New interactive presentation tool pits audience members against each other in live trivia competition

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 10, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Poll Everywhere announced the public release of Competitions, the latest in a suite of live presentation activities to engage classes, meetings, and conferences of all sizes. Recognizing the power of gamified experiences, Poll Everywhere Competitions is the first tool created specifically for a professional audience. It gives speakers the ability to embed their own live trivia contest directly inside a PowerPoint, Google Slides, or Keynote presentation.

The reception among beta testers was among the most enthusiastic in the company's ten year history, even in early development. Product Manager Penny Yuan reported, "We saw early adopters use it for icebreakers in team meetings, or things like sales rep training on a new product… user feedback contained a lot of words we want to see, like 'easy', 'exciting', and 'love.' They also tended to mention the confetti at the end. That's a hit."

Competitions born from research in active learning
Poll Everywhere Chief Operations Officer Sam Cauthen says the company has long been alert to the research supporting game-based learning and active participation, "We've seen the success of gamification in classrooms, particularly grade schools. We wanted to create something a little more nuanced, a little more grown-up, but retain that fun, competitive spirit that gets people invested in the topic. After all, even grown-ups like games."

In his article What Every Chief Learning Officer Needs to Know about Games and Gamification for Learning, Karl Kapp claims that games are not an add-on, but a central tenet of impactful learning design. "Games in our training programs are not a break from learning – they are learning. They are everything we say should be a part of great instructional design. They engage the learner, are interactive, and they enable the learner to get immediate feedback and to demonstrate mastery."

Presenters get a new way to shake things up
Poll Everywhere Account Executive Natalia Alquati speaks with Fortune 500 event producers every day. Her phone calls frequently turn into best-practice consultations about massive town halls and customer-facing events. "One thing event producers are always asking me is, 'How can I make this more exciting?' They want to get credit for a can't-miss experience that everyone talks about for weeks afterward. It's been so fun to be able to tell them, 'Hey, we have this new Competitions tool, and your crowd is going to go crazy for it.'"

CEO Jeff Vyduna said he is optimistic this release will continue to make presentations interesting and get audiences to engage. "Everyone who gives a presentation has a goal in mind. They want to teach something, sell something, inspire something. But before they can even hope to achieve that goal, they have to get people to pay attention. We're excited about Competitions engaging people in a meeting, a town hall, or a training - maybe even making them laugh and cheer and rib each other. Then the presenter is one step close to their goal. We're proud to be a part of that."

Poll Everywhere Competitions is available today to all users on all plans by signing up at www.polleverywhere.com.

Poll Everywhere is the world's leading provider of live mobile audience and classroom engagement. Presenters and instructors collect feedback from everyone in the room through their mobile phones and present the results immediately. Founded in 2008, Poll Everywhere has been trusted by over 75% of the Fortune 500 and has allowed over 700,000 presenters to meaningfully engage participants.

Press Contact:

Courtney Rogin
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(800) 388-2039

SOURCE Poll Everywhere

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http://www.polleverywhere.com