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

We had a great web conference (aka conversation) last night about the use of technology within events. It is recorded in the Event Manager Blog Channel for your use. We were overwhelmed with questions and we are looking forward to answering them on next events.

A graph to sum it up

The highlight of the night was a graph outlining the time and budget required to do both: promoting your event on Social Media and embedding social media and extra technology to events.

Here it is:

We are so proud of this graph, really. It sums up tons of information coming from top new media sources and our hands on experience with events.

How to interpret the graph?

Easy peasy Japanese.

On the axis you have Budget levels and on the series the amount of time required to be effective.

Comments? Thoughts? Shameless appreciation? Use the comment section below.

As part of the late venture with amiando, we sparked a series of user generated events across the world, to display the power of our online community.

Obviously clever people were listening, they implemented what we pioneered and are now getting great successes.

Photo by b_heyer via Flickr

We feel good about it, because we creatively shared that.

Good News

Good news is that we are sharing right now as we speak and we are way forward compared to what’s going on right now. It’s a fact.

Leave us alone

We strongly suggest you unsubscribe from this blog if you are perpetrating practices of a distant past.

On the other hand, if you like challenges we have few suggestions for you:

- We think that Pecha Kucha is the way to go.

- We think that technology should be part of the present event industry as it increases streams of revenue while decreasing intangibility of the event in itself.

Start now

If you read this blog you are well aware of new trends and whatever is going on with Event Planning 2.0, but make sure:

- You read most of it, search categories and get out of your comfort zone.

- Interact, commenting on each post.

- Engage in our communities, specially on Linkedin where we are more than 6500 (yeah you remember when we were 400).

- Get in touch directly with Julius, if you want targeted guidance with your project.

Name: Pathable

Twitter: @pathable

Category: Networking

Description: Pathable allows organizers (which is you) to set up a community for their event. It enables networking with a powerful tagging system.

Your attendees are able to identify their interests and match them with others.

Networking begins before the event. To us this is one of the strongest contribution technology deliver to events. Networking is indeed one of the top reasons to attend events. Therefore you can do the math.

What I like: You can print out special badges carrying on your name as well as those of the people you should meet. The platform works out matching profiles, breaking ice in a powerful fashion.

What could be better: Stronger integration with LinkedIn and Facebook. We don’t want to fill in a new profile given the amount of time we spent to generate our official ones. Help us with a one click import.

Want to improve your event technology? We can help you

Here is yet another free list that will help you to be more productive.

Remember to save it in your del.icio.us for future reference and to let others know through StumbleUpon.

Project Management Software

- OpenProj and our template

- OpenWorkbench

- dotProject

- Vitalist

- GanttProject

- Project2Manage

- Redmine

- ProjectThingy

- ProjectPier

- Qtask

- Basecamp

- WhoDoes

- GanttPV

- Faces

- PHProjekt

- TeamSCOPE

- NetOffice

- TaskJuggler

- GroupTweet

- JoinContact

To do lists

- Remember The Milk

- Ta-da List

- Zoho Planner

- HiTask

- Blist

- Listphile

- Wipee List

- Toodledo

- Bla-bla List

- Tudu Lists

Mind Mapping

- mind42

- XMind

- bubbl.us

- Wisdomap

- Mindomo

Paper

- PocketMod

- Compact Calendar 2009

- Concrete Goal Tracker

- Task Progress Tracker

- Task Order Up

Blogs

- Lifehacker

- Dumb Little Man

- 43 Folders

- David Seah

- Zen Habits

- Lifehack

- To-Done

- Tim Ferriss

- LifeDev

- LifeClever

Presentations

- Inbox Zero

- Social Project management

- The PM Process

- PM: State of the art

- The clutter is in your mind

- Managing teams

- Stop Wasting Time

- The 4 hour Workweek

- 7 Habits of highly Ineffective People

- Social Productivity Tips

Books

- Getting Things Done

- The 4-hour Work Week

- Brilliant Project Management

- Lifehacker

- Mastering the Art of Delivery in PM

- The Power of Less

- Mind Performance Hacks

- The Definitive Guide to PM

- Project Management for Dummies

- 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

iPhone

- Getting Tasks Done

- GTD Wallpaper

- reQall

- do.Oh

- EasyTask Manager

Blackberry

- Got-2

- Pocket Express

- Google Sync

- iSkoot

- gRef

Online Communities

- Gantthead

- IT Toolbox

- Professional PM Networkign Group

- 43 Folders

- David Allen’s GTD

A little bit more indulgence. Hard days of researching to bring you effective tools for your event planning business or career.

Download them on your PC, ipod, pda and read them. I am sure you will get inspired and remember that every little bit counts.

Management

1. Practical Project Management
2. Event Management Tips and Guidance for Success
3. A Project Management Primer or “a guide to making projects work (v2.0)”

Planning

4. Event Planning Checklist
5. Event Planning Guide – Successful Meeting and Convention Planning
6. Inclusive and Accessible special Event Planning

Wedding Planning

7. Wedding Planning Workbook

Fundraising

8. Fundraising Guide for NGOs
9. Volunteer Management Practices and Retention

Networking

10. The 10 Mistakes We Make at Networking Events and How to Avoid Them
11. Smart Networking: End the Resistance, Prepare for Success and Get 24/7 Results Without the 24/7 Effort

Marketing

12. The Effects of Sponsorship and Experience on Customer Attitudes
13. How to Write a Marketing Plan
14. The New Rules of Viral Marketing : How word-of-mouse spreads your ideas for free
15. Let’s Talk. Social Media for Small Businesses

Linkedin yesterday introduced a new event section, here are the first impressions

If you use Linkedin and follow me on twitter, you know I have been talking about Linkedin introducing http://events.linkedin.com thanks to Brian pointing that out.

Up until yesterday nobody knew what the section was for. Linkedin is very popular within the community for not talking to users but just announcing changes in a oligarchic style. This was no exception.

So what happens is that yesterday I saw magically appearing on the right hand side of the screen an “Events” widget.

No news here as if you are on Xing they have a super cool event section as well as an ambassador program with Xing official events (1st in UK on Nov 25, 2008 in London)

I started to add the events for the Linkedin Event Planning & Management Group as well as ecoCamp and an online free seminar I am running on how to improve your career using Linkedin.

The RSVP section is also an highlight. You can point out whether you are presenting, exhibiting, attending or organizing.

In your My Events section you have some stats about the events you are running.

The event section is very well done. You have extensive tag area, a description and you can highlight the job roles interested in the event. When I added ecoCampLondon which has an RSVP in place on EventBrite the system automatically filled in the fields which is a great thing.

There is a promotional section where you can forward the event to your connections. What a disappointment to discover you can send it to a maximum of 10 connections, may work for a pub crawl though.

In the Browse Events Section they talk about Premium Event Opportunities. At the moement you can just send an email, which I did obviously with no reply (why not a messenger pigeon then?)

My first impressions in the end are mixed.

On one hand I welcome the long awaited change. It took Linkedin 3 years to realize events are a huge chunk of online networking.

On the other hand, I am simply getting tired of Linkedin not getting in touch with its user base. I expected they got in touch with our/their community of almost 4000 event professionals to get feedback on how to develop the service.

What’s your opinion? Have you tried the service?

I’ll also ping Jason Alba, a Linkedin guru, to tell us his experience and thoughts.

The Slideshare love continues. Here is another one on how to promote your event offline.

One of the most crucial aspect of event promotion is what you do offline. This is a handy template you can use as checklist.

CitySocialising is a great local service to help beating the personal barriers that prevent you from getting a better job, improving your social life, being active. Apart from that, it is an awesome threat to traditional event professionals.

Jo is organising Sunday lunch Hampstead and walk and has invited you to attend.

Graham is organising 18-20s west end drinks! and has invited you to attend.

Kelly is organising Cocktail tasting class and has invited you to attend.

I don’t know who Jo, Graham or Kelly are but hey, these events are cool! Usually these kind of mail makes it very quickly to my Spam folder but in this instance I just can’t do it. The events are very relevant, targeted on my area and to my needs. What if I’ll get a special invitation tomorrow to an unmissable event?

What is it?

I had the chance to have a look at how Sanchita, the CEO, explains the reasoning behind CitySocialising.com:

The idea for CitySocialising came from our research into the social requirements of professionals living and working in UK cities. We found that a huge percentage of those in their 20s and 30s were particularly interested in meeting people in London and expand their circle of friends, and identified that this was because:

- There’s a higher likelihood of people in this age group relocating to new cities for work or with partners, arriving with none or few friends in the area.
- Existing friends are more likely to be settling in relationships or moving away in their 20s & 30s, meaning that finding new friends to socialise with is more appealing.
- Social lives can become stale, or social circles dissipate after relationship breakdowns, and opportunities to meet new people are reduced.
- Increasing demands at work allows less time to organise the social lives that suit them.

I can immediately tell you this is not like Meetup.com.

Well, first of all you need to pay to attend members events. At the very beginning I thought this was not a good idea. 30K members in the UK answered my question though. Money is indeed a good way to test motivation and they priced very well.

Secondly they select event hosts in their user base.

Why should you care?

- If you got out from the “I am a professional planner and there is no one as cool as me, or if there is, I got better shoes” attitude, you realized your competition is now users. If you got skills you can make your way into whatever community, if you don’t … well, if you are still reading, I am sure you do!

- You should explore the pricing. I told you free is the new black, almost free is fine, giving the perception it is for free relying on an upfront payment it’s interesting.

- If your brand is out of ideas and you don’t know how to develop existing as well as new relationships, follow this suggestion. Throw your Kotler in the garbage because things are changing fast and only the skilled are taking advantage. Do your research, sponsor user generated events and you will develop intimate connections with your customers.

Link to CitySocialising.com

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Twitter is becoming a big part of events, I suggest you keep yourself up to date.

Link to How to use live twitting and tweets in events

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