Tags: voting system

HSM

PowerVote facilitates interactivity and the carrying out of surveys during your events

Over 2,500 people used the electronic voting system during ExpoManagement in 2008

Since 2006, HSM, a multinational company that each year organizes various executive training programmes, has used the electronic voting systems during ExpoManagement, one of the leading company management forums in Spain. During the last forum held in Madrid on 23 and 24 May, electronic voting machines were used during the Orange and Daemon Quest conferences. All together, over 2,500 people used the system marketed by PowerVote to participate in the various thematic presentations. According to Maximiliano Massuci, Operations Manager at HSM Europe, this electronic voting system is extremely versatile and allows not only for an interaction between the audience and the speaker, but also for the carrying out of surveys and studies among the participants.

The best option

The multinational company HSM considered various alternatives present on the market before adopting the PowerVote system. According to Massuci, the other options did not offer the same services as PowerVote.
“This tool has advantages not shared by conventional voting systems. For example, within the same building, two rooms can vote simultaneously without experiencing any interference between the radio signals. In addition, you can differentiate in the voting processor which remote control is in the process of voting in one room and which is voting in the other, while the conventional systems existent on the market do not offer this possibility. With a normal electronic voting system, the radio signals experience interference when voting takes place in two juxtaposed rooms, which risks altering the voting results.”

The advantages

An individualization of the vote and the carrying out of analyses among the participants by separating the various samples from the available groups are among the advantages underlined by the Operations Manager at HSM Europe.
“The system is very flexible and very easy to implement. You can use it for basic applications or in a more complex manner to gather concrete data. What’s more, this system is easy to use, as demonstrated by its flexibility for an audience such as ours of some 3,000 participants: for a 5-option question, only a few seconds are needed to ask and answer the question and evaluate the results. It also allows for an exact determination of the participants’ level of understanding, for the speaker can modify his or her presentation based on the results obtained.”

The second application used by HSM is the carrying out of surveys among the participants. The questions can be presented, completed and commented on immediately.
“It’s very interesting, because the participants are surprised to see the results up on the screen,” points out Massuci.
However, he admits that for certain speakers, a sort of psychological block exists faced with such new technologies. “Speakers are normally very traditional and they are afraid of opening a breach allowing for interactivity. Here we are confronted with a critical point.” Massuci argues in favour of educating speakers so that they can adapt their conferences to this type of system.

A complete system

Before the sudden emergence on the market of electronic voting systems, the most common method of voting during these events was by a show of hands. The presenter asked a question and the audience members answered by raising their hands. As the Manager of Operations at HSM Europe recognizes, this system is possible during small meetings, but not during events gathering together hundreds or even thousands of participants.
“It is very different to ask a question directly to a room of 50 people and to ask this same question to an audience of 1,000 people,” he points out.
However, he also considers that this tool can be used during meetings of only several people or with a smaller audience.

According to Massuci, the PowerVote system is very flexible and easy to implement.
“It can be used for basic applications or in a more complex manner to gather concrete data. PowerVote is very easy to use.” In addition, Massuci asserts that no application is lacking in the PowerVote voting system: “There currently exists no better tool.”
HSM has so far used PowerVote only at ExpoManagement, but during its next meetings, the company plans on renting this tool for an adequate application.

About HSM
Founded in 1989, HSM is a multinational company that provides directors and executives a variety of training products and services. To this end, the company uses the most advanced tools and techniques, relying on the principal sources of knowledge and management experts at the international level. HSM offers its services to a market of over 500,000 clients distributed throughout South American, the United States and Europe. Its shareholders include JP Morgan, Dresdner Bank, Credit Suisse First Boston, La Nación and HSM’s top management team.
Outside Madrid, ExpoManagement is presented each year in Mexico City, Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo. The HSM Group also organizes other executive training events: the World High Performance Forum and the World Marketing and Information Forum.

Genzyme

PowerVote: a rapid means of knowledge evaluation!

Interactive voting machines are increasingly being used in all types of companies. Companies rely most on electronic voting systems in publishing, property and, above all, the health-pharmaceutical sector.
Genzyme Spain first made use of the voting machines developed by PowerVote during a recent Conference of the Spanish Nephrology Society (SEN) held in San Sebastian in early October 2008.
This laboratory, by using the electronic voting keypads during the conference, had as its goal to “attract to the Genzyme stand the greatest number of people possible, while at the same time marketing its products via the questions themselves,” explains Jesús M. Vásquez, product manager for Renagel at Genzyme Spain.
The doctors who visited this stand could demonstrate their knowledge of nephrology by answering a series of questions developed by Genzyme’s specialists.

A favourable reception

The PowerVote voting system proved quite popular among visitors to the laboratory’s stand. As opposed to what happens with other technological devices toward which users prove immediately reticent, this time, just the opposite occurred. “I was greatly surprised that the clients demonstrated no reticence to using the voting keypads. They even came up to ask if they could use them,” admits with satisfaction Jesús M. Vásquez.

Although, for the time being, this laboratory’s experience with the PowerVote tool is limited to the SEN conference, the system’s evaluation by the Product Manager for Renagel at Genzyme Spain is very positive. In his opinion, the great advantage of electronic voting keypads resides in the fact that they are “useful icebreakers and help put their users at ease when one attempts to evaluate their knowledge”.
Likewise, Jesús M. Vásquez recognizes that interactive systems that allow their users to vote or express their opinions encourage the audience’s participation during a congress, conference or other group event. This is because one is able to express oneself anonymously: “When several people answer at the same time, one is less likely to stand out”.

The Product Manager for Renagel at Genzyme Spain admits that during a secret vote, it is much easier for the organizers to ask questions. He even recognizes that “without this system, it would be impossible.” What is more, and contrary to more traditional methods, “the interactive approach allows for effective and easier communication. This is carried out in the form of a game and the client doesn’t feel agressed. That is why the audience feels much more involved.”

Extend its use

Although, for the time being, Genzyme Spain has only used the electronic voting keypads during a congress with its clients, the company’s goal is to extend their use to other situation types. Indeed, the company has not ruled out the idea of using these devices during internal meetings, in order to “measure the benefits of sales meetings, as well as during round tables with doctors.”
For the sales meetings, Jesús M. Vásquez admits that the system represents “a practical and easy means of evaluating the representatives’ knowledge”, while for the round tables, the system would be useful for “observing a group of doctors before and after the meeting and influencing their behaviour.”
Concerning the facility of installing and using the electronic voting keypads developed by PowerVote, the Product Manager for Renagel at Genzyme Spain admits that they encountered no difficulty whatsoever implementing the system. “Following an hour-long instruction, I was perfectly capable of using the keypads,” he concludes.

About Genzyme
Genzyme Corporation was founded by Henri Termeer in Boston in 1981, with its goal being to create products thanks to enzymatic engineering and its strategy being to fill the niche of treating rare genetic diseases. Today, Genzyme remains the leader in the development of treatments for Gaucher’s disease, Pompe disease, Fabry disease and type 1 mucopolysaccharidoses, but the company has opened up new avenues of research targeting kidney diseases, cancers, diagnostic testing and genetic therapies. This has allowed the company to position itself as the sixth largest biotechnology firm, thanks to its listing on the Nasdaq market.
The company set up a Spanish office in the early 1990s and is currently represented via Genzyme SL in Madrid and Barcelona.
Jesús M. Vásquez, Product Manager for Renagel at Genzyme Espagne

GILEAD Sciences France

Avoid a restrictive evaluation and limit the pressure on participants

Training: a major issue for the pharmaceutical industry

HIV, viral hepatitis, invasive fungic diseases: within such specialized medical fields, knowledge is constantly evolving. To remain credible before high-level hospital doctors, Gilead laboratory’s hospital representatives must regularly follow particularly demanding training courses, which are indispensable for this laboratory that has rapidly conquered a leading position in France and in the world.

Modernizing the evaluation process

All Gilead “Products” or “Competition” training sessions include an evaluation of their participants. Before turning to electronic voting keypads, the laboratory relied on paper-based evaluations. Understandably, correcting these 20-question tests given to some sixty people represented a particularly time consuming task. In 2006, the laboratory opted for the electronic voting solution, which has considerably facilitated these evaluations, which are now corrected automatically and instantaneously by the PowerVote software program.

Immediate results

The displaying of results in real time following each vote allows for immediate feedback. For each question, it is possible to determine the participants’ level of knowledge acquisition and to further develop any themes that have not been fully understood. At the end of the voting, transferring the results to Microsoft Excel allows for a statistical processing of all these data, which can then be analyzed by the entire team. Furthermore, this system has made these evaluations more fun and therefore more palatable to the representatives: “This allows us to avoid a restrictive evaluation and to limit the pressure on participants,” explains Christophe Corfmat, Director of Training at Gilead Sciences France.

A turnkey solution

The Gilead laboratory has chosen the PowerVote turnkey solution for its meetings. Indeed, a PowerVote technician travels to each interactive meeting to manage all technical aspects of the voting system. This frees the hands of the event organizer and, as Christophe Corfmat points out, allows him or her to focus on the subject at hand, and to comment on the PowerPoint presentation and the results displayed “live”.
The choice of interactivity has completely won over both this director of training and the system’s participants, because for the past few years, the Gilead laboratory has relied on this electronic voting system which it plans on making use of again and again!

About Gilead
Gilead is a biopharmaceutical company specialized in the discovery, development and commercialization of innovative medicines for those fields whose medical needs remain unsatisfied. Its mission is to improve the care of patients suffering from life-threatening diseases all around the world.

Dior Travel Retail

The experience of Dior Travel Retail

In charge of Business Travel activity for the Dior brand in airports and duty-free shops, DTR relies on PowerVote to optimize the training programmes designed for its international sales forces.
A total of 750 employees, exclusive representatives for the brand, are concerned by the programme.

Catering for passing trade, airport sales areas and duty-free shops are meant to put forward a “travel offer” and promote the latest products of the Dior brand, including beauty care products, make-up and perfumes.

In order to offer the friendliest service and impeccable advice to an often hurried clientele, Dior Travel Retail has chosen to use the PowerVote interactive meeting system, based on electronic voting, during all of its training courses.

“We require that our personnel memorize a considerable amount of information, in particular with regard to the beauty care treatments. This necessitates a perfect understanding of the technological aspects and performance of the various product ranges,” explains Alexandra Alouche, Director of Training at Dior Travel Retail.

“In order to allow our teams to best position our offers before a particularly demanding clientele, we chose to favour a solution that provided both optimized message memorization thanks to playful training sessions and an immediate evaluation of the audience’s knowledge level.”

The first training sessions began in March 2007 for the EMEA region and in June for Asia and America. “The added value of such a solution is allowing us to avoid the tedious, time-consuming processing of paper-based questionnaires. We could now freely create, modify and personalize our questionnaires, based on the immediate needs of each region. For our instructors, in charge of programme content, this saves precious time and ensures that the courses meet the needs and expectations of our personnel,” continues Alexandra Alouche.

The PowerVote system has already been enthusiastically tested by the DTR management teams and instructors (over 110 people) during the presentation of the 2007 marketing plan. Equipped with voting keypads, several teams representing each region were able to participate in an interactive presentation into which 30 questions had been inserted dealing with the positioning and specificities of the brand. “The interactive presentations – into which we were able to insert questions, while graphically displaying the results in real-time as ‘podiums’ – naturally encouraged the participants’ involvement and spurred competition among the teams,” concludes Alexandra Alouche.

Pour plus d’informations : http://www.dior.com

Fast Food chain

This Fast Food chain boosts its training courses with PowerVote
To train the future managers of its restaurants and franchises, this Fast food chain uses the interactive PowerVote voting system to monitor the level of understanding of its trainees.

Setting great store by its teams’ performance, the fast food specialist, has set up a training centre for its restaurants’ team members, assistant managers and directors…

Each year, this training centre welcomes over 2,000 trainees for 25 different courses. These training sessions are designed around two main themes: mastering their technical know-how (product composition, hygiene and quality, food safety, stock management, marketing, etc.) and developing their management skills (team leadership, recruiting, etc.).

Confirm the level of understanding with PowerVote

In May 2003, the Training Department used the interactive PowerVote voting system for the first time during the inauguration of the I2M (Management and Trades Institute). The goal was to present in a fun, interactive manner this new institute, while at the same time convincing the audience of the advantages of using PowerVote. Following the great success of this dynamic presentation, the PowerVote system was integrated into the training courses to evaluate the trainees’ knowledge level.

The 3-month, 3-course training programme combines classes with work experience. Between 25 and 30 trainees participate in each training session. The first course covers the technical aspects of the trade (production, maintenance, etc.), as well as customer service. The second course concerns the various aspects of communication and team management (training and delegation). Finally, the third course tackles the administrative tasks of the trade (turnover, markup, etc.), followed by an overall evaluation of the trainees’ knowledge acquisition. The score awarded at the end of this training programme allows the regional manager to evaluate each trainee’s knowledge level.

The interactive PowerVote voting system is used with questionnaires for the confirmation of each course. These questionnaires are dotted with “best answer rankings”, which lend dynamism to the session and motivate the learners, while allowing each trainee to monitor his or her positioning.

PowerVote a source of envy within the Fast food Chain

Before PowerVote, the Training Department used paper-based questionnaires.
« The use of paper was especially time-consuming, for both the instructors and the trainees. What’s more, our trainees being rather young, they tended to trade their questionnaires. With PowerVote, there’s no way to cheat and due to the playfulness of the system, the trainees feel more involved. In the end, everyone’s happy,” states the Director of Operational Training.

“We use PowerVote every three weeks, and since 2003, we have trained over 2,000 employees. PowerVote allows us to immediately verify our trainees’ level of understanding. Thanks to its ease-of-use and the possibility to make immediate modifications, our questionnaires are always up-to-date with regard to standards. In addition, we save considerable time and paper. Now much easier to organise, our sessions are lighter and less boring, for we have eliminated the time-consuming corrections imposed by paper.”

PowerVote has then attracted more people within this fast food Chain! Today, the regional managers want to use the PowerVote system to evaluate their personnel, and other projects are under way: hygiene training, HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points), etc.

Socotec

Socotec relies on the interactive PowerVote voting system for the implementation of its teaching methods
To provide training courses best suited to the real needs of its trainees, the Socotec Group chose to use the interactive PowerVote voting system.

Specialized in inspection, consulting and training for risk control with regard to quality, safety, health and the environment, the Socotec Group acquired the interactive PowerVote voting solution for its certification and accreditation training courses. Today, over 3,000 people are trained each year with the PowerVote system.

Redefining an educational itinerary thanks to PowerVote

The Socotec Group’s initial goal consisted of optimizing the educational impact of its retraining courses on electrical certification.

Faced with a heterogeneous public with disparate skills and knowledge, the idea was to underline the need to up-date the trainees’ familiarity and understanding of the various products concerned.

The goal: find the best means to rapidly determine the trainees’ gaps in knowledge and implement a programme suited to these retraining sessions.

“PowerVote allows us to evaluate, via a quiz, the trainees’ skills and knowledge. Based on this evaluation, we can then implement an educational itinerary best suited to their needs,” underlines Jean-François Gayot, Director of Training for the Socotec Group.

“The initial training course lasts three to four days, as opposed to the retraining session, which lasts only one day. Therefore, this allows us to return to various subjects and, by precisely measuring the trainees’ educational needs, PowerVote enables us to optimize the content of this single-day session.”

PowerVote boosts the Socotec Group’s training courses

Today, the Socotec Group uses PowerVote for three types of training: electrical certification, the training of asbestos inspectors, and, recently, for a course on raising awareness of the health risks in buildings with regard to lead, asbestos, Legionella, etc.

These training courses are meant for all persons active in the fields of electrical installation, maintenance and equipment construction.

“We have used the PowerVote system since October 2002. It allows us to measure knowledge acquisition at the beginning and the end of the training course via a quiz,” states Jean-François Gayot.

“What is interesting with PowerVote, is the real-time aspect of the system: after asking three or four questions, we analyze the answers together with the trainees, and following this analysis, we ask for their feedback on the content of the answers. In this manner, we can play around, get moving again, and return to particular questions and answers. This dynamism is very motivating, as much for the instructors as for the trainees, while the paper-based questionnaires that we used before PowerVote made the training static.”
Finally, the training course’s dynamism and playfulness aids knowledge acquisition and allows the learners to become actively involved in their own training.

About the Socotec Group

In 1953, Socotec took over the building inspection activities of Bureau Sécuritas, itself founded in 1929. In the 1980s, having consolidated its positions in the constuction sector, Socotec decided to diversify its activities. In this manner, in parallel to the development of consulting missions in organization and quality management, professional training grew into an activity in its own right. Initially centered on the technical construction skills that had made its reputation, Socotec’s training offer rapidly expanded to include the various other domains that today figure in its catalogue. The use of modern educational tools such as PowerVote is one of the goals for continual improvement of the Socotec Training Department.

Price WaterHouse Coopers

PricewaterhouseCoopers has chosen PowerVote to enliven its “Welcome Convention”

For over 5 years, PricewaterhouseCoopers has used the interactive PowerVote voting system in the form of a large-scale, interactive game (similar to snakes and ladders) to enliven its convention for new arrivals to PwC.

Throughout the convention, the participants, divided into teams, use their electronic PowerVote voting keypads to answer a series of questions. The results are displayed in real-time, in the form of pawns moving along a circuit. The principle is simple: the faster and better performance of the teams, the faster their pawns move along the game board.

The benefits of using PowerVote

Increase the impact of your messages!

Involve the audience.
Win over shyer participants, particularly at school.
Increase satisfaction.
Enhance your company’s image during an integration seminar.

Enliven your work sessions!

Add dynamism to your sales forces’ seminars.
Stimulate a distribution network.
Punctuate your workshops and brainstorming sessions.
Motivate struggling students.

Make decisions!

Evaluate the participants’ knowledge level and immediately detect those points requiring further attention.
Automatically carry out a certification exam.
Sound out an audience during an opinion survey.
Collect information or comments in real-time.

The use scenarios are numerous: