Debuted this week at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival Haute House, Proxfinity CUE 2.0 gives event attendees an easier way to network through what company officials describe as “professionally identifiable data.”

Networking is one of the biggest challenges for many event attendees. It’s not always easy to introduce yourself to a stranger, or identify who the best people are for you to talk to. Sometimes you need an ice-breaker, or a cue, to get those conversations started. Proxfinity’s new smart badge is designed to help event organizers make sparking that first connection easier for attendees, while also accumulating data that can be used post-event.

Before an event, the Proxfinity team profiles participants through a fast, simple screening process based on behavioral science and the purpose of the event. Attendees just answer a few questions online. Onsite, when the wearer is in the vicinity (5 to 10 feet) of another attendee who has provided the same answer to the designated question, the badge’s LED screen lights up and displays the matchee’s name.

The criteria and data for matching can vary from event to event. For example, at the 2019 CEMA Summit, which used a prior release of the badges, attendees answered a few questions to determine their “spirit animal” as a reception ice-breaker. However, for a traditional conference, this could be used to match skills, interests, geography, etc.   

"Corporate events often have a very specific purpose tied closely to a company's growth or success, [such as] getting very different teams to work better together; onboarding new recruits; supporting diversity; or trying out new tech, like at our Sundance event,” says Proxfinity CEO Lisa Carrel. “But making that link at the person-to-person level is incredibly hard.”

Carrel says that CUE 2.0 helps people know who to talk to — and what to talk about — in an intuitive way that helps keep them off their phones and to be mentally present at the event, while also generating data sets that show those connections.

“CUE 2.0 captures the interactions in ways that make events more valuable for the event organizer as well as the attendees,” says Carrel. “That’s why we call it social hardware for business.”

New features in Proxfinity CUE 2.0 include heat mapping, traffic and session tracking, live polling and gaming. The form factor is also improved from CUE 1.0 – Carrel describes the new badges as being “smaller than a smartphone and lighter than a pad of sticky notes.”

Also new is a high-resolution, e-book-style screen powered by an accelerometer, which detects the rotation of a screen for properly oriented display. (An accelerometer is what changes the display from portrait to landscape on a mobile phone or tablet based on how you are holding the device.) When an attendee lifts their flashing badge to see who they have been matched with, the screen rotates for easy access to that information. It rotates back to position when dropped back to hang on its lanyard, so the matched person can easily see their name.

The CUE communicates with Proxfinity’s back-end SaaS platform, so data is saved and can continue to be used after the event. Event organizers can use this to gain further insights into attendees and help with sales and marketing outreach, or to help attendees make meaningful connections later with others they weren’t able to connect with on-site.

The lightweight Proxfinity CUE 2.0 is reusable, reprogrammable, and officials say it has three full days of battery life. Clients can brand and reprogram the badges as needed to customize them for each event.  

For more information on Proxfinity CUE 2.0, go here.

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