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 your event project!

When I was working out my business plan to start my own event management company a couple years ago I asked companies who have hired event professionals in the past what they wanted to know about their planned event and all of them said “everything”. The more I poked around I discovered that event planners often keep a lot of critical information to close to their chest, or worse, in their e-mail inbox or just in their head. Clients often get told “it’s all being taken care of” in lieu of actual status reports or access to project tracking. Well, as far as I’m concerned, that’s a bit like dressing the emperor with air instead of fine silk.

SharePoint is designed to be installed on your server but if you’re like me then you don’t have a server and you wouldn’t even know how to get or use one. I recommend using the online service available through www.apptix.com – there’s a monthly fee but it’s worth it (just include it in your quote). If you’re looking for something a bit more managerial then try the project tracking wonders of www.smartsheet.com - their free trial package is actually pretty good. At minimum use Google Docs. My expectation is that by making the project details available to the stakeholders 24/7 then they won’t need to e-mail or phone me very often and that’s a great thing. It’s less for me to “do” because we all know that  that taking long phone calls and processing e-mail doesn’t actually get a lot of work done.  

At the end of the day the goal is to be transparent with your client. Keeping them updated on the details of the project empowers them to better understand the value of hiring you and makes them an expert on the event which they’re are ultimately accountable for. Educating stakeholders is part of an event managers job and by removing dependancies on e-mail, conference calls, and long in-person meetings, while at the same time putting critical project information at everyone’s finger tips, will make your life easier and make you look like the professional that you truly are.