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.

I recently produced a checklist to make your event compliant with new technologies and trends. I also made a slideshow to make it more interactive.

Google just introduced a gadget to easily create Gantt charts.

The Google Docs Blog inform us that Gantt charts are now easy to create and shareable. If you mess up with offline spreadsheet you possibly want to look at this option.

Gantt charts are useful for a number of events, from wedding planning to conferences, from parties to fundraising events.

To be up and running in few moments:

- Get yourself a Google account. It can be whatever, Gmail, Youtube, Picasa, Google Reader, etc.

- Log into Google Docs

- Hit “New” -> “Spreadsheet”

- A new window will open with your brand new spreadsheet

- Click on “Insert”-> “Gadget”

- Scroll down and you’ll find a handy Gantt Chart option

- Follow the video above to create yours

Cons:

- It’s not the most advanced and precise software/online solution of Gannt

Pros:

- It does the job

- You can share it easily online and collaborate with your colleagues

Link to Google Docs Blog

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Mark just got me in the world of Mikons, a great way to communicate, but most of all a tremendous networking ice-breaker.

When you are networking reaching out to people at events it is always difficult to skim your targets. Most of us do that with appearances but possibly there is no worst method. There is a clear need to identify who is in front of you, at least in a simple way. If I am vegetarian, I want no meat lovers in my network, at least not for the night. Event professionals can definitely help in making things easier.

Introducing Mikons

“It’s an idea in the form of a picture” they say at their website. Nice. I want to know more.

How can you use Mikons to tell your story?

- Create or use a Mikon for your club
- Create or use a Mikon for your clan or guild
- your hobbies: biking, scrapbooking, book clubs, drinking, chess, reading, movies
- your beliefs: religion, political affiliation, gender identification,
- an experience or aspect of your personal story,cancer survivor, entrepreneur,
- a concept you want to share
- your preferences: paper or plastic? coffee or tea? vinyl or digital?

How can I use Mikons in my event?

During event registration, attendees get a custom sheet of iconic stickers that relate to the theme of the event and their personality traits. Event planners can create custom sheets for any type of event and personality traits or professional skills they wish to expose between attendees.

Planning my next networking event it’s definitely easier.

Link to MikonMixers

Setting the time for an event can be a bit of an hassle. Coordinating the needs of everyone involved is a tedious job and there are not many tools to help.

Gathergrid helps in polling the best time in an elegant fashion.

How does it work?

Needless to say that once you have found out your time amiando would be the best method to host your event.

Have a look and tell me what you think!

Link to Gathergrid

We love being organized and we love even more those tools that help us in being better Masters of Ceremony.

Getting things done is not a title of a book for us, neither a desired state: it’s a given.

David Seah released the Compact Calendar 2009. A nice template for you to print out and use for the rest of the year. It will make your workflow easier.

It comes in different versions according to your local holidays.

Download Compact Calendar via davidseah.com

Photo by: perhapstoopink

I know sometime this blog gets too techie. Open source, online platforms etc. For those who don’t want to struggle with complex platforms and so forth here are 5 free templates to use with Microsoft Excel and Open Proj.

WBS, Gantt and Budget. All in one

Download OpenProj and get this template I prepared for you.

Event Toolkit

Are you unsure on what to bring with you at your next event. Be it a wedding or a wine tasting tour you will find a great collection here.

Wedding Work Breakdown Structure

An all time favorite. WBS is a must for weddings.

Event Budget

A simple budget template from Microsoft

Marketing Campaign

A good template to track your marketing campaign for Excel

For more have a look here

I talked in the past about trying to find an open source, free and complete alternative to expensive EM software.  Well Amiando it’s the closest solution to that. They have released a new version of the already great platform. I must admit it kicks asses, to use an allegoric phrase.

Don’t get me wrong, I still think an open source solution would be great but these guys did exceptionally well.

Who should use Amiando?

Mostly those working with events up to 400 people, both professional and not. If you don’t want to bother yourself with messy accounting and looking for a straightforward solution, it does not get any better than this, should you organize a party, a meeting or a conference.

Flexibility

They created a module system in which you add the modules you need. That answers to one of the most painful issues with events. Every event needs different organizational tools. The platform is flexible enough to accommodate very different needs.

Ticketing

They started with the ticketing service and then expanded on that. They addressed the major issue with Paypal. A lot of organizers had troubles with using Paypal for ticketing. They keep Paypal as an option, but they developed their internal payment system in which they take care about everything, invoicing and International VAT charges included. Wow.

Web 2.0 and Social integration

Finally I don’t have the feeling of being in 1997 while looking at an online platform. These guys nailed the concept of integration with Social Media and Networks. You can actually add Youtube videos or Flickr photos. If you use Facebook you are pretty much used to that but in our field we are talking big news! You are actually able to share information on major social networking websites, get buttons to promote your event as well as

Support

There is a free of charge number to avoid mess ups.

Directions

Very easy just add the address of the location and a Google map.

Amiando Website

As I think that the best way to get EventManagerBlog content is via RSS feed, I decided to give away the pdf only to subscribers.

If you don’t know what RSS is visit this section.

There are two way you can subscribe to EventManagerBlog

- You can subscribe to all the content by clicking on the Full Feed icon at the top right corner of the page or alternatively you can click here

- You can subscribe to Partial Feeds by clicking to the small icon next to each category.

By subscribing to the Full Feed you will also get a Link Roundup. This is a weekly post with useful links I’ve found on the Internet and usually related to Event Management.

In order to get a copy of the Events Toolkit you should send an email to itsbeenalongtime (@) gmail (dot) com and tell me what was the best article you read on this blog?

I’ll reply to you with a copy of the Events Toolkit for you to enjoy!

This list is not complete and needs your participation to become thorough. So if you feel you want to add a link just contact me and I’ll put it straight away pointing out the person that sent it. Please use the contact me section also to report bad links and I’ll immediately try to solve the problem. Should you have general comments or want to suggest new sections, please use the comment form below. Do not post extra links in comments as I’d like to make the list complete.

There we go:

Basics

- What is a BarCamp?

Official Wikipedia description of what is a BarCamp

- What is an Open Creative Community

These guys are my personal heroes. They organized the Toronto Transit Camp and got this article published on the Harvard Business Review.

- The BarCamp Virgin’s Guide: Making the most of your first BarCamp new !!

Great guide by Vero, everyone should read it!

- What to expect at a Barcamp

The official BarCamp wiki gives info. Two articles about the Preparation and the Event day.

- The Rules of BarCamps

Few rules that I personally suggest to integrate with OST

- Previous BarCamp events

You need to have a look at what has been previously done. What tools have been used? How has the wiki been modified?

- The Open Grid

Some BarCamps have adopted this method to run the camp. I really like it personally.

- The BarCamp official Google Group

Where I got most of the inspiration. You’ll find great people in the group!

Get things done

- How to get Started

Great info for the planning stage. Sets you clear objectives and an idea of to do’s.

- The BarCamp Template

A great starting point. Not only for BarCamps but for any kind of event. Gives you a clear picture of what you need to evaluate.

- Making your BarCamp accessible

The most important for me. The concept behind Open Source is accessibility. You need to ensure that if you’re hosting any kind of event but even more if you’re up to a BarCamp.

- BarCamp Kit

Great information on what you should bring along when planning a camp

- Planning and Budgeting

Again BarCampLA planning and budget. Great information on what you need to consider.

- BarCampLA guide

BarCampLA has been a successful BarCamp. I was very inspired from their work. Have a look at how they managed audience education.

- Set up a free Mailing List

BarCamp Online Groups allows you to do that

How to’s

- 10 Steps on how to run a BarCamp

This is a great post with practical information. It really helped out. Great tips for promotion and wiki setting

- Advice on how to run a BarCamp

A great post with great information. I’d suggest it is more about telling you what your approach should be. It worked for me.

- Dummies Guide to BarCamp

Every respectful discipline has its own dummies guide. This one is particularly comprehensive and gives you precise tips based on an BarCamp experience. I loved the local approach of the post.

the (Pb)wiki

- On using the wiki

If you’re hosting a camp you’ll probably end up using pbwiki

- How to format the wiki page

Pbwiki formatting can be tricky I suggest to have a look at previous BarCamp events to get inspired

- Advanced Pbwiki Formatting

If you want to customize, insert a table of contents, change color of font and so forth.

Videos

- BarCamp Nashville

More than 530 people. They claim to be the first unconference!

- BarCamp Orlando - What is a BarCamp

A great video to explain what is a BarCamp. I’d use on of them to explain crucial things such as the wiki, the blog, the culture and the approach.

- BarCamp SF - What is BarCamp

Great interviews with people talking about BarCamps

- BarCampMilwaukee2

I really love this video. I think it gives you a clear idea of what happens ina Camp

- BarCampLondon

A very useful collection of videos on this Camp as well as the future of BarCamps

Twitter

- Get yourself a twitter account

- Tell people to use #eventname when talking about you and add @hashtags for aggregation

- Use Twittercamp to see what it is being twitted during the event

External resources

- amiando

Great tool to manage regular events as well as camps

- MeetUp

Some camps use MeetUp to manage interaction and meetings

- Project Management Resources

What I’ve collected for your project management needs.

- Ustream

We’ve set up and run 2 rooms to broadcast the event. Nice and easy with the chance to moderate comments and to interact in a chat. If viewers have their own channel they can be added to the show making it a video conference.