8 Favorite New Resources

Herb gardens at the Downtown
Grand Las Vegas (yes they
use these!)

Over the past year I have come across some great resources for (sustainably minded and tech forward) event professionals and it is time to share.  I look forward to any comments back that include your favs!  I have looked beyond my norm of the twitter feeds and LinkedIn forums and the more obvious daily or weekly reads which for me land in my inbox and which I explore by time and headline – like most of us! These include the PCMA Daily, EventTechBrief, BizBash, MeetingsNet, EventsUncoveredTV, #EventTech, TechsyTalk, EventManagerBlog, MeetingsPodcast(now also found on MeetingsNet), Skift, Padracino and a few more. These are all worthy of finding time to explore and are also mentioned on many other great lists.  Below are others which all have positive impact for me and our industry - and possibly YOU so have fun discovering those you might not be familiar with.

Blogs

Fuel: Passions that Drive Us is Liese Gardner’s ode to doing, seeking and sharing what we love and in every word ,she nails it.  

Eventcellany by Shawna McKinley always leaves me feeling as an individual (and we are as an industry) are still on the very cusp of truly doing events more sustainably – and provides thoughtful steps to help us all – working together – finding ways to improve.

Podcasts

GatherGeeks by BizBash launched in 2015 and I have listened to each episode where I have found the in-depth interviews to be an excellent source of forward thinking ideas and how to apply these to events.  It is an auto-download on Stitcher for me and I catch up on the way to work.  (monthly)

Sustainable Living by Jenise Fryatt and Marianne West

For those of us trying to do it a little better every day, this is full of useful tidbits and is truly from their hearts.

Books

Trending Topic - We have to do Something with Social Media #ButWhat by Gerrit Heijkoop and Paula Vos is defined as a management novel. What this offers to the reader who wants to learn more about using social media to promote your events and strengthen your association community is a highly readable romp through the anxiety ridden days in the planning process where you don't know how you will get your registration numbers where they need to be. This provides usable information and more importantly context –the WHY to use social media as one of your tools.  A refreshing change from the usual checklist format we often find this type of information offered in.

X: the Experience where Business meets Design by Brian Solis is masterfully designed and a great study into marketing across all spectrums with a focus on the digital. While not directly about events the principles can be applied in many ways across your business as well as experiential events.  I wish all informational books were this beautiful.

The Third Plate by Dan Barber delves deeper into the stories behind two of my favorite TedTalks by this thoughtful Chef and the story of his farm, restaurant and mission to change the way we think about food - production,distribution, waste and how we can all participate in this most human of topics.

Visual Strategic Tool

The Event Model Generation is an in-depth and well thought out multi-part tool developed over the last two years. I have worked on many events and conferences over the years and it is rare that I do these events with a deep understanding of the WHY and what the true desired outcomes of the varied stakeholders are.  This is a tool designed to ensure that every member of the team has this information at hand as they work through this and other important questions, and finish with a visual map on one page - the storyboard of this generation - before they bring the magic to life.