We are delighted to announce that Brett Petersel has joined the team.

Brett is an entrepreneur, educator, and technology enthusiast. Currently, he is the Events Director (East Coast) for Mashable, the Social Media Guide, and a partner with the New York-based organization NextWeb. You can follow him on Twitter at @brett.
His Link: http://www.iworkfora.com

Welcome on board and we can’t wait to read your contributions!

The Team

Julius Solaris – Founder and event geek. @tojulius on twitter

Anne Thornley-Brown – Anne is is the Linkedin Event Planning & Management Group Manager. She is doing a terrific job in ensuring quality within the group and she made sure we reached the target of 10,000 Members. She is @executiveoasis on twitter. Her specialties are Facilitated Business Team Building Retreats, Executive Retreats, Sales Rallies, & Incentive Travel
Her link: http://www.executiveoasis.com/

Kena Siu – Kena is an outgoing nomad specialized in Event Planning. She loves traveling, meeting & helping people. She specializes in Photography, Music, Cyberactivism, Food. She is @KenaSiu on twitter
Her link: http://twitter.com/KenaSiu

Jeff Hurt – Jeff is Director of Education & Events for a U.S. trade association and has more than 20 years experience in meetings, events and nonprofits. He writes about the convergence of Web 2.0, social media, meetings, events and education.
His link: http://jeffhurtblog.com/

Greg Ruby – Certifed Meeting Professional (CMP) and Certified Exhibition Manager (CEM) at the Baltimore Convention Center. He is fanatic about trade shows, exhibitions, conventions & venues. He is all about creating memorable events for organizers and attendees. All opinions expressed are his own.
His link: http://www.linkedin.com/in/gregruby

We are thrilled to have such a great team working on the blog and we are sure it will make the journey memorable.

If you feel you want to be part of the team please use the Contact section.

Photo by smannium via Flickr

The much discussed role of twitter during presentations, led us to believe that some piece of software was soon to be released.

And there we go, keynotetweet has appeared. It is an open source Applescript that syncs with Keynote and sends a tweet of the notes associated with a slide when that particular slide comes up on the screen.

This is a major breakthrough towards online/offline integration and engagement. Death by Powerpoint is a sad reality. keynotetweet stimulates participation horizontally by making the presenter an active participant in the conversation rather than yet another superstar/mega expert.

We feel that twitter undermines that front lecture style so averse to Web 2.0’s shared knowledge environment. keynotetweet brings it on and we can’t wait to see more software going this way.

We had a blast with iPhone earlier this year. Now the time to show you how your Mac could become an extreme productivity tool and get your events done.

10. Mindnote

Successful events are carefully planned. Mind Mapping initiates the process of planning. It helps in skimming ideas and identifying KPIs. Mindnote is a great tool to draw nice looking and effective mind maps. It comes with a free version which covers all the essentials. Go for it!

9. iGTD

If you are an event planner and never heard of Getting Things Done, now the time to catch up. The famous book started a series of dedicated applications. Most of them are extremely pricey and not worth the money. iGTD is a great Project Management tool and it comes for free, so give it a go.

8. Notebook

You planned your project and rationalized it. Right about time to clear the clutter and start doing things. Notebook is a light application that helps in clearing the clutter on your desktop. Get back your focus.

7. Klok (Adobe Air)

Reality is that an increasing number of event professionals are now freelancing. If this is you, you should track the time you spend at projects and bill for that. Popular Mac or Windows applications that track time charge big monies, but you can get Klok for free. It runs with Adobe Air (which makes it Windows, Mac or Linux compliant). If you don’t have Air installed, Klok will install it for you.

6. Appointments

OK, you are up and running. You are meeting suppliers, clients and stakeholders. Appointments saves all the relevant info about your contacts and alerts you of upcoming meetings. Never be late again!

5. NeoOffice

For those who don’t like or cannot afford Office/Openoffice/iWork, NeoOffice is a specifically Mac designed office suite for your docs, spreadsheets and presentations.

4. Anxiety

We love To Do applications. We think that To Do List are the most effective way of getting things done. Anxiety depicts a feeling that you have experienced if you run events, but also empowers you to get rid of it by delivering instead of procrastinating.

3. Jing

Virtual Events, Webinars, Screencasts and the like are trending topics within the industry. Jing enables screencasting and video recording easily and for free, which is not usually the case in this software niche.

2. Caffeine

One of the most annoying features of the Mac is the Auto-Sleep function. That gets event worst if you set up the Mac for a presentation. Caffeine keeps your Mac on and on and on….

1. Chicken of the VNC

If you work with two computers, it is extremely likely that you may forget files on Machine A when you are using Machine B. VNC technology allows to access Machine A remotely over the Internet. Chicken of VNC (gotta love the name) is one of the few free apps (usually you pay hundreds of $/£/€) to do that. So next time you are at your event location you can easily access your office computer and retrieve vital information. Stress free!

We love to hang out at our Linkedin Event Planning & Management Group. Apart from great discussions and networking, we do create tangible knowledge.

The following is the effort of 15 event professionals willing to share with the World their passion for events.

Click on your present, download it and share it, it’s for free!

Link not Working? No worries

Here goes a collection of what Julius Solaris, your host, thinks are the best tools to display live tweets at events.

5. Twitter Search + Firefox + ReloadEvery

Twitter Search is the visualization tool for the nostalgic twitter user and/or retro tweep. In order to make the page refresh automatically, Install Firefox add on ReloadEvery. If you don’t have Firefox probably you won’t read this because your browser has crashed in the meanwhile

Goods:
- Suits large screens
- Neat and detailed

Bads:
- Hard to read
- A bit dull, not fun.

4. TwitterCamp

We talked about TwitterCamp in the past. It’s a damn cool project and the fact it was implemented for a BarCamp and on an opensource basis makes it even cooler.

Goods:
- Highly Customizable
- Fun Interface

Bads:
- Could be slow in updates from time to time
- Looks like the project is not moving on

3. Twitter Fountain

What about that! Twitter Fountain looks slick and fancy. Very design oriented and definitely relevant to image conscious events.

Goods:
- Good looking Interface
- Clear and neat
- Flickr Integration

Bads:
- Embed only, does not work as a standalone page or software.

2. Twitterfall

Great Control with Twitterfall. You can play around with settings and have fun with customizing the experience.

Goods:
- Able to opt for a good speed of refresh
- Able to display ReTweets

Bads:
- Although highly customizable it still remains a bit dull

1. Visible Tweets

Visible Tweets is simply fantastic! This is what tweets at events should look like.

Goods:
It’s all good just go for it.

Bads:
Don’t see any.

As always remember to save it on delicious for future reference or to share it via StumbleUpon

Software:

- OurWeddingDay: Complete wedding planning, from task management to budget tools
- iDo Wedding Couple Edition: planning software complete of wordings and songs widget feature. Free 20-day trial
- EZ Wedding Planner: Free online wedding planner software
- Perfect TablePlan: As seen on this blog

Google Docs Wedding Templates

- Free Gantt with Google: As featured on this blog
- Guest List
- Photo Album
- Planner
- Budget Manager
- Checklist

Free online tools

- Wedding Mapper: Create free maps, add markers for your ceremony, reception, hotels, etc.
- Mrs To Be: Virtual wedding planner
- pingg: Create invites, send online or print, manage RSVPs…just brilliant!
- MyPunchbowl: Design invites, manage guest list, share memories after the party
- Complete Wedding Checklist: Basic yet effective

Website builders

- Momentville: Create your own free and carbon neutral website
- Weddingpath: Free wedding websites
- Wedding Websites: Free customizable websites creator

3 irriverent and out-of-the-ordinary inspirations

1. Set a Wii Corner and Guitar Hero Station
2. Tie the knot over Skype
3. Say ‘I do’ on Second Life

Online Gift Registries

- MyRegistry: Create your own gift registry from any store in the world. Includes Green Registries
- Buy our honeymoon: Self explanatory
- Wishpot: Free Honeymoon, Wedding and Bridal registries

Green Weddings

- Great Green Wedding
- Ecofriendly Weddings
- Offset Your Wedding

Photo Sharing & Photobooks

- Picasa
- Flickr
- Wedding Photo Swap
- Bob Books: Simple and straightforward to create the perfect photobook
- Smile Books: Great flexibility and Mac software availability is a plus!

Social Networks

- Planaganza: Social network and planning resource for all events. Special section on weddings.
- Get Married
- You and Your Wedding

YouTube

- How to create own wedding decorations
- Decorating for wedding reception table sizes
- Wedding bouquets creation demo

iPhone

- iWedding

Books (via amazon)

- Wedding Planner: Everything you need to plan your own wedding
- The Step by Step Guide to Planning Your Wedding
- Wedding Etiquette
- Organic Weddings
- Wedding Planning for Dummies
- Cyberbride: The Complete Online Guide to Planning Your Wedding

How it used to be

Ten years ago the basics use to be a great mix of performers, a great mix of sponsors and a great location.

It didn’t get further than that.

The job of running events was all about putting the three above together. Most of the times it wasn’t about quality, it was about budget.

Our point

Let us save you some time and get straight to the point, basics have changed.

Why?

- Because current economic environment sucks. Sponsors are not willing to give away generous portions of their budgets as they used to.
- Because networking, which is a great motivator for attending events, is happening for free both online and offline.
- Because technology is changing the way we consume events.
- Because the world we live in is not as it used to be. Or at least, we are now more aware of it.

What are the new basics?

1. A powerful concept
What made you pay the rent yesterday is not gonna work today. Putting names of famous speakers or performers is not enough anymore. You need to engage in new ways. The same old event structure means you failed.
Want two positive examples? Pecha Kucha and Unconference

2. Respect for the environment
If you don’t offer recycling, if you don’t source locally, if you are not sustainable, you failed.
Your environment is also your people.
If you don’t think about the disabled, if you prefer excluding instead of including, you failed.

3. Use of Technology
Technology is part of our lives, whether you like it or not. Although we notice a lot of people talking about it, we are not seeing a lot of implementations. If you only talk about it, you failed.
If you are running a conference for seniors and assume they don’t know what Linkedin is, you failed. I met online people from 20 to 80 years old. If you think events are separate from online communities, you failed.
If you don’t integrate online and offline, you are actually saying no to extra streams of revenue.

Who are you to tell me that?

Last time we talked about these issues we received aggressions, threats and a lot of anger.
We understand change is not easy to digest.
You should listen to us because we were talking about twitter when Lehman Brothers was still up.
We were stimulating user generated events when Linkedin had 20 million users (it is now 35 millions).
No it’s not easy to accept, but you have to deal with it and you have to do it soon.

Thanks to BrightTalk, we’ll host up to three 30-minutes webinars a month.

All the webinars are going to be free to join.

How does it work?

1. Subscribe for free to the Event Manager Blog Channel (see also below).

2. You will be then be able to click on the Attend button.

3. Webinars will last for no more than 30 minutes. 20 Minutes will be dedicated to our feature presentation and 10 Minutes to your Questions. This is possibly the coolest feature of the platform. So be ready to ask tons of questions.

4. We will also learn about others thanks to interesting polls during the virtual event.

5. What happens if you miss it? You will be able to go back and listen to the recorded version, but you will unfortunately miss the chance to ask questions.

The first Webinar

Successfully completing a large, complex project can bring you great personal, professional or financial rewards. Unfortunately these types of projects, by their very nature, also provide endless opportunities to go astray along the way.

Early failures can send motivation into a flop, doubts cloud clear thinking, and we don’t see the forest because of the trees. So what should we do? There are so many reasons to falter or do a bad job, that we can be drown into least one.

One of the keys to getting big projects done is to balance “Keep Your Eye on the Prize” with “Stay Focused on the Task”. It’s all about knowing when to flip the frame of reference from looking closely at individual tasks of a project, and when to look up and see the project’s grand sweep.

Shifts of focus between tasks and goals are needed. They can be done in this manner:

PHASE I: Taking the First Step

When taking the first step on the long road to your goal, it’s better you put greater focus on the destination. This increases self-control, and you’ll be more committed to the tasks at hand.

PHASE II: Tackling the Tasks

When the chance of failures is high, as it can be along your journey, focus on the individual steps. Comparing recent failure with the ultimate goal destroys motivation. Narrow focus to succeeding on the individual task. Stay task-focused. Think low-level.

Tip: You can use the Gtdagenda Next Actions to tackle your Tasks one after another.

PHASE III: The End in Sight

Once the tasks become easier or the end is in sight, a goal focus is once again the best approach to choose. It will increase your positive emotion, decrease negative emotions, and feel you are doing better.

Think of it like a 26 miles marathoner. Moments before the race, they look off into the distance and imagine how great it will be to cross the finish line. When the race starts, they just focus on the road, maintaining a steady a pace, conserving energy and hydrating themselves. Then, on the last few miles they have just one focus: the line.