ePosters Becoming a "When" Decision, not "If" - Revolutionary Electronic Poster Presentation System Successfully Introduced at the ANESTHESIOLOGY™ 2012 Annual Meeting

WASHINGTON, December 6, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

The use of electronic poster technology at medical and scientific meetings is quickly becoming a "when," not "if" decision, and ePostersLive™, the leading poster management and presentation solution that replaces paper poster boards at scientific and medical meetings, was successfully used at the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) Annual Meeting October 13-17, in Washington DC.  The ASA joins 40+ meetings worldwide that use the ePostersLive suite of products.

Jeffrey R. Schulz, Convention Manager at the American Society of Anesthesiologists said, "An extensive RFP process was conducted.   Several electronic poster software companies were evaluated, and quite honestly, I haven't seen a better and more advanced product out there in the industry."  

ePostersLive makes the transition easy for staff, organizers, and presenters. Before, during, and after the meeting, the ePostersLive team guides all stakeholders through the process ensuring a smooth, seamless transition.  "Our business is as much a service as a product," said Dr. Pavlos Moustakidis, MD, founder of SciGen® Technologies, parent company of ePostersLive.  "We are committed to ensuring an excellent experience - especially during the transition to electronic from paper - for meeting staff, for authors and presenters, and for the organizing committee."

Curious about the transition process?  Here's how it works -

Before the Meeting…

…For staff.  The experienced ePostersLive team guides staff through the entire process, including suggested e-mail wording to presenters and schedules. Throughout, live support is available for staff and presenters to accommodate questions from across the globe. According to ASA's Judy Jacobson, Annual Meeting Program Coordinator, "The ePostersLive team knows what we need before we know we need it."

… For authors/submitters. Poster creation and submission is intuitive and flexible.  ePostersLive has been designed to support any software, so submitters can create their poster with traditional software (including Powerpoint), or create it using PosterGenius® (part of the ePosterLive suite of products.)

Once the poster is created and the author is satisfied with the result, they then submit the poster with a simple click. The author receives an instant notification as well as an e-mail stating that meeting management has received the submission. In case of changes, the system allows authors to edit/update their poster any time, including right up until a few minutes before the on-site presentation.

Posters are submitted and saved in the system as pdf files, ensuring the integrity of the layout and images. The latter is particularly important in the case of x-rays or other scans, as well as plots and other figures since the system allows virtually unlimited zoom at lossless quality. Additionally, ePostersLive fully supports embedded video and /or audio files, and its robust architecture and capacity ensure that virtually unlimited poster submissions can be received simultaneously, even the hour preceding the expiration of the deadline, from all around the world and without any limitation in terms of file-size.

… For the Organizing Committee.  Once the submission deadline is reached and entries close, meeting organizers can easily review and rate posters online. At any point, organizers can determine who accesses these posters - organizers and/or staff only, presenters, or the public. Needless to say, authors can always opt out of having their posters published online.

During the Meeting, on-site

During the meeting, large screen monitors replace traditional paper posters and boards. Several posters per day are presented in sequence (time-scheduled) on each screen, as well as on-demand, which lessens the amount of floor space needed for traditional poster presentations and the cost for board rental. "The energy level at the electronic poster presentations was so much higher and better than at the old fashioned paper stations," remarked one ASA attendee.

In addition to the presentation monitors, computer kiosks/workstations are strategically placed at the meeting, so that attendees can easily find, review, rate and comment on posters.  The workstations also encourage discussion and collaboration between attendees and authors regardless of their number and the availability of Wi-Fi onsite, since ePostersLive is possible to be deployed on-site as LAN-based and independent from Internet connection.

During and After the Meeting, online

Using the ePostersOnline® feature means all posters are published online before, during, and after the meeting in a unique, search engine optimized way, so that all scientific information is preserved and the meeting becomes a point of reference in scientific literature. For the presenters this means that they can cite their research work on their CVs in its entirety instead of just listing the abstract. The  online site with the posters is fully integrated into the meeting's website, and is fully compatible with all mobile devices, such as iPhones and other smartphones and iPads and other tablets.

Costs/Pricing

ePostersLive has been designed to serve as a new revenue stream for meetings. In many of the cases it was used the software and hardware required has turned revenue neutral, and in some cases, ePostersLive has provided additional revenue for a meeting.

In closing…

… each of the 40+ ePostersLive clients has renewed and extended their contracts, because of " world-class technology and customer service."  

{+++} To find out more about what ePostersLive can do for your meeting, get in touch with us for a free 60-minute GoToMeeting demo, or register to attend the free live presentation in Chicago this December.  

Contact Mary Beth Rebedeau at +1-708-361-6000, e-mail mbr(at)scigentech(dot)com, or visit http://www.eposterslive.com