About four years ago, silent auction electronic bidding devices hit land in the USA. It's been a race for promotion ever since. Nearly once a month I entertain a phone call from a new vendor, eager to show me his new state-of-the-art service. Interestingly, the technology was pioneered by European companies.1 Event-services company IML was the first to actively promote its offering to US-based charities. It didn't take long before their competition followed suit. With the US charity ... Read On >
technology
VIDEO: My gripe with some mobile silent auction solutions and online auction platforms
As I've talked with more vendors about their mobile silent auction solutions and online auction products, I've become disheartened to learn that most of them do NOT offer a key feature that is generally an accepted standard in the commercial auction world. It's not a "new" feature, but perhaps vendors servicing the charity auction market failed to understand how it can generate more dollars for charities. For whatever reason, it's been missing from most vendors' products. I hope that with ... Read On >
My gripe with some handheld bidding and online auction platforms
Did you attend my teleclass on Best Practices in Mobile Bidding for your Silent Auction? If so, you already heard one of my issues with some online auction and handheld bidding vendors (a variation is also called mobile bidding or electronic bidding). It comes down to functionality. I'm a fan of a feature called "extended bidding" which -- as I type this -- few vendors seem to offer in online auction or handheld bidding products. What is extended bidding? If a bid is placed on an item in ... Read On >
Definition of silent auction handheld, mobile, and e-bidding options
The content is still current, but the teleclass mentioned below has passed. For a limited time, register here to have a recording of the call sent to you. ++++++++++ I've been asked many questions of late about silent auction handheld mobile bidding devices. So many questions, I'm hosting a free mobile bidding teleclass ("Best Practices in Mobile Bidding for your Nonprofit Silent Auctions") next Wednesday (May 2, 2012) to share best practices learned on the front lines while using the ... Read On >
Charity Auction Trends 2012: We’re still talking technology and always talking food
I’m predicting three trends for 2012 charity auctions. Two of them involve execution. No, nothing that harsh. I’m talking about the other kind of execution, when we're getting stuff done. We’ve heard a lot in the past couple years about trends in technology, but I think 2012 is the first time we are going to see some of these ideas in action. First – for better or worse - mobile bidding will become more widely adopted in the silent auction. Vendors have been touting electronic bidding ... Read On >