Events are complex beasts that flop or fly based on how well they’re organised. There is so much that comes with just experiencing what works, what is a disaster and what has potential, but using the best resources available to you is one way to ensure you are helping yourself out from the moment of an events inception.
Now, there are some organisations who take a lot of this in house and curate systems which have tailor made functionality based on needs and accepted processes. From my own experience some of these are great and some are clunky and quickly become outdated, despite best intentions they aren't always user friendly or intuitive. Other organisations spend time and money investing in cutting edge technology and training, this is also great but it’s not attainable for across the board.
Setting myself up as a freelancer has made me evaluate my resources in detail, and I’ve come to the conclusion that each client will have their own expectations and I can’t cater to them all at once. What I can do is remember that I have broad experience of difference systems and databases and adapt quickly. The other thing I can do is remember which tools are easily accessible, user friendly, intuitive, produce or enhance high quality work and which are ideally free.
I’ve listed a few below and talked about what makes them work, you’ll see there is a running theme and it’s probably not what you think.
Trello is a fantastic project management platform that has basic or enhanced settings. At this point it’s been around long enough that it has a huge number of users who have experimented with optimising its functionality. For me, I find it’s the easiest way to keep a team informed of one and others movements within their remit for a project or event — because let’s face it, constant email chains of updates are hard to keep track of and frustrating to manage. It’s also a great way to coordinate availability where a shared calendar isn’t an option. It’s easy to access and intuitive to use. This is a 10/10 application regardless of organisation size.
Canva is pretty widely used now. Again, there is an upgrade option which widens the readily available content that you can use, but the basic plan is still really usable. It’s in essence a design platform with templates for everything from business cards to social media posts and event fliers. You can choose from different design elements, pictures or artwork, and different fonts and layouts. It stores the designs for you on your profile or you can download your designs where needed. You can choose elements and then save them with an transparent background, then use your own computer software to isolate them and incorporate into Microsoft publisher documents for example. If you need the higher resolution files you will need to upgrade. You can also share resources as part of a ‘team’, meaning you only need to pay one upgrade fee with mutliple users. Along with the upgrade comes a social media scheduling tool, which takes a huge load off your planning shoulders.
Microsoft 365 is a classic and there’s a surprising amount that you can accomplish just with Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Where you don’t have the luxury of Publisher, you can use Word — albeit with a bit more patience and knowledge of how to use grid lines and text boxes so that they align beautifully. Excel is my ultimate go to programme for organisation whenever I’m starting a project. There are a myriad of templates you can use or you can compose and save your own template for use time and time again. With a bit more knowledge you can apply formulas that synchronise your data across sheets. Don't worry you don't have to be a spreadsheet genius, you can honestly google easy to follow instructions to make your work shine.
Google forms is the free and easy way to compose evaluative forms for data collection. What’s great about Google forms is that you don’t have to be a coding expert to make it function and at the end it will compile the data for you into spreadsheets, graphs and charts so you have a visual point of reference. The drawback is that it has quite a low capacity for collection and so if you need a form for larger distribution then you're best sticking to survey monkey.
If you have resources, then adobe obviously host several brilliant platforms, photoshop and acrobat being the most useful.
And a little note for my fellow Welsh freelancers, I grew up in Wales and so have some rudimentary sentence structures. I am currently learning Welsh with Dysgu Cymraeg, which incidentally is brilliant and incredibly affordable, but it’s not fast. The Welsh Government run a programme called Helo Blod where they will translate 500 words per month, free of charge. (Please do not be tempted into using Google translate and expect it to understand the nuances of the language enough to fool anyone. Best avoided completely but sometimes needs must.)
Did you notice the link between each resource? Simplicity. It cannot be overstated how keeping things simple is the best way to keep your working practices efficient and effective, the more complicated things are the higher the risk of finding yourself burrowing down rabbit hole on a Friday afternoon trying to work out what's gone awry.
It's worth adding that as a neurosparkly thinker, I love to have something tangible on the go and so I am a lover of the hand written, colour coded, list too. I won't get started on post-it walls because I feel like that's a post of its own
So, that's my list. It's not intended to be exhaustive, but in my opinion it's a great place to start. Are there any tools or resources that you swear by? I'd love to know, so please do leave a comment!
Comments