Event Technology is best used when it supports event planners. It is shiny and all bells and whistles when we place it in the hands of our attendees and stakeholders and in the most part it is fantastic for them! But I can’t see past it when it allows planners to be more creative and to add more value. Nowhere can event technology add more value than when it is doing things for us (sometimes while we sleep). It’s funny to think that if you set your technology up correctly it can be working away 24/7.

With so many things to do when event planners put on their events we really should be squeezing everything out of our event technology. So let’s get technology to work for us. Let’s get it to automate our administrative tasks and our logistical challenges. Automation: the event planners new best mate.

Event Technology Automation

So if you are in favour of some more technological support the first thing you should do is see if your current event technology can do more for you. The odds are that it can, and it can do it big style!

The second thing to do is to change your event technology if it is not heavily automated. Yes, this is how important automation is for the event planner: if your major platforms are not able to be automated then it is time to change.

The 80% – 20% rule

The biggest success I have in adding value when supporting planners in other organisations is to help them reduce the amount of administrative tasks. I often find there is a 80/20 rule and I look to switch that round. We want to move from 80% of your time spent on admin and logistics – where I am guessing it may be for some of you – to only 20% of your time.

I often find planners who spend 80% of their day not adding any real value to their events: 80%!!!!! it really can be this much of an average planners day. These planners are of course working exceptionally hard running their events but they are doing many of the things that a great automated platform can do.

So can I suggest that before you read on you take just 10 seconds to have a think and scribble down how much of your time you believe is spent dealing with pure logistics and administration………………Be honest! If it’s more than 20% then you probably have scope for your new best mate, your automate.

Of course it’s not all solved by automating some tasks but it does go along way to shifting the scales in your favour. When we use technology to switch these figures around we have 80% of your time for tasks that add value to your attendees. And trust me when I say that event technology can help you do this and automation is the key.

Through event technology like on line payment and registration platforms we are able to automate a whole host of tasks. We can:

– upon registration automate confirmations and joining instructions

– automate invoices and automatically drop income into budgets

– automate sending of reports to our boss and other stakeholders and

– automate delegate communications by email and by social media

How much can automation do for you?

We can all shift uncomfortably when we think that we are not working as efficiently as we can. We know we are working hard but I think we all know that we can probably work a wee bit smarter.

So just for a moment picture the tasks you do in your job. Think about how often you sit in the middle of things between speaker and attendee or stakeholder and another third party, without really adding any value? Be brave and ask yourself: how often do you find yourself for example; passing on delegate catering requirements to the venue; uploading speakers presentations on behalf of speakers; sending exhibitor furniture requirements to the suppliers or giving delegate feedback to speakers, sponsors or exhibitors. Have you recently sat in front of your screen late in an evening uploading dozens of call for paper submissions and coordinating hundreds of reviews and thinking………..why am I doing this? Where’s my mate? My auto mate. 

All of the tasks above and many, many others create very little value and planners are too creative to be doing things that event technology can do for us. So let event technology take the strain. Allow event technology to unshackle your creativity. Take a step back and spend some time with your technology to see what tasks can be automated. Why not give the support number a call and ask them a simple question:

“I just want to see if there is anything that the platform can do for me that will save me some time. Any suggestions?”

You can also look at your processes and think how can you remove yourself from the task? I’ve found that on many occasions it is much easier than you think.

Your task is to free up that time to be more creative and to add more value; leave the other tasks to your mate.