Dr. Michio Kaku, the Henry Semat chair and professor of theoretical physics at the City College of New York, as well as writer and frequent reporter and commentator on technology for the BBC and the Discovery Channel, is a prolific speaker at corporate and association events. At the 13th annual digitalNow conference at Disney’s Contemporary Resort in April, One+ caught up with Dr. Kaku to find out his thoughts about where future technology will take the meetings industry.

One+: Can you make an analogy between String Theory and the meeting and event industry?

Dr. Kaku: I am a theoretical physicist, and my life’s goal is to complete Einstein’s dream of a theory of everything in an equation no more than one inch long that summarizes everything that allows us to “read the mind of God”… When we work with String Theory, it’s all pure mathematics; it’s all theoretical. But eventually, we have to talk to other people. We have to interact with them. And that is where meetings and conferences are very important. So if [physicists] are at the forefront of all of this, why do we have meetings? The answer to this goes back to what I call the Cave Man Principle or Cave Woman Principle, which is that we haven’t changed in 100,000 years. We are hunter-gatherers basically, and hunter-gatherers live in packs. They bond because their survival depends on that. Your life depends on whether you can trust this guy over there to guard your back. And the only way to size people up is to have meetings, and that’s why we have meetings. We will still have meetings in the future, even in the digital future, because we are still, in essence, intelligent apes, people who hunt in packs. 

One+: What was the last meeting or event you attended that significantly shifted your outlook/perspective about something?

Dr. Kaku: I do a lot of speaking at different conferences, and I have noticed a shift, generally. When I first started to speak to all these different groups 15 years ago, and tell them the Internet is going to be in your contact lens in the future, there was this, “C’mon, give me a break” response. Now when I speak at conferences and talk about this type of thing, their reaction is, “Of course!” So there has been this sea change in their collective attitude. This receptiveness to new technology is my takeaway from meetings and conferences, about how societal attitudes are changing.

One+: Name one person that is most influential to you currently. Why do you feel he or she is so influential?
Dr. Kaku: When I first started writing about technology of the future about 15 years ago, I interviewed a guy named Mark Weiser, who has passed away unfortunately. He worked for Xerox PARC. And while Xerox PARC does not ring a bell with most people, it is where they invented the personal computer, the mouse, Windows architecture and the laser printer. Now, that is the architecture for what has happened over the past 30 years. It was invented by the people at Xerox PARC including Mark Weiser. So Mark Weiser stands out in my memory as an incredible visionary regarding the future of technology.

One+: How do you envision the future of associations, and the ways people congregate professionally, changing in the next few years?

Dr. Kaku: Technology is a gigantic wave, and we have to be surfers on that wave. Just as we have conferences today, we will have conferences in the future, but we will have to combine all of the latest technology. Even today, we have conferences online and people can ask questions online. But in the future, there will be holographic images and people will appear as they appear in their living rooms and their holographic images will “attend” the conference. And then we will have the contact lenses with the Internet in them, you will look in the room and it will appear to be filled with people, but half of them will be holograms. But none of this will bring an end to the need for face-to-face meetings, no matter the technology advancement.

One+: How might leadership strategies change due to the changes in communication? Do you think they should change?

Dr. Kaku: With regard to communication technologies, it’s all a matter of the tools at hand. If a new hammer comes out and it’s all about the world according to that hammer, it’s all about it being a tool and the question of what you want to do with that tool. So it’s a means to an end rather than an end itself. So it’s the people who are leading these organizations who should see the next new “toy” that comes along as a tool. It’s a question of how you use it to reach your goal.

For example, let’s take data. There are a lot of technologies that will provide you with a lot of data now. But what’s the purpose of all that? In the corporate world, it is as a means of knowing the consumer. So whether you get to know the consumer through studying data about him or by meeting him and shaking his hand, it is still about getting to know your customer, which is the purpose of the data in the first place. So if you get caught up in the technology for technology’s sake, you risk losing sight of the goal.

So good leadership is always going to involve the North Star, so to speak, and that is keeping your original goal, which is unchanged by evolving technology. In corporate business, an unchangeable goal is to know your consumer, or with associations, know you membership, and be guided by that knowledge. And as part of gathering that knowledge, face-to-face communications, including meetings, will always have a place.

Image (CC) campuspartybrasil-Cristiano Sant´Anna/indicefoto.com

This report comes from Rowland Stiteler, a meeting industry journalist who attended digitalNow for One+.

If you’re looking for detailed specifics about how social media impacts the profits of your business or the membership levels of your association, they may not be out there yet.

That’s the conclusion of Susan Etlinger, social media analyst and strategist for the Altimeter Group, a consulting agency with a Fortune 500 clientele.

“If you are looking for outside standards and outside benchmarks as to what constitutes an effective social media program, right now you are wasting your time, because they are just not out there…maybe two or three years from now, but right now the standards are not out there,” said Etlinger, a keynote speaker on the second day of the digitalNow 2013 conference.

Etlinger is in a good position to know about this. For 20 years, she has been in the electronic media strategy business, working for Charles Schwab and then the Horn Group before joining Altimeter.

“Right now, most companies are in a rigorous test-and-learn phase with regard to social media,” she said.

According to Etlinger, there is still plenty of testing and learning to be done before the impact of social media on profitability can be easily measured.

That, of course, doesn’t mean it’s not important for organizations to forge ahead with social media campaigns, which clearly allow both corporations and associations to learn a lot of detailed information about the likes and dislikes of their constituencies. Certainly there is a high volume of information coming back at the purveyors of social media campaigns, and clear results in spreading brand awareness and other valuable goals. 

One+ has, however, led the field in broaching these important questions about social media. In October 2010, Editor Michael Pinchera spoke with leaders at the cross-section of social media and business for the cover story, “Untangling the Value of Social Media.” The fact remains, the value of social media can be measured—it just depends on how you wish it to be quantified.

“There will never be a single equation from which to determine the value of any and all social media campaigns,” Pinchera said. “If you want to measure engagement, start building your metrics well in advance of starting social media campaigns and identify your goals. The value is based on the results in relation to your goals—much like determining the ROI, or other returns, on a specific meeting or event. That value can be determined, but one must come to the game with data and clear goals.”

Participants in this year’s sold-out digitalNow conference—held at Walt Disney’s Contemporary Resort—included a who’s who of professional associations: the American Society of Anesthesiologists, the American Institute of CPAs, the Professional Golfers Association. Digital media directors for the various associations conducted workshops and symposia, sharing best practices and strategies, and about a dozen corporate resource partners—companies specializing in communications and association management software—provided a trade show component to share insights about the use of digital tools.

A star of the show this year was the new digitalNow smartphone app, which allowed participants the ability to do everything from keep up with the conference schedule to download presentation screenshots from various individual symposia and workshops to post and share their own personal agendas within the conference.

“This new app is a key tool to making the conference experience more effective for every participant,” said Hugh Lee, president and CEO of Fusion Productions, which produces the conference.

Dr. Michio Kaku, the Henry Semat Professor of Theoretical Physics in the City College of New York, also spoke at the event. Kaku is a futurist, a bestselling author and a science media guru. He is a frequent contributor to The Discovery Channel, the BBC, the History Channel and the Science Channel. He gave key insights into where social media is going in the near future, but also how science will shape the world in the next 30 years. Be sure and check out the June issue of One+ for our exclusive interview with Kaku.

Disney Research Pittsburgh has turned plants into multi-touch sensors. Talk about augmenting reality...wow.

The world will now be able to communicate digitally through plants. Maybe this will enable us to communicate with plants...I don't know, but I'm sure someone is working on that extension.

Can you imagine a Disney park where every plant could play music to you based on your touch, or could trigger light and sound displays? The implications are pretty freaking awesome.

I look forward to seeing how the mouse is going to push this incredible innovation out to the world.

All of the sessions at digitalNow 2012

are valuable, but some just scream for attention. “Tech Trends in Associations” is about as straight-forward and uber-relevant for this crowd as possible. So let’s get right down to it. Here are five trends as identified by Tom Lehman of Lehman Associates/Reports.

1. Integration of Third-Party Applications to Extend AMS Functionality.

An extension of this is deep application integration to enhanced reporting and seamless experiences.

2. The Social Web. Lehman revealed some preliminary findings he’s come up with relating to the prevalence of associations using third-party providers. He found that of those surveyed

• 68% have no plans to contract with a third-party
• 17% are contracted
• 5% plan to contract
• 10% are evaluating

3. Video as the New Standard.

ASAE members prefer receiving information via video, Lehman said. Moving forward, all elements of your business should have some video component.

4. Privacy and Data Sharing.

This is an explosive one just waiting to pop… Lehman reported that some Instagram users removed photos from the service following its purchase by Facebook—users don’t know how Facebook will use the photo data.

5. Importance of Mobile in AMS Purchasing. Of those surveyed...