Next Generation Event

So Many Tools, So Little Time

Image by Jungle Jim's International Market

I've recently taken a look at a number of tools designed to make the lives of event planners just a little bit easier.

There are a lot of tools out there and it can be overwhelming to pick the ones you want to try. I'll try to make it a little easier.

1. For the bride or the perennial party planner: PerfectTablePlan

This tool bills itself as "the easiest way to create a table seating plan for your wedding, celebration, or event." I haven't tried another tool for this so I can't compare, but I can assure you that it is much easier than trying to tackle this task manually.

The program, which can be downloaded for a fee (US$34.95), is essentially a contact manager for your event (and, yes--you can import data from Outlook) that lets you track meal choices or dietary constraints, RSVPs, and seating preferences. You can group attendees as couples, families, or groups, and once you've done that, you can specify whether various guests should be close to (or far from) other guests. Play with your table options (size and shape), click "auto assign," and voila--you're done. You can select to do the seating arrangement manually, as well, but why would you?

2. For the poor soul who organizes small meetings for the busiest people on the planet: GatherGrid

This free tool allows an organizer to find out what times work for multiple people when setting a date. It is probably best used for smaller events, meetings or teleconferences, or for events where you want everyone to be able to make it or where you need a certain number to attend (for example, if a quorum is required for a meeting). We've all had the headache of trying to pull together people's schedules from various phone calls and emails. GatherGrid is our Aspirin. 

3. For the event planner who wants a one-stop shop: Cvent

Cvent has been offering event management solutions for 10 years and currently has about 10,000 event planning clients. It offers services that take a planner from venue selection through survey results, with a database of venues (including meeting rooms and descriptions) and e-RFPs, full-scale online registration and event website management, and electronic suvey creation and evaluation. Fees vary for the different services, but you can browse the venues and submit your e-RFP for free.

4. For the event planner who wants her attendees to share and spread the word: Amiando

Disclosure: This company is, of course, the sponsor for an upcoming event I organized for the Event Planning and Management LinkedIn Group, but its product also has some sharing features I would like either way.

Have a great event? The kind people will recommend and talk about? Amiando helps you harness that word-of-mouth energy. The invite page prominently features a "Share" button and, if your event has a fee, attendees can be given a specified number of discounted tickets to share with others. One thing I would love to see Amiando add is the ability to track how people come to the invite (and eventually purchase a registration) so we can better evaluate how various marketing and social media efforts are influencing registration.

The service is free for free events. For all other events, they charge 1.5% for each registration.

Know of any other great tools? Leave them in the comments or send the info my way.

Related post: Get a Jump Start on All that Networking with EventVue

Weekly Eco-Innovations

I really like Tim Sanders' blog, which is appropriate given that he wrote the book on likeability. He's got a great post today on making one green change--an eco-innovation--each week.

We always have a tendency to dive in, head first, and try to tackle everything at once. This is why diets and exercise programs fail. This is why so many bloggers eventually abandon once budding publications. Building sustainability into our lives (and, because we're event planners, our events) is too important to blow. Making change in small and manageable ways can help keep us on track.

You might also be interested in Tim's eco-innovation this week. He talks about reducing printed paper that his documents create by paring down his presentations, "making each page beg for its life." Forgetting about the sustainability factor for a second, I bet he also ended up with better presentations.

Get a Jump Start on All that Networking with EventVue

A few years ago, I read Keith Ferrazzi's Never Eat Alone (NEA) and it forever changed my approach to conferences. Pre-NEA, I basically met whoever I sat by during the first session of the first day and my nights were spent reading the materials for the next day's sessions. I had just graduated from law school, so this seemed very normal. I learned a lot, but nothing that I could not have gotten by simply reading the materials at home and listening to a podcast.

NEA let me in on a secret that successful people already know: good face-to-face conferences aren't really about content.

Coming from a person who spends hours a day carefully crafting the content of conferences, that is a significant statement.

You do need good content to get people to a conference--especially a new conference--but you need good people to call the conference a success. If you have good people, conversation and connections will follow and, before you know it, your conference is memorable and meaningful.

My post-NEA conferences (as an attendee) have been an entirely different experience. I do all my research in advance, learning everything I can about the attendees and identifying the attendees I would really like to meet. This is a lot of work, but maybe it doesn't have to be.

EventVue, a service offering online social networking for events, has recently beefed up its offerings. The service already enabled conference-goers to create profiles, complete with pictures and tags to identify common interests.

Now, we get the Chatter function, which pulls in attendee-generated content from blogs, twitter, YouTube and more, and allows attendees to subscribe feeds to receive the updates.

As an attendee, you can get to know others in advance of the conference, have collaborative live-blogging/tweeting, and keep in touch when the conference is over.

As a conference provider, you get to steal a glimpse into the minds of your attendees to help you plan a better conference now and in the future.

I love the new features. Focusing on legal conferences, my first thought was that this would be a ways off for me. But then this from Kevin O'Keefe. If lawyers, perhaps the latest of the late-adopting crowd, are already starting to look to twitter as a serious business tool, we might not be as far off as I thought.

Random Resources - 5/4/08

1. GreenConferencing.com and InterCall: I came across InterCall, a service for web conferencing, by way of its new promotional site GreenConferencing. I couldn't find much in the way of reviews for InterCall--has anyone out there used it?
2. SpotMe: By way of Meeting Industry Megasite, I learned about this clever device that allows for improved social networking among conference goers. It also allows conference hosts to include schedules, surveys and more in a simple, electronic format.

GreenYour Everything!

Today, I was introduced to GreenYour.com (Hat Tip: treehugger), a new resource full of green resources for whatever green action you are looking to take. Browse for ideas by category or simply finish the phrase, "Green Your [blank]..." and hit the arrow to scour the site for ideas.

The Events sub-category includes specific ideas for birthday parties, flowers, gift wrap, greeting cards, vacations and weddings. When I searched on event, I came up with a variety of results, including information on biodegradable food service items, using recycled content products, and choosing a local, organic caterer.

The site also offers facts--my search for events, for example, brought up these facts (complete with footnotes!) on wine.

One person's trash...

You know how the saying goes. And it is now being applied specifically to the events industry. Wondering what to do with the vases from that last event? List them here at Used Event Stuff (Hat Tip: ready2spark). Want to plan a green event using only pre-used items? This website may be your place.

There is a $5 fee per post and to click through to view an item they require you to set up an account. I am scaling back on my online accounts, so I didn't do it. I did subscribe to the site's blog in case any interesting news comes through.

It is obviously very new (as of today, the "Be Green" page just says the page is under construction) and there are only a small number of items for sale, but there may be a future here. Hard to say--craigslist is my goto for buying and selling (and even giving away). And it doesn't charge or require you to log in. I noticed that Freecycle, a site to help people give away things they no longer want, also requires a login (though it doesn't charge)--my guess is that is because the service has been set up as a community network.

I'll keep my eye on the site. I hope it hits its niche just right and serves the events industry well.

 

Green Meeting Industry Council (GMIC)

Here's another organization and resource you should have on your radar. According to its site, the Green Meeting Industry Council (GMIC) focuses on providing meeting professionals with education, resources and certification opportunities for green meetings.

Unfortunately, the GMIC does not make the majority of its resources available to the public (which I would recommend as it could drive readers to its site, help it establish a stronger online presence, support its stated goals of providing resources and education, and almost certainly have a positive effect on membership--just a friendly suggestion).

It does offer information on its conferences (most recently in February in Vancouver).

The EPA and Your Event

The Green Meetings page on the EPA's site has worked with the Oceans Blue Foundation to set up a Green Meetings Tool you can use to chart your course. I love the site's 10 Easy Tips--especially tips 1 and 10:

1. Put it in writing. Establish an environmental statement or policy for the meeting, and get buy in for it from the meeting host organization's management.  Share the policy with suppliers, delegates and speakers.  You'll be amazed at how far they'll go to help you make your event BlueGreen.  Click here for a sample (DOC file).

10. Spread the word!  Tell delegates, speakers and the media about your success.  You'll be surprised - BlueGreen efforts are contagious.

How true. I am convinced that sharing ideas and success is the key to creating sucessful (and talked-about) green events.