Making a nearly impossible job possible New tools to aid your planning
are juggling the requisite bowling pins, saucers, brightly colored balls, knives and even a running chainsaw. Substitute the many components of a meeting that must be planned and managed for all of our juggler’s props and you have the realities and responsibilities of the meeting planner. Nothing can be dropped.
W
22
Miraculously, thousands of times a month and all over the world, meetings do take place as scheduled with only occasional adjustments due to unforeseen situations. That is because meeting planners carefully plan meetings. Planning is the key to their success. To make their job easier, planners need to have a planning tool that allows them to: ✓ Quickly create or modify their meeting plan ✓ Instantly adjust all of their task start/fi nish dates to coincide with the new event schedule ✓ Work in a web-based collaborative environment with their team and service providers ✓ Be very easy-to-use ✓ And, most importantly, be extremely cost-effective This is where I had my “aha” moment. I decided that I was going to try and fi nd that perfect application. I knew that I would be looking for a solution that had the power and familiarity of a spreadsheet and the accessibility of the web. I decided right away that planners do not need the complexities of a project management application. Overkill is the fi rst word that
comes to mind. That brought me to the next group of applications that come under the heading of task managers. While there are a few isolated exceptions, task managers only allow for the creation and management of individual tasks. Personally, I was looking for something that could work with templates that could be used over and over again. What I was really looking for was a checklist on steroids.
The Good News - The Bad News
Let’s start with the bad news fi rst. As you might expect, I was not able to fi nd the perfect solution. What I did do, the good news, was
discover two applications that could work together and meet all of a meeting planner’s requirements. On the spreadsheet side, I uncovered
MIDWEST MEETINGS SPRING 2010
henever I think of the job of a meeting planner, I cannot help but envi- sion this harried-looking person, standing on stage, juggling more things than what should be humanly possible. The juggler’s face is visibly contorted and covered with rivulets of sweat dripping off of their chin. I can see that they
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116