September 25, 2009 by jcollins.

The How to Take Back America conference in St. Louis, Mo is in full swing. Today we heard from Rick Heil of SonicFlood, Dr. Rick Scarborough, Janet Porter, Phyllis Schlafley, US Representatives Tom Price and Steve King, and even Joe the Plumber. The live audience, as well as those watching worldwide on the web, are using our Total Interactive Events technology to text in questions, comments and contest enteries. Tomorrow morning we will be using the audience response system. We also are recording YouTube videos from speakers and attendees that you can view here.

Here’s a photo of Sam with US Representative Tom Price.

Posted in Steve King, Janet Porter, Tom Price, Phyllis Schlafley, Joe the Plumber, Rick Scarborough, Sam Collins, Total Interactive Events, text message service, audience response, St. Louis, How To Take Back America, Uncategorized | No Comments »

September 23, 2009 by jcollins.

John Collins will appear on over 200 radio station worldwide on Thursday September 24 at 1pm CST, on the Faith2Action radio program to discuss the different technologies that The Extreme Group will be providing at the How To Take Back America conference in St. Louis this coming weekend. On tap for the event, The Extreme Group will provide an audience response, texting services, a YouTube channel with updates throughout the day, and an emergency communication system.

In conjunction with the live webcast, The Extreme Group will keep the audience watching at home involved by allowing them to text in questions for the presenters, submit videos to be broadcast on the YouTube channel, and enter contests where you must be present (either physically or virtually) to win.

Click the following link to find a radio station in your area: Radio Station List

Posted in St. Louis, How To Take Back America, customer service, audience response, emergency communication system, Total Interactive Events, text message service | No Comments »

September 19, 2009 by jcollins.

Today was the last official Rebelution conference of the ‘09 tour…
It was the best finale to the year I could imagine! Yes, set-up yesterday was very trying on us and the Harris’ crew but today was worth every second of it…
The morning started off early (6:00 a.m.). We headed to the conference center and started prepping the keypads. All went well, and soon we let my friend Samantha and her family in early. (I guess for once we were those ‘higher connections’ everyone talks about…:)…)

Everything went perfect during the distribution! This was an awesome ‘touch-team’! They got everyting done promptly, efficently, and happily. Kudos to the DC Rebelution Touch-Team!!!
I sat with my debate friends for most of the day, and for once, experienced the conference almost like an actual attendee. It was even neater when I soon found out I had another friend there from the NCFCA… Timothy Pierce. I had debated him at a practice tournament in January during last tournament season. He is a philosopher-wannabe whom I find to be interesting, as he takes a pure logical look at everything. Different from me and my other L-D friends like Samantha and Justine who just look for an understandable connection that is logical. It was good to catch up with him and discuss this year’s new Resolution- Resolved: that competition is superior to cooperation as a means of achieving excellence.

About a hundred people said they’d like to accept Christ and about that many must have stood up- more than ever before I would say! It was amazing. Like no conference before, Mr. Harris and many others were brought to tears before it was over…

This was my favorite conferance so-far I think. I probably say that after every conferance but this time it is completely true!

We went to dinner with the Fansler family (Chick-fil-a) then picked Daddy up at the airport…
I hope we can come back to DC next year!

Signing Off After THe FINAL Rebelution,
Katie

P.S. Less than a month left till we get home!!! See y’all soon!!!

Posted in Gregg Harris, Rileytheband.com, Sono Harris, James Harris, Isaac Harris, keypads, www.theextremegroup.com, philosophy, logic, Timothy Pierce, Katie Collins, touch-team, Sarah Harris, Bret Harris, rebelution, NCFCA, Debate camp, audience response, Total Interactive Events, homeschool, Samantha Fansler, L-D debate, Alex Harris, Harris family, Harris, Justine Strickler, text message service | No Comments »

September 16, 2009 by jcollins.

We had another great event with Plan Your Meetings Live in Atlanta. The weather was horrible, but the brave meeting planners braved the storms and got see our audience response systems and live texting. We met some wonderful people and saw some old friends. It’s always a pleasure working with the PYM team, but this time seemed especially good. The food was great, speaker was good, and the crowd was gracious. As soon as the event was over we began our drive north. We ended up somewhere across the South Carolina line.

Posted in Plan Your Meetings, PYM Live, audience response, Total Interactive Events, text message service | No Comments »

July 12, 2009 by jcollins.

Downtown, Chicago, Illinois- Last night I ironed everyone’s clothes so when I woke up this morning everything I needed was hanging above the table. I was awake at five forty-five and after dressing, playing quietly for a few minutes, and working on a letter to my friend Brittany Telford it was seven o’ clock. I put a few biscuits in the oven then woke Sam. He dressed, and when the biscuits were finally finished I woke Mommy and Daddy.

It was seven twenty and after eating I was ready to head in. Sam, Daddy and I set off while Mommy stayed to do a few things. Twenty minutes later Daddy and Sam were ready to begin the texting and I had distributed over half of keypads to the name tag stations. By eight thirty I made a final round to even out the last few keypads between several of the stations. Bethany allowed me to help her finish the morning registration process though I didn’t do much…

Just as I finished I realized I had a new problem, the Rebelution crew had printed over five hundred copies of the pricing sheets, but my film, Unexpected News was not on them… This had been a problem at prior conferences resulting in no one knowing how much they cost, so the cashiers either hunted me down or attendees just didn’t buy copies…

Because she had already finished her work, Bethany helped me search for blank paper. Paper turned out harder to find then we would have guessed, however upon reaching a set of main doors at the farthest end of the church, we happened upon a brochure holder. We jokingly said they would make good signs… after finding enough; I set out for the bookstore with a purple sharpie…

As always, Alex and Brett gave amazing performances as far as I could tell from the number of youth wanting an autograph, or just to say something to them at the end of every lecture. This was a really big event, over 3,500 people attended; from as far away as Finland, Spain, North Africa, Uzbekistan, and Thailand. Though I was not present for Mr. Harris’ lecture either I was able to sneak in the back during the alter-call.

The only thing that went poorly was keypad collection. Someone gave the signal and suddenly half the keypads were collected and Matthew Cunningham, Mommy, I, and the girls I had asked to help us collect them were running around trying to figure out what to do. We just started walking around asking people for them. It almost scared me how easily they gave them to us… only one girl questioned me as to my authority or purpose in asking for them… glad no one else was collecting them to sell or something…

I was able to spend time reading, and hang out with several of the girls I met last night throughout today. I never meet anyone at these conferences so this was especially exciting!

After we packed everything up, we sat in the speakers’ room and waited for Alex and Brett. We figured they would come back to pick up their things but after waiting for a long time we all supposed they were busy. We were going to just wave good-by however when we walked out to the sanctuary the only person alive was the sound booth-guy.

After finding them we talked for a few moments then suddenly a high-pitched sound started blaring. Conversation interrupted we said good-by and Daddy, Mommy, Sam, Brett and I headed toward the speakers room to leave. Brett noticed everyone outside and we headed out. Alex and Joel saw us coming and remarked the fire alarm had gone off. We were supposed to be outside. OOPS! If it had been serious I’m sure they’d have called us though… we were with Brett after all.

Soon firefighters pulled a fire truck up on the side of the road and we all saw a water hydrant in work. Harlan and Joel were walking around taking pictures while onlookers looked at them as though they were wack-o, or something. We laughed and said it wasn’t every day we saw a “fire” in action. Meanwhile Daddy had headed back to the RV and Brett had disappeared. I met Alex’s fiancée, she was taking pictures too.

Upon returning to the RV we found, to my surprise, Brett and Daddy talking… An hour or two later Alex and his fiancée knocked on the door. They had been looking for Brett for quite a while, now they had found him.

We left to look for dinner leading up to one of the longest treks in my life! We left at seven thirty or so I would say… At ten ‘o clock we crossed another road and I prayed to God that he would provide a: smoke-free, alcohol-free, quiet, affordable, delicious meal, and so that we would know it was the right place- he would provide a Christian sign for us. Only one or two minutes later we found the Star of Siam. An answered prayer! If you ever eat their do not eat the skinny, shiny, blackened, thingies. As I was soon to find out I don’t like chili peppers at all… do order thick noodles with beef, egg, and Thai broccoli. One of the best things I have ever eaten!

One taxi ride after dinner we were in bed and fast asleep.

Straight from the second stop of the tour,
Katie Collins

Posted in audience response, text message service | No Comments »

June 11, 2009 by jcollins.

As thunderstorms rolled in at 4:30AM and posed a serious threat to thousands of campers spread out over several acres, The Extreme Group’s Total Interactive Event allowed Ichthus Festival administration to communicate quickly and efficiently with festival goers. It was exciting to see that when the storms passed through in the middle of the night, because of our technology they were able to let people know instructions for staying safe.

The emergency contact system is just one of the powerful features our new Total Interactive Events service gives to meeting and event planners. Now, no matter how spread out your attendees; whether it’s across town or across acres of campsites, you can communicate emergency action steps with them within minutes, from one safe location. We hoped we would never have to use it, but we had to use it last night and it performed exceptionally well. We can’t prevent the storms from coming, but we can let people know what action steps to take when they do come.

Posted in Total Interactive Events, emergency communication system, Ichthus, text message service, meeting planner | No Comments »