Showing the way: how ICCA uses big data to identify meeting ambassadors

At ICCA´s 2014 Congress in Antalya last year, ICCA launched an extra sophistication to its original Big Data Search for potential local “meeting ambassadors”, identifying whether professors and academics identified in Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic Search are also featured within the websites of associations and congresses in the selected academic field. This makes them more likely to be involved in the organisation of a new edition of the association´s conference and thus very important contacts to identify for ICCA members.

This process initially identified approximately 15,000 high-potential local meeting ambassadors. Since then, new meetings, mainly taking place in 2014 and confirmed for the future, have been added to the ICCA database by ICCA´s research department. The additional 10,000 academics have been identified based on association and conference websites of these newly identified meetings.

ICCA´s Big Data Search, originally launched in May 2014, gives ICCA members -the leading global meeting suppliers- a simple way to search vast public databases of academic content and contacts. The results are linked to the structure of ICCA´s own Association Database, containing profiles of 20,000 regularly-occurring international association meetings.

Utilising the databases of Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic Search, ICCA members are able to identify leading academic contacts in specified cities and regions, related to a specific meeting in the ICCA Association Database or a specific meeting subject. This is a crucial step in preparing a successful bid to host the next edition of an association´s international meeting, as these local representatives could help ICCA members to successfully bid for an international association meeting.