Don’t Let Distractions Derail Your Life Sciences Meeting
July 18, 2024 •Array Team
As important as life science meetings are, they face the same challenges as other meeting types in terms of distractions luring attendees’ attention away. More often than not, these distractions come from the devices they bring with them. Phones, laptops, tablets and wearable tech put most of a person’s personal and professional life in the palm of their hand. If someone isn’t veering off into work or home tasks on their phone, they might be raising it in the air periodically to take an image of a slide on the screen, or tapping away as they take notes. Not only does this person miss something in these transactions, but they’ve also drawn the attention of those around them.
"It’s unrealistic to think that attendees will always turn off their devices during a meeting, but if we can give them fewer reasons to reach for their devices, we have a better chance of keeping them engaged with the meeting content,” says Jessica Lupanow, product designer with Array.
”Rather than having an attendee open their email to look for the agenda and get distracted by their inbox, we make the agenda accessible with one tap on an Array managed iPad®. Rather than pulling out their phone to take a photo of a slide only to get distracted by a text message, we make it easy to save key slides and send them directly to their email after the meeting to keep things organized."
Engage, engage, engage
Attention spans can wane as people passively listen to a lecture or presentation. At that point, they may detach from the meeting altogether by completing other tasks online. Boredom begets browsing and once started, browsing becomes a rabbit hole leading further and further away from the meeting. When you use Array, the managed iPads are the primary device attendees use during the meeting. They contain all your content and no access to personal emails, texts or the Internet at large. Array’s engagement tools then make them active participants throughout the meeting and turn lectures into two-way communication. For example, you can:
- Work polling into presentations to test attendees’ knowledge or gauge sentiment in the room so speakers can focus on what’s most relevant to that audience. (You can even do pre-testing or polling at the start of the meeting, so the speaker sets off on the most interesting topic.)
- Enable questions for the entire duration of the meeting – and make time to answer them. Attendees tend to ask more questions when they hear questions being addressed throughout rather than pushed off to the end.
Create individualized experiences
People learn better when they are actively taking notes or taking a deeper dive into a topic. And, as noted earlier, some people just can’t sit passively and still focus on every word of a lecture. Array’s platform lets your attendees create their own meeting experience through curated ‘distractions.’ Attendees can submit questions or access resource materials you choose to include under clearly marked tabs. Let them read more about your speaker’s background or a trial’s protocols (rather than today’s news on their phone) and they’ll have a better understanding of your content. They can also annotate and save slides right from the iPad so there’s no reason to reach for another device or take pictures of the main screen.
Stimulate interest and critical thinking
Life science attendees are educated, problem-solving people. Tap into these strengths by keeping them tuned-in and energized about your meeting with opportunities to test their knowledge, share their thoughts and even take part in friendly competition with each other. Gamification and polls are excellent motivation to pay attention to content. In particular, time-based gaming that rewards the fastest responder creates excitement through increased dopamine levels and a sense of investment in the outcome of the meeting via the leaderboard.
Through these, attendees can see how their thoughts or knowledge compare with peers, while meeting organizers can determine what content is resonating and what needs to be presented differently or more deeply. Consider combining case-based content with a poll asking how attendees might react in that scenario.
Simulate distraction to control it
You may not be able to eliminate all potential distractions in a room, but you can reduce the tendency for them to reach for their devices by providing an interactive, engaging piece of technology to use instead.