7 Creative Uses for Electronic Polling Devices in Meetings
Remember way back when the days past of long queues at polling stations, the ballpoint pen just barely bone-dry and ballot papers with beady-eyed clerks in voting halls with poor air conditioning. Of course, this reality still exists and is pretty much the norm.
Regardless, electronic polling is making inroads into various facets of our lives. Analog audience response systems (ARS) such as the famous, secret ballot have many drawbacks:
- They’re Ill-equipped to take voter feedback
- They Take considerably far too long to tally all responses and give final data
- They Expensive and quite challenging to set up
On the other hand, electronic ARS does better than the old school methods in several ways:
- Ease of setup
- Automated handling
- Offering live audience feedback in real-time with full analysis
One such place is in meetings and conferences. People conduct interactive meeting sessions differently with the rise of electronic polling.
The attendees execute the agenda with optimum efficacy, gathering opinions, assessing feedback, and making decisions, all before HR Pam and Accounting Rob derail the meeting to dabble in some office politics.
These are several ways to implement electronic polling systems and devices:
- Electioneering and vote taking
- Interactive Knowledge Testing
- Gathering and processing of data
- Maintaining Audience Engagement
- Establishing consensus
- Igniting conversation based on results
- Crowdsourcing ideas
Electioneering and Vote Taking with Electronic Polling Devices
It could be Accounting Rob wants extra confectioneries in the finance department, but HR Pam is jockeying for the extra donuts with her morning coffee.
In days past, a more traditional voting system would see Accounting Rob and HR Pam turn the office into a real life version of The Office, making their cases.
Winner takes all!
Woe betides the loser at the annual Christmas Party.
Electronic polling allows for:
- Anonymous
- Unbiased and
- Honest vote tallying
Participation is limited to a single vote per person during a briefly timed voting period.
For greater ease, we do this through a designated website, app, or software available to the participants.
What’s more, polling unfolds quickly with revisions, procedural motions, and new applicants added right away to the fray. Now and again, intermediaries or weighted polls increase the level of intricacy.
Electronic ARS systems also eliminate the human error in the vote-checking process, guaranteeing that the consequence of any survey or political decision is 100 percent precise.
You can see what number of individuals have cast a ballot to guarantee that the administrators have tallied all the reactions. The option of paper casting a ballot isn’t just slower, but can prove burdensome to vote counters, which is how errors come into play.
Interactive Knowledge Testing
Conducting presentations used to be a high wire balancing act between putting forth your points and taking in feedback all the while pacing yourself to ensure your audience is chugging along with you and not getting bored.
The good old raising of the hands was apt only to a point. Electronic audience response gives you a
window into the minds of your listeners. Questions are polled, with answer prompts in various forms:
- short and multiple choice
- Open-ended and yes/no.
- true/false
The varied answers you receive gives you a real grasp of the state of your interaction. Helping you tailor your audience experience on the fly without missing a beat.
Gathering and Processing of Data
Segmented cross-tabulation analytics employed by many electronic polling infrastructures allow you to deconstruct, analyze, and draw conclusions from audience involvement. Every participant contribution is tracked and portrayed in a user-friendly dashboard, complete with all analytical tools.
You can collect ancillary participant data such as email addresses, login data, and what aspects of the meeting resonate with the people present. The information analyzed can be displayed on
customizable charts, well-diagrammed infographics, among others.
There are three common types of cross-tabulation methods:
- Fundamental Frequency Analysis
- Cross Tabulation Analysis
- Grouping and Segmentation Analysis
Fundamental Frequency Analysis gives you comprehensive insights into the responses for your survey.
The initial level for your analysis.
This gives you a bird’s eye impression of what your respondents are thinking.
Cross Tabulation Analysis institutes thorough data mining techniques to give you more significant insights into your data.
Grouping and Segmentation Analysis provides interactive tools that allow you to create custom fields, groups, filters, and spheres of analysis. Play around with your data to come up with your best options. Plenty of electronic polling mechanisms incorporate these tools.
Maintaining Audience Engagement
Truth be told, meetings have a reputation for being boring. An electronic polling platform bridges the engagement gap keeping people alert and feeling involved.
There wasn’t much you could do when Accounting Rob nodded off after slide 12, and HR Pam started doodling in her notebook. Now, electronic response systems incorporate new ingenious ways to keep your listeners locked into your presentation. These include:
- Embedded video challenges
- Clickable images questionnaire
- Q&A polls
People employ these tactics in between segments. They can incorporate a knowledge-based responsive interface where tidbits of information are released part by part throughout the session.
In the end, the one with the best-aggregated responses receives the best consideration. Perhaps extra snacks in their break room. I know Pam & Rob will be down for that.
Establishing Consensus
During a meeting, the attendees may require an agreement to proceed with a specific issue. Hunger pangs may be looming large, and the room would like to have their input on the takeout menu. To keep Rob and Pam from going at it, logic would dictate lobbying a questionnaire or survey to the central forum.
With the cloak of anonymity, IT Timmy can comfortably say he’s feeling the vegan extravaganza. In the same vein, other decisions that need to be made on the fly can be reached promptly.
With multinationals and large firms, e-conferencing is a day to day reality, meetings don’t confine interaction to the physical office, remote work staff in the case of working from home or over numerous workplaces would all be able to partake and engage. All anybody needs is:
- Internet gateway
- Mobile device
Igniting Conversation Based on Results
While commenting and polling for decision making during a meeting is standard practice, the real magic happens when you use the results to trigger the conversation with or among your audience.
That’s when the polling gains deeper meaning. For instance, to evaluate the general stance of the group as pertains to a particular argument, meetings can deploy:
- Multiple-choice polls
- Rating polls
Once the direct live visualization of the voting concludes, and the data are tabulated before the forum, the whole lot can discuss why they voted the way they did.
Conversely, the meeting orchestrator can instigate said conversations about matters say office policy. Sure, Pam and Rob may get on each other’s throats, but all the cards will be on the table.
After this, the polling data which was hitherto hidden will be displayed to the forum. That is bound to spark even more debate. In the long run, this boosts camaraderie among staff and meeting participants.
Crowdsourcing Ideas
Individuals get a chance to ask the right questions and offer their thoughts without fear of judgment or reprieve from friends or supervisors.
Electronic polling applications are authentically anonymous, making it comprehensive and guaranteeing that:
- The group hears more people
- Each voice carries equal weight
No more assessment structures or web studies that remain open for long. Surveys give momentary input with a much more significant level of reactions. The genuine value is that the ongoing bits of knowledge created can be responded to while there’s as yet the chance to do so.
Everybody gets an opportunity to contribute. They also display their support for ideas, thoughts, or inquiries by voting for them in the common forum, with the most liked ascending to the top of the dashboard rankings.
Where time is restricted, the gathering can tend to the most significant inquiries, not merely those individuals yelling the loudest.
Big Picture Takeaway
Electronic polling systems have for quite some time been acknowledged as an incredible asset for estimating representative comprehension and assessment for organizations.
In any case, the cost, strategic ramifications, and mastery required to offer it implied a notion that this technology was a staple for ‘clicker’ audience response systems at yearly meetings or formal instructional classes.
The appearance of surveying applications has changed the scene, implying that live surveying and content-based Q&A have become a regular component of the cutting-edge work environment, particularly for gatherings and meetings.
Electronic polling is one of the key drivers that are driving talks into the zone of conversational display. Be that as it may, the innovation isn’t sufficient.
On the off chance that we need to use the maximum capacity of live surveys in introductions, we have to figure out how to encourage discussions that emerge from the dynamic content co-creation that they empower.
The systems portrayed above will assist you with transforming the next meeting or presentation you take part in for a fulfilling experience.
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