Q&A sessions can be a logistical nightmare, especially if you have a large audience and a tight schedule.

The Messenger text system eliminates the need for somebody to run around with a microphone as it allows your audience to send in their questions and opinions in real time during the discussion or at any point during the event - no need for them to ‘wait their turn’. All text messages received can be inspected and filtered before thay are displayed, ensuring the session remains relevant to the topic.

The efficacy of traditional brainstorming techniques can often be impaired by problems such as production blocking (the tendency for one individual to block or inhibit other people during a group discussion) and evaluation apprehension (a person’s fear that others are observing and ridiculing them). For this reason, many of our clients choose to use the Messenger text system to facilitate electronic brainstorming sessions.

• Electronic brainstorming allows all input to be heard equally, not just the ‘loudest’.
  
  
• Enables much larger groups to brainstorm on a topic than would normally be productive in a traditional brainstorming session.
  
  
• As ideas can be sent anonymously, participants don’t have to feel nervous or embarassed about putting forward an idea that may be considered ‘unusual’, which should be welcomed during these sessions.
  
  
• As brainstorming should focus on the quantity of input, the Messenger allows you to collect ideas quickly and efficiently, and display them instantly if required. There’s no need to write any ideas down as they are all collected by the system and archived - you can finally do away with the flip chart!

Audience response systems are ideally suited to training and assessment situations. All of responses are collated in a database, and grading takes seconds rather than the hours it would take with a paper test.

With the Messenger text voting system, you can dispense with those old-fashioned paper-based assessments. Whole tests and questionnaires can be uploaded to the handsets from the base station. Participants can answer the questions at their own pace and the handsets need not stay within range of the base station.

As the Messenger text system allows full text entry, you’re not confined to just multiple choice or numeric answers. Participants can give answers in their own words.

Getting feedback from your audience about your event is essential. It’s good to know what worked and what didn’t and how the audience perceived the event, but collecting everyone’s opinions can be time consuming and uses a lot of paper.

By using the Messenger, you can eliminate this lengthy process. The Messenger handsets’ large on-board memory allows you to upload your feedback form so that the delegates can add and change their comments.

Full texting capability means that your delegates are not restricted to just giving elements of the event a score. Your audience can now sing your praises, or raise any issues in their own words.

Delegates can answer the questionnaire at their own pace using the Messenger’s advanced menu system - there’s no need to allocate any extra time.

NHS Waltham Forest involved a major consultancy firm in the preparation and design of a series of events. The aim of these was to interact with their local community in order to discover the issues that the community faced and also to listen actively to their opinions. At one of these events the Messenger texting handset was used for the facilitated sending in of free texts, comments and ideas, whilst the Classic was used for consensus voting.

Over the course of the meeting 1,300 text messages were sent which worked out at an average of a text message every two seconds!

Not only did the organisers feel the event was a great success, but also members of the public who attended the meeting gave very positive feedback:

“Enjoyed the voting – made me feel the NHS actually do care what the service users think and will consider what has been said and also made me feel I was involved.”

“To be honest before I got there I was not expecting much. I’ve been to public consultation events before and have not found them to be that great. However, I must say that I thought this event was very good.”

www.walthamforest.nhs.uk