Keyboard shortcuts and cheat sheets for any computer application can make you a better meeting and event planner. They make you a better meeting planner by adding more time to your day and time is the one commodity that all meeting planners have in short supply.
That being said, here are 10 places for you to find great shortcuts and even some cheat sheets to speed up your day.
Lots to do this weekend including taking my rocking little guy to see Star Wars, Episode I in the theater. Unlike us old folks, he is actually going to see Star Wars starting with Episode I ( I never did get the whole starting with number 3, but hey, that is why I am in events and not in film production).
So, some new study is out that says meeting and event planners have the 6th most stressful job. All over the world meeting planners are high fiving and saying “Hell Yeah, our work is hard, we are billy bad ass!”.
To that I say…. Bullshit, our job is only as stressful as we make it. I will not deny that sometimes the shit hits the fan and buses break down, speakers don’t show up and food can be terrible but come on, really….If we do our jobs correctly and plan for as many contingencies as possible, our job should be no more stressful than any other white collar gig.
So, I have three different projects going this week and all of them require me to send packages to attendees or members. It got me to thinking that if you are going to send it, make an impact.
Weekends are a time for chillin and sharing stuff from around the web:
Connect Magazine is out with their “Cool Issue” and many of you probably have it sitting on your desk right now (if not you should subscribe).
For this weekend’s round up, I wanted to point out 4 articles that fall in the section “The Challenge of Change”. Basically, what needs to change in the meetings and events industry.
Here is how Christine Born describes the section:
Inside and outside the industry, there are creative pioneers who urge us to embrace social media, look for inspiration from the culture at large, think about content delivery as performance art and get more visual with presentation. Scott Klososky asks us to think about how Cirque du Soleil would deliver a business talk; to think about how they changed the delivery of a circus. “We need the same change in the experience of content delivery at events,” the futurist and social media blogger says. Jeff Hurt wants us to start planning for screens and stop planning for platforms. “It’s time for you to adopt this 21st century technology and prepare for screening,” he preaches. “We are fast becoming people of the screen.” If you don’t grasp what he means, read his blog.
Our industry also has its rebels. Joan Eisenstodt, a well-respected educator and consultant, has long challenged meeting planners and facility managers to consider the different learning styles, needs and safety of attendees when designing and setting up spaces. She contends that most meetings are boring and is not shy about calling out colleagues to join her efforts to shake up the status quo. Then, there’s Keith Johnston who aggressively delivers sharp criticism and insightful ideas at plannerwire.net.
The following pioneers open up about what changes they think are essential now. We invite you to think about how you can use these ideas, discuss them with your organizations and share them with us in the comment section below.
Here are the links to all of the articles that are featured, go grab a cup-o-coffee and get in some reading:
Get Strategic by Ashely Muntan, Storyteller
Abandon Fear by Keith Johnston, Critic
Make It Magic by Joan Eisenstodt, Critic and Pioneer
Create Conference Conversations by Jeff Hurt, Social Animal
Room Gifts Can Make a Day
There is nothing worse than giving one of the standard crap room gifts like bottles of wine, plates of cheese or those God awful chocolate covered strawberries.You know it, I know it. I hate to give these gifts and they make me feel like crap even thinking about having one delivered.
When we give a bad room gift, our attendee knows that there was ZERO thought put into the choice.
Making Better Choices
I came across this Bocci Set at a local gift shop the other day and thought wow, for the right group, this would be a great room gift. This is the perfect size to take home, it is actually fun to use and you can tell the quality just by picking up the can.
The Game Includes:
Here is the downside. If I want a room gift like this, I would have to order it ahead of time, I would have to make the effort to go and pick it out long before the event was to happen. This could not be a last minute decision.
When you have VIPs, speakers or guests that need to receive a room gift, go the extra mile and pick gifts that they will actually like because they make people feel special. Learn a little bit about the person by calling their assistant or their co-worker so that you can find out what they like. If you hear that Rebecca, your keynote is totally into fly fishing, pop for a really nice set of flies or a really nice fly fishing rod. If you know that your number one sponsor is a fan of the Ford Motor Company, find a piece of memorabilia and have that delivered to their room rather than some piece of crap that is going to get thrown in the garbage or poured down the drain.
Nothing says you appreciate me like a well thought out gift.
Please resist the urge to take the easy way out because there is nothing worse than giving a stupid T-Shirt with the destinations logo on it or even worse, a coffee table book.
Think about this….people are picky about wine, they are picky about what they wear and do they really want a GIANT book that tells them about a place that they won’t get to see because they are cooped up in the hotel for 5 days?
The answer is no, so do the right thing.
OK, do you know what Evernote is? If you do, skip this section, if not, I will give you the REALLY abbreviated version from the Wik:
Evernote is a suite of software and services designed for note taking and archiving. A “note” can be a piece of formatted text, a full webpage or webpage excerpt, a photograph, a voice memo, or a handwritten “ink” note. Notes can also have file attachments. Notes can be sorted into folders, then tagged, annotated, edited, given comments, searched and exported as part of a notebook.
Basically, if you need to know where”it” is, you put it in Evernote and you tag it.
Hi All! Here are some stories from the past week that I thought might interest you!
We all know that when meeting and event planners leave the office and get on an airplane, 400 of our closest friends are usually close behind. We rarely have a chance to sit and watch the world go by and daydream.
Luckily, The little internet fairies have been hard at work spreading their magic dust so that we can travel the world without leaving our desks and without 30 people asking us where the bathroom is. At hundreds of locations across the globe cameras are mounted in famous places and some of these cameras are in the perfect spot to watch the world whiz past.
I am at a client event and thought I would take a snapshot of my desk 15 minutes after arrival to see what was there. This was right at the start of the set up process and thought it would give me insight into what I think is important.
Obviously, hearing things is important because I have 2 sets of headphones and a set of speakers. The internet is also key because I have a wireless router and repeater to boost the signal.
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34 Event Industry Blogs You Should Check Out 46 comment(s)
When Your Meetings and Events Cause Harm By Doing Good 35 comment(s)
One Reason Exhibitors Hate Your Conference or Tradeshow 15 comment(s)
Is Your Marketing Disgusting – Here is an Example 13 comment(s)
9 Non-Planning Things Every Event and Meeting Planner Should Know How to Do 12 comment(s)
Keith Johnston is PlannerWire.
PlannerWire is the meeting and event industry blog that is loaded with sarcasm, humor and lots of great information for meeting and event professionals.
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