The Red Wagon

Pecking Order

The days are long gone when a person's title meant something; not everyone agrees. Sure I'm willing to concede business titles such as CEO, CFO, COO tend to carry some weight but even they are prone to fall short with respect to helping communicate "what" a person does. And that's the point - a job title should say something, it should hold some meaning, otherwise it's not helpful. I find this to be true in the event industry. When meeting other event professionals I've come across many diffe...

Business Uses for Twitter

Update: Want to get the most out of Twitter? follow Darren Rowse or visit www.twitip.com Article: I highly recommend this article by Jodi Mardesich (Inc.). I think it's important to understand the value and limitations of social networking tools with respect to event marketing. Many people cram event promo down their friends digital throats and that is the exact opposite of how Web 2.0 works. Authentic conversations and newsy content sharing is at the heart of this medium; event produc...

The Trouble with Sponsorship

The most common question I'm asked by emerging event planners is: why are sponsors so hard to find? My answer is simple (and hopefully helpful): Sponsors are hard to find when there's no relationship in place. If the right relationship has been established then the ask should be tailored and simple. There's only two reasons to pursue sponsorship: 1) the need for revenue, and 2) the need for an audience. A sponsorship "ask" implies that an organization wants to, or needs to, share their hard e...

Business Building

This is my favourite time of year as an event producer. The big rush of summer is over and all my large annual projects are behind me and I can focus on the non-urgent but very important items of business that just don't make the "A" list during the busy times. This coincides with the best time of year for me: Fall. Autumn is not only beautiful in Vancouver (warm, sunny, and colourful trees) but it's also my wedding anniversary so it's nice to have some downtime. I'm a pretty wired guy though an...

I Love it When a Plan Comes Together

Way back in grade six I was a huge fan of the A-Team... so big in fact that I even had the lunch box. Watching Faceman and B.A. Baracus mess-up those bad guys was a great way to unwind from a stressful day in the classroom and the pressure of practicing my Corey Hart lip sink act for the all-school air band competition. However, it was Hannibal (Col. John Smith) who made that show one of my all-time favorites (Knight Rider and Air Wolf were #2 and #3). What inspired me about his character was th...

The Emperor’s Planner

Don't worry - this is NOT a techy post. Though a Microsoft logo usually scares the creative spirit out of most of us I wanted to make sure that I gave credit to the application that has made my life easier. SharePoint is a program that works like a secure blog for your event project. For each client (or project) you can have a dedicated landing page, post comments, host discussions, create calendar items, upload images and documents, assign tasks, you name it! It's really a virtual office for yo...

Zigzag

Welcome to the Red Wagon Management blog. This blog is dedicated to those professionals who are committed to producing the most creative, strategic, and systematic event management imaginable. If this describes you then you already know that you're not travelling in the same direction as so many other event planners out there. There seems to be a common practice of simply helping making events "happen" instead of creating a memorable experience for attendees and remarkableresults for the clie...