The Conference Challenge
The most important challenge was to find an innovative, ubiquitous technology for voting during
the HATCH competition at SXSW. It needed to be quick, easy to setup and modify, as well as be engaging. The
HATCH organizers wanted to engage the audience, making voting more interactive.
Another challenge was how to divide the Audience votes from the ones that came in via the Social Media channels.
Also, the organizers needed to find a fast and effective way to collect comments, contact information and
questions from the audience, consisting of investors, journalists and other people from related industries.
The Solution
After the ProTexting and HATCH teams had a discussion on what technology would fit the needs of
the competition, they decided that the most efficient and effective way, with the fastest implementation was
text message voting and interaction.
Audience members were able to vote from their mobile phones by texting the company name. Immediately following
the vote, they received a link via text message reply, asking to fill out a mobile web optimized feedback form,
and leave comments about the company they voted for. After the votes were received, the ProTexting system
tabulated them in real time and displayed the results on the projection screen at the main stage. This way, the
audience saw the results immediately as votes came in. The mobile voting was used to determine the overall
winner of the Audience Favorite Award.
The challenge of limiting voting only to the audience present in the room still remained. The solution to
resolve this challenge was to create and use an additional remote control app for the occasion, which was used
to Start/Stop the voting at precise times manually.
In addition, each presenting company was given a separate texting channel for Social Media voting ahead of time,
so their fans could vote even if they were not present at the conference. This second set of results was used
for the Social Media Influence award.
The Results
The mobile engagement during the competition was a success. There was over 85% audience
participation. An interesting result was revealed; The Social Media number of participants was almost equal to
the number of audience participants at the event number. With Social Media’s potential reach being tens of
thousands more people than were actually presents at the conference, our team was expecting more votes to come
in via the social channels. It is clear that human interaction in person wins again!
A personal note; At the end of the conference, the screen for voting was accidentally cut short and there was an
overall sigh of disappointment from the audience who could not get their votes in. This also showed us how
engaged they actually were with the mobile voting.
Without tens of thousands of dollars spent for creating apps and no need for downloads, ProTexting offered an
effective solution for this well-organized SXSW event. HATCH organizers were very pleased with the results.
Here is what Brian Lang, one of the competition’s organizers, had to say about ProTexting:
“I was first impressed with ProTexting when I saw their product demonstrated in Austin at the Crowdfunding Texas
event. As our annual HATCH pitch event in the Startup Village of SXSW was approaching, I made inquiry on their
availability to partner with us for the event. The ProTexting team exceeded our expectations not only in
providing an outstanding technology solution, but in adding creativity to our ideas in ways that made our event
stand out from the others at SXSW. The ProTexting team worked tirelessly with us the night before and the entire
day of the competition and impressed our panel of distinguished judges and pitch finalists. I look forward to
working with them again!”
Brian Lang (Event Organizer)
