presenter or change them as they wish. It’s a win-win for the attendees and the presenter: reputation and visibility for both!

Geetesh: Please tell us more about the use of DialogLoop in furthering interactivity and audience engagement.

Emmanuel: To begin with, the visual quality of the presentation, the storytelling capabilities of the presenter, and the story itself remain very important and shape the audience engagement level.

DialogLoop takes the presentation experience to the next level by making the entire presentation interactive. Slides are progressively revealed on attendee mobile devices as they are presented, links referenced on slides become actionable – enabling attendees to review slides at their own pace, ‘Like’ them and share on social networks with just a click.

DialogLoop further enables presenters to engage with their audience by:

• Adding digital live polls and surveys to get the audience to participate actively and feel part of the story. Attention level rises, and the audience feels at the center of the event. The one-way presentation transforms into a conversation as the audience opinion becomes a piece of the story, and everyone wants to be active in a story.
• Fun activities like live digital word clouds are reaching another level of engagement: the audience add value with words (versus votes for a digital poll), and the output is fun! The Cloud builds up on the big screen as people answer: the crowd’s opinion shapes itself in front of everyone. That level of engagement is priceless as the participants feel they contribute to the story.
• Traditional Q&A sessions require upfront planning and have limitations, pressed for time being the most common one. DialogLoop digital Q&A enables everyone to participate, upvote questions submitted by others, and even comment on them! When the presenter wants, the most voted questions appear on the slide and can be addressed. If not enough time, questions can be answered later. The level of engagement is higher, as all questions are visible, shared, ranked and tracked. But more importantly, all attendees feel they are given a voice.
• Attendees using DialogLoop will dynamically appear in the list of participants, where they can discover who else is in the presentation with them, view their social network profiles, connect and engage with them in a private chat. Our experience has shown that attendees love the ability to learn about their peers as they all share the common interest.

Geetesh: Emmanuel, can you share some case studies?

Emmanuel: Over the years, DialogLoop has powered many types of events: from single presentations to multi-day conferences, from collaborative workshops to start-up pitch competitions, from innovation workshops to AGMs. To learn more and see DialogLoop in action, please visit our Case Studies page.

All these events have one thing in common: they strive to put the audience at the center. What we are learning is that this desire is not exclusive to large companies. Presenters, events freelancers, consultants, NGOs, small businesses and even governmental agencies… with an innovative mindset realize that the audience participation has value and are seeking ways to better engage with their audience.