Biometrics at your next conference? We have tried it!

The agency implemented its technology of “facial recognition of emotions through Facial Coding and Eye Tracking”, as comments their CEO Juan Manuel Arco. A technology that has been used for several years in the US and South America. The idea in the MIS was to analyze the emotions that the presentations aroused in the audience.

Although it may sound complex, this analytical technology works with different types of cameras. For this occasion we used several WebCam HD, located on the sides of the main screen, with the idea of ​​observing the facial reactions of people in the front rows (it is still difficult to analyze a whole audience). Some technical details:

• The WebCams recorded in data form, not in video, which allowed recording long periods of time and complying with privacy laws.
• The results are displayed in real time in a dashboard that exposes different metrics, obtained from the analysis of basic emotions. The emotions analyzed are happiness, surprise, anger, dislike, fear and sadness, the famous basic emotions.
• Another reflection of how the audience is receiving the presentations, is the number of smiles. These are counted individually.
• Each session was recorded separately, showing engagement (commitment or level of involvement), activation (level of attention), satisfaction (level of audience satisfaction), obtaining a level of experience.

In this way, we have obtained a series of data with which to analyze the value that the audience has given to MIS 2017. The images we show here are an example of what you can get in your events.

Some learning in this specific case: the activation was high but the satisfaction and engagement rates decreased with the course of the day, as a logical reflection of tiredness and decrease in physical activity. To be taken into account in the planning of schedules, duration and types of activities according to the time of day…

You can also see how the neutrality indices, reflected as the gray icon, are higher in all ranges. This is because when we pay attention we become serious, neutral, we do not reflect expressions as we are focused on understanding the content and absorbing it. Here is a certain limit of this technology, which has difficulty interpreting the face of people simply concentrated and not expressive.

Another point to note in our event was that the experience increased significantly starting from the second set, was subsequently maintained. Probably this reflects a need to ‘warm up’ the audience that comes to the event with a moderate involvement, to build.

The smiles rise in the second and third set of recording, which may be because the smiles depend on the speaker. In this case, the speakers of Coca Cola and Sage generated a special engagement.

Without a doubt, the route does not end here: this technology will grow, be perfected and we will know better and better how to integrate it in the definition of the program, valuation of speakers and of the subjects. But we have already set foot in the event of the future…

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