One question, answered all at once
Francisco Javier Chimeno Marin, the organizer behind the volunteer event, already knew Mentimeter. He'd used it with a group of young people who meet every week to talk about faith and their lives – small sessions where he wanted everyone to take part, not just listen. So when it came to the biggest moment of his year, he knew where to turn.
"In every contact they were very kind. They offered a solution that really matched what we wanted to do – and in the end, they offered to come. They were there." -Francisco Javier Chimeno Marin
At the closing gathering, the volunteers were asked a single question:
What word best defines your experience as a volunteer at the Pope's pastoral visit?
They answered from where they stood. No app to download, no sign-up, no friction. And on the main screen, the answers began to build. A word cloud took shape in real time – shaped by the crowd, in front of the crowd. The words chosen most often grew larger, until thousands of individual responses became one shared portrait of what the experience had meant.
More than 15,000 words rose on the screen. Together, the volunteers created a massive live word cloud in front of them and Pope Leo XIV.
"Having the Pope on stage with me – for me, that was the ultimate proof. The words came in live and it all worked perfectly: the animation, the countdown, everything under control. For the presenters, it was incredibly useful." Francisco Javier Chimeno Marin
The same tool, a different scale
The technology behind the Madrid moment is the same one used in university lecture halls, company all-hands, and UN conference rooms: a question, a screen, and a way for every person to respond. What changed in Madrid was the scale – thousands of simultaneous responses, processed and visualized in seconds, with zero friction for the people answering.
The same tool that helps a professor read a classroom helped the Catholic Church hear a hall of 10,000.
