Steve Eppinger tells a story about waiting for jury duty a few years ago and thinking it was a shame he didn’t have a way to find out if he might have a business or other connection with some of other people waiting around him. Thinking, “There must be an app for that,” he later went searching for one. When he didn’t find anything, he created one: the Connector app.
The new location-based, AI-driven business networking mobile app from Eppinger’s company Connector Technologies based in Roswell, Georgia, was launched at the Mopar Vendor Expo held in September in Las Vegas, Nevada. Going layers beyond the traditional list of fellow participants attendees and exhibitors might receive, Connector provides technology for all of them to identify potential business partners and collaborators they may not have otherwise known about—at venues, events, and beyond including airports and sporting arenas—to identify and establish business, professional, and career connections.
“You have a show with 800 to 1,000 people and you have vendors trying to connect with attendees. People are walking the show floor, trying to hail them, ‘Come talk about my product,’” Eppinger explains. “But if you can laser focus those connection opportunities to those individual interests … you can connect with this person like you would on LinkedIn … it’s commonality with personal interest.”
How does it work? Users complete a profile that Connector Technologies’ patented Value Score technology then grades for inbound as well as outbound connection requests. The process is based on a proprietary algorithm that considers location, profile similarities, category matches, and user behaviors.
Other features of the Connector app include map- and list-view options that enable users to see connections in their preferred method that can then be searched or sorted by name, company, or Value Score; profile management tools identifying your interests, residences, education, affiliations, employers, and languages spoken; flexible notifications that alert to potential connections in a new location or when existing connections are nearby; and privacy controls that make it possible to hide from searches as well as determine the information users are willing to share with others.
At the Mopar expo, as at any group gathering incorporating Connector Technologies’ app as part of its social media, users could sign in under the trade show brand and were visible to anyone using the network. Eppinger estimates about 20% of the approximately 800 attendees created a Connector account, and of all connections requested, 85% were accepted with 15% still pending. “None were rejected,” he says. “That suggests to me there is some [significance to] the Value Score.”
He says that he and Brett Eppinger, Connector’s social media manager, were at the show introducing and explaining the app to attendees. “People understood what its purpose was,” Eppinger says. “Later on I got … in the lounge at the airport and noticed someone from the show was in the room [via the app] and we connected. You make that connection at the event, but that connection lives on long after.”
Eppinger plans to identify a few more similar-size trade shows where Connector Technologies’ app can be featured as its rollout continues. Event planners using the app provide a logo and affiliation and Connector Technologies creates a QR code that is included in meeting materials. “Now it’s free to event planners … that could change, but our interest now is in growing the user base and growing the product,” Eppinger explains.
Meanwhile, anyone can sign up for the Connector app. It is available in Google Play and the Apple App Store.
“If you think about it, it’s a more modern way of using LinkedIn, of using business connections,” Eppinger says. Scott Merritt, president of Strategic Global Media based in Atlanta, Georgia, has been working with Eppinger to get word out on the Connector app and notes, “It’s got a very strong value proposition for meeting planners, event planners, and trade shows. Their ultimate goal is bringing people together to drive more business … this is an entirely new way to drive more meaningful connection and networking at those events.”
