New this year in Phoenix, ICA unveiled a mobile app to rival the traditional print program and flash drive. The mobile app allowed us to widen the functionality of the traditional program in a multitude of ways: users can find session information faster, filter according to division interests, track all conference Twitter activity at #ica12*, search Google maps of the surrounding neighborhood, and create personalized schedules. Not only that, the mobile app promotes ICA's greening initiative by significantly reducing paper waste with fewer print programs produced.

Prior to its release, we had a sense that the introduction of the app was something special, something that would change an important, albeit somewhat overlooked, cog in the conference experience. We were delighted with the response we received from members who embraced the change. During the registration process, 427 attendees selected the app exclusively, foregoing the paper program and flash drive completely; that equals about 20% of total attendees who selected the mobile app in its launch year. All attendees, including those who chose the paper program or flash drive, were welcome to download and use the app as well. In total, we had 1,132 unique users of the app, bringing the app's total usage to about 52% of attendees conference-wide.

Of course, no prototype is ever perfect, and the mobile app was no exception. While we are still collecting feedback from the conference survey**, we received many responses both from Twitter and anecdotally with suggestions for next year. The most frequent critique of the app was its lack of search capability for individual names. While users can search for keywords in session titles, this search ability excluded session descriptions, which list participant names. We also received a request that the "My Schedule" feature (a tool that enables attendees to build a schedule of programmed events), allow for the addition of personal schedule items, (ie, "2pm: Coffee with John", "Meeting with coauthors", etc…). We shared these concerns with Guidebook, the company providing the mobile app building platform, who confirmed that both of these issues will be rectified in its next release, scheduled for the end of July 2012. The search capability will now allow users to search for participant names, as well as keywords in abstracts to help users better identify sessions in a particular research field. We are poised to have a better, more functional app for London 2013.

With the advent and success of the mobile app, the time has come to bid farewell to the flash drive. Starting in London, we will no longer offer the program in flash drive form. This decision was made for several reasons: 1) The number of attendees using the flash drive continues to steadily decrease; 2) The cost of the flash drive itself continues to climb; and 3) The functionality of the flash drive onsite is far less than the paper program or the mobile app as a means to select sessions to attend and navigate hallways. The flash drive's primary selling-point is the paper abstracts it contains, and while some attendees may miss this feature, all conference paper abstracts will be available on our website for download both before and after conference.

If you didn't download the mobile app at conference, you can get a taste for what it's all about here. In an effort to provide a preview to conference registrants of the mobile app, ICA Communication Director JP Gutierrez and I teamed up to create a video demo demonstrating the features of the app. By the end of conference, the video had 435 views on Youtube.

If you have any feedback on the mobile app that you'd like to share or questions, please feel free to contact me at ekarsnak@icahdq.org

* Be sure to check out JP Gutierrez's article in this Newsletter about social media's role at the Phoenix Conference.

** The conference survey is going on now. If you attended conference, take a minute to take the survey and let us know what you thought. This is absolutely the best and most effective way to directly affect next year's conference.