Picture this; you’re attending a conference and there is a last minute speaker change, or a must-see panel moves rooms, leaving you only a couple minutes to race somewhere else.  You’ve been there, right?  Me too.

Wouldn’t it be easier if the simplest form of push notifications alerted you of any conference changes?  Of course, I’m talking about the text message, because who doesn’t have their cell with them at a conference.

This past summer, I had the great pleasure of attending PromaxBDA – The Conference 2010 in downtown Los Angeles.  For those who don’t know, PromaxBDA’s conference is the annual gathering of television promotions and marketing executives.

Waterfall Mobile provided digital messaging services for PromaxBDA, and thus alerted the eclectic group of industry creatives about news, special offers, and any last minute schedule changes.  As a result, Waterfall’s Msgme platform was able to make the conference more interactive and engaging.

For example, the PromaxBDA organizers declared an impromptu “flash party” via text one night – and backed the party up with a bar tab!  Within moments the previously empty bar was swarmed with conference-goers, all of whom had either gotten a text, saw a tweet or heard via word of mouth about the open bar from somebody in the know.

Also during the conference, I was in a client lunch when another text came through with a special offer for PromaxBDA mobile subscribers.  Sugar Ray Leonard, who was being honored at PromaxBDA, was available for an exclusive meet and greet with those attendees who had joined the mobile list!  I couldn’t get away to rub elbows with the champ – but I certainly appreciated the opportunity and found it was a great way to let me know what was happening at that moment.

This was a great interactive experience made possible by some simple text messages.  Moving forward with all conferences there are a few additional items I would love to see become the norm:

Kill The Comment Cards – comment cards in the session rooms stick out like a sore thumb.   And truly, in an effort to be green, it would be better to do a way with them completely.  Mobile is more efficient to gather, collect and tally all feedback.  Plus, it is a simple way to continue growing your subscriber list.

Allow The Audience To Text Questions/Comments/Votes– for those session-goers who are too shy let ask a question let them text it in anonymously to the moderator.  For those extroverts out there, let them text in their comments/questions and display on the screen  (just don’t forget the moderation tool for this…).  And, if you want to see how the audience feels about a certain question, don’t rent one of those three button systems from 1930, make every text their answers and display the results in real-time on the screen.

As we move forward, I hope more conferences are as forward thinking as PromaxBDA and begin finding innovative ways to use mobile to engage attendees.