Web And Event Tech | PlannerWire

Get Rid of the Meeting Binder Once and For All

February 7, 2012 By Keith Johnston 5 Comments

Evernote and iPad – A Meeting Planners Dream

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.

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Filed Under: Event Planning, Event Technology, Web Tools Tagged With: Evernote, Technology

How to Install and Use Tweet Old Post

February 1, 2012 By Keith Johnston Leave a Comment

Tweet Old Post is one of my favorite plugins, always has been. There was a little glitch awhile back that caused me to uninstall it, but it is back in my good graces and I am ready to get it working for me and my client’s meeting and event websites.

What is Tweet Old Post

Tweet Old Post does exactly what its name suggests. For those working on the WordPress Platform, this amazing little plugin will send old posts out to your twitter followers.

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Filed Under: Event Technology, Web Tools Tagged With: plugin, wordpress

10 Must Have Plugins for a Conference or Event Website

January 31, 2012 By Keith Johnston 2 Comments

I love plugins and I love WordPress. The two go together like peanut butter and chocolate (or bread and butter if you are allergic to peanuts). The one two punch has made it possible for meeting and event planners to take the web design portion of their event marketing strategy and bring it in house without the need for costly web developers, designers and other people that used to suck tens of thousands of dollars from your event budget.

Your event or conference site can wow your attendees and give them functionality that has never been seen before and all for the price of night out, not the price of a small car.

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Filed Under: Event Technology, Web and Event Tech, Web Tools Tagged With: PlugIns, wordpress

Blackbird Pie – Embed Tweets in Meeting and Event Blogs

January 23, 2012 By Keith Johnston 5 Comments

One of the things that I find amazing about social media for meeting and event planners (marketers) is that our very attendees can be our biggest army of marketing foot-soldiers. When your event is an amazing success, they will talk about it, they will share it and they will let everyone know.

This has changed the event marketing landscape for the better and has made our jobs as event marketers 1000 times easier.

How Secure is Your Event

January 19, 2012 By Keith Johnston Leave a Comment

Did you ever wonder how secure your password is?

This is a question that should nag at every person who is involved with meetings and events for a number of reasons. We are increasingly online with our attendee databases, our event financials and our entire event marketing strategies and this is information that some people would pay good money for.

You are only as secure as your staffs’ weakest password.

You may not be able to control the passwords of all of your colleagues but at least you can make sure that you are not the source of the data-leak that winds up on the homepage of the Huffington Post.

Find out how secure your passwords are by heading over to “How Secure is my Password” and type away. The site updates as you type telling you how long it would take an average PC to crack your code.

You might be amazed to find out that you are not as secure as you think.

Filed Under: Web and Event Tech, Web Tools

When QR Codes Go Stupid

October 27, 2011 By Keith Johnston Leave a Comment

OK, I am in Minneapolis (yes, I know, I should have brought a jacket) and I was watching some event people putting these QR codes all over the street and sidewalk for some promotion. They are apparently using a paint that will go away because they have the facilities permission but that is not the point of the story….

Anyway, I watch them for about thirty minutes, taping down the stencil, painting and making it all perfect.

Bam, they are done and the dude whips out his phone and tries one… NOTHING. They do not work, the camera cannot get a bead on the code for whatever reason (again reason does not matter)… it just does not work.

So, here is the solution they come up with

They have stuck these nasty looking pieces of paper all over…….

Tell me, is this how you want to run a promotion at your event? Is this how you want people to see your grand spanky plan…..It is no longer cool and hip, it is kinda dumpy and pathetic.

Do yourself a favor, test this shit before you take it to market, save everyone some grief.

Filed Under: Event Marketing, Event Technology, Web and Event Tech Tagged With: QR Code

TopQuark has Created a Top Notch Conference Plugin

September 14, 2011 By Keith Johnston 6 Comments

I was chatting with Liz King on Twitter not too long ago, we were discussing conference plugins and I told her that I was so frustrated that I was going to find someone to create one and then I was going to sell it…. she was like “Go for it!”…

I thought “HELL YEAH”.. and then a couple of days go by and I am forced to put my idea on the back burner because, well, clients come first….I guess this would have to wait.

Just then, like a bolt from the blue, I get an email, it might have been a sign. You could hear the choir singing, birds chirping and the clouds parted to show a brilliant sun………OK, not really like that, but it was like serendipity.

The email was simple and had the headline “Guest Post or Plugin Review”.. basically, it was some guy asking me to have a look at his plugin and review it or perhaps he could write a guest post if I liked what the plugin did….You gotta love the email headline because it says that this person thinks his shit is so good that you have to pay attention to him…..

I had to open that email, I just had to, I love shit like that.

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Filed Under: Event Planning, Event Technology, Web and Event Tech, Web Tools Tagged With: plugin, wordpress

Double Check Your Web Properties Every Day – Or Else

September 13, 2011 By Keith Johnston 2 Comments

So, I am jamming along with my morning, cranking some tunes, catching up on some emails and gulping coffee by the bucket (all at 7:00 am) and a note comes in that a client’s online registration system is ready to test. Cool I think, I can rock this out before the real day starts and if there are no issues, I can put it off my plate and move on to greener pastures for the rest of the day.

Now, I have nothing to do with my clients registration, I am actually just testing it to ensure that all of the social media aspects are there and that they work… The company that they have picked to handle their online registration is known to me and I like them, not a thing wrong here… I am even friends with a couple of people that work at this joint. Good people doing good work…