I got the chance to try out a nifty new tool at the Women in Nuclear conference today, Poll Everywhere. It allows you to do a live audience poll in which the audience sends in their votes live via SMS or Twitter, kind of like American Idol. It worked beautifully the first time out, embedded neatly into my PowerPoint presentation and delivered real-time, live results as the audience members texted in their responses.
Within about three minutes, we had these results in from 27 members of audience of about 50. Interesting statistics. In the past, LinkedIn has been the winner, but it seems that Facebook has overtaken it, at least in this crowd of professional women. And it was fascinating to see the poll results coming in live. I recommend it to make presentations a bit more dynamic and interesting.
It's easy to use; just set up the poll in advance. Poll Everywhere provides downloads for PowerPoint slides for both Mac and PC and for Keynote to easily drop into your presentation, and it also provides copy to brief the audience on how to participate (and to remind them to leave their phones on vibrate so as not to interrupt the speakers that come after you).
Hat tip to Shauna Causey for turning me on to this nifty little tool!