The expert of record for all things meetings tech for more than 20 years, Corbin Ball has ingrained himself in the meetings industry on a global level.
An inveterate traveler—he spends about a third of his time on the road traveling the world as a speaker—Ball recently received the highest honor in the industry after being inducted into the Events Industry Council's (EIC) Hall of Leaders during IMEX America 2018.
"It's been the highlight of my career. I feel tremendously honored and happy to be on this list," Ball said. "I look at the people who I've been inducted with and many of them have been my mentors and my friends. It's kind of like the Academy Awards of the events industry. My whole goal when I went out to form my own business was to give back to the industry, and this has been an acknowledgment that I've
Start in the Meetings Industry
Like most people involved in the meetings and events industry, Ball didn't chart out that career path in the beginning.
"I was working as the director of educational media for Western Washington University in the audiovisual, television and graphics department," he said. "In 1979 a small association moved into Bellingham in the area of optics— optics has been at the center of much technology. We caught the wave together.
"I ran their first meeting in 1979,
and then they hired me full time
in 1981 as one of two people in
their meetings and exhibitions
department," Ball continued about
his foray into the meetings indus-
try with SPIE, the International
Society for Optics and Photonics.
"I was their meetings manager.
There were 15 staff at the time and
we grew to 150. My staff went up
to 10 and I went from operating a
few meetings a year to the biggest
optics meeting in the world."
In 1988 Ball received his email
address and in 1993 worked on the
development of the first association
website—for SPIE—when there
were only about 130 websites in
existence at the start of 1993.
The Benefits of Technology
Ball sees standardization of data analytics and management as the most significant meetings technology advancement that will occur in the next few years.
"Some of the big trends are
integration, such as using APIs
[application programming
interface]," Ball said. "Programs
will be able to work much easier
to share data, and because of
that you have the increased area
of data analytics. There's been
an explosion of data sources at
events, from mobile event apps
to beacons, and on and on. The
challenge is how do you assimi-
late all that data into one source
and then bring it back into the at-
tendee/customer record to better
provide service on an individual
basis and on a collective basis to
Other meetings tech advances to
watch include virtual reality, way-
finding and the continuing march
of data analytics assimilation.
The Threats of Technology While technology carries with it the promise of highly efficient work-flows, real-time connectivity on a global scale and experiential environments that keep getting deeper and more immersive, the unstoppable, exponential advancement of technology also brings with it the potential for abuses of privacy the levels of which even experts can't truly fathom.
"I think that the number of
hackers has increased in number
and sophistication," Ball said.
"We've seen huge data hacks over
the last few years. We need to pro-
tect ourselves with data security
and data privacy. We're living in a
whole new world—a social media
world. We have a lot of things as a
society that we're grappling with,
but the fundamental part is how
we manage privacy, and it's going
to get worse. Facial recognition is
a two-edged sword. It can improve
our registration process and make
it faster, but it's also Big Brother
watching."
While speaking gigs and ana-
lyzing technology trends in the
meetings industry will always
be his bread and butter, Ball's
passion remains the meetings and
events industry as a whole. Giving
back to it is the driving force that
has always propelled his profes-
sional life.
"We all work in this wonderful industry that brings people together, to advance the collective wisdom of society—meetings do that," Ball said. "We make the world a better place, and to help this industry has been something I've felt really good about doing."
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An ambassador of all things meetings tech, Corbin Ball travels the globe to illuminate audiences on the latest and greatest events technology that is disrupting the landscape.
"I always say my job feeds
my travel habit," said Ball, who
estimates he travels more than 100
days per year to speak and consult.
"And for the significant trips, often
my fiance comes with me…so it's a
good way to see the world."
Following are a few of Ball's
snapshots from his 2018 travelogue.
—Tyler Davidson
With Corbin
CORBIN BALL // OWNER
CORBIN BALL & CO.
WWW.CORBINBALL.COM
Profilethe
By Tyler Davidson
TOP TO BOTTOM: ISTANBUL, TURKEY; BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA; NICE, FRANCE
CORBIN BALL AT 2018 EIC HALL OF LEADERS INDUCTION