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3 Ways to Marry Event Technology With Productivity

If there’s one word at the top of everyone’s list in the event industry, it’s simplicity. After all, you’ve got enough to worry about without added complications: the call for entry, judging period, and awards gala, to name a few.

While you can always add more staff members, outsource more processes, or take on more of the burden yourself to lessen the actual (and hypothetical) load, it’s best to turn somewhere else: technology.

Technology can be a blessing and a curse for both efficiency and productivity. There is a lot of technology available now, especially for event planning. But with too much technology comes the potential to get overwhelmed, distracted, or, worse yet, invest in tools that seem important at the time but aren’t.

Used correctly, technology can make you and your team the most productive you’ve ever been. Read on to learn three tips to maximize productivity with technology and the effects you can expect when you do so.

1. Use the Free, Effective Resources You Already Have

Most think of event technology as something entirely separate from social media, but it’s not. In fact, what you’re already using to publish and manage your social media presence can increase productivity as well.

Here are just some of the many ways you can utilize existing technology to your best advantage:

• Facebook – 60% of people discover events through their Facebook News Feed. Creating an official Facebook event for your upcoming engagement is a simple way to capture already-existing interest on a platform you’re familiar with.
• Hootsuite – Hootsuite consolidates your social networks into one, convenient dashboard. This allows you to schedule messages across platforms, significantly reducing the time it takes to manage your online presence while expanding your reach. Now that’s productive!
• Zapier – If you have redundant tasks, you need Zapier. It’s a freemium app you can customize to manage tedious tasks like data entry, connect apps, and automate multiple tasks. For example, you can create a “Zap” to add attendees to your email marketing list, CRM, and a Google sheet, no effort required.

2. Make Less Meetings More Effective

On average, employees attend 62 meetings each month, half of which are considered a waste of time and 31 hours of which take up your employee’s time they could spend doing other, more important things. And, while you may think you need more meetings as your event planning heats up, you don’t. In fact, it’s better to limit your meetings and adopt more productive meeting habits to make your organization more efficient.

Here are a few tech-based strategies you can use to make meetings more productive:

• Centralize Meeting Information – Using an app like Asana makes it simple to publish and share a meeting agenda. More importantly, the app allows you to assign tasks during the meeting to ensure you get through everything quickly and don’t miss something by mistake.
• Use Email for Quick Updates – You don’t need a meeting to share all updates. If you can provide one via email or another centralized location, such as Eventbrite’s Event Management Software or OpenWater’s Awards Management System, do so.
• Create Regular “Status Updates:” Have staff members provide status updates on tasks awaiting completion. Doing so in a centralized location will reduce the need for additional meetings and will keep up momentum on open projects.

3. Invest in a Management System

There’s room for improvement in any organization’s productivity. Whether you feel as if yours is lapsing, or feel as if there are tasks you could do better, OpenWater’s all-in-one software program for awards program management, much like Eventbrite’s Event Management Software does for selling event tickets and tracking sales, can help.

A management system increases productivity in a number of key ways:

• Everything You Need in One Place – Entrant, judge, chair, and administrator tasks are all managed in one, fully integrated solution.
• Train Once – Because every task is centralized in one system, your staff, judges, and other users only have to go through the growing pains once.
• Does the Work for You – A management system filters emails to the right recipients, consolidates judging, and automatically calculates scores and more. This frees up time for you to focus on other, more important tasks.

The beauty of automation, particularly in a management system, is that there’s no guesswork, you can eliminate any lingering task redundancies, and you can do so with the support of a knowledgeable staff.

No Matter Your Productivity Needs, There’s a System for That

Technology continues to grow more complicated, but please: keep it simple stupid! You already own and implement a variety of apps, programs, and other tools you can leverage to make your organization more productive. More importantly, you can take this productivity one step further by investing in software that does all of the work for you.

Want more information about Eventbrite’s Event Management Software or our Awards Management System? Check out both to see how you can kick productivity up another notch (because with the right technology, it’s possible)!

Ashley Surinak

Ashley Surinak is the resident OpenWater expert on all things content. From the blog to guides and beyond, you'll find her at every turn in your OpenWater journey.

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