I recently attended an educational session on trade show technology. The speaker mentioned the term "geofencing" but didn't really elaborate on it. Can you tell me what the term means and how some exhibitors are using this technology?

Geofencing refers to hardware and software that use such technology as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), GPS, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth low energy (BLE), aka Bluetooth Smart, to create a virtual fence or boundary around a fixed geographical location, such as a store, neighborhood, or trade show exhibit. When a person crosses over that boundary, a beacon senses that individual's smartphone or tablet, which automatically triggers an activity, such as sending an email, text message, picture, or coupon to the mobile device. Note, however, that the person receiving the information must initially choose to accept these push notifications from the app.

While you can use geofencing to send at-show discounts, product information, automatic messaging, etc. to attendees as they enter or exit your exhibit, others use this technology to track attendees' movement within the space, perhaps to see how long a visitor spends in a specific product zone or participates in an in-booth activity.

A few sophisticated applications also allow for users to interact with each other. For example, a group of attendees viewing a presentation in your booth could also access each other's LinkedIn profiles and send messages. Although the technology has been around for a while, it's just now becoming a bit more mainstream in the exhibit industry. But as convention centers, show organizers, and exhibitors themselves become more aware of the technology's potential uses and metric-gathering applications, you can expect to see a significant rise in the use of geofencing.