If you are running an event to raise money by selling tickets for the people of Haiti, please email scott@eventzi.com so you dont have to pay event fees.
You can see the most up to date news on the Haiti earthquake here.
2009 has been some year at Eventzi. We launched in March and started working hard on version 2. We have grown more than we predicted with hundreds of events being set up. We ended 2009 having learned a lot about what you need to be better. We have seen hundreds of unique events that we couldn't have imagined when we started.
We want to say thank you for the amazing growth we’ve had, we’re looking forward to making your events better and full of the features you need in 2010. Happy New Year! ScottNow, more than ever, we need to shake things up.
Now, more than ever, we need a different way of thinking, a useful way to focus and the energy to turn the game around. I hope a new ebook I’ve organized will get you started on that path. It took months, but I think you’ll find it worth the effort. (Download here).
Here are more than seventy big thinkers, each sharing an idea for you to think about as we head into the new year. From bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert to brilliant tech thinker Kevin Kelly, from publisher Tim O’Reilly to radio host Dave Ramsey, there are some important people riffing about important ideas here. The ebook includes Tom Peters, Fred Wilson, Jackie Huba and Jason Fried, along with Gina Trapani, Bill Taylor and Alan Webber.
Here’s the deal: it’s free. Download it here. Or from any of the many sites around the web that are posting it with insightful commentary. Tweet it, email it, post it on your own site. I think it might be fun to make up your own riff and post it on your blog or online profile as well. It’s a good exercise. Can we get this in the hands of 5 million people? You can find an easy to use version on Scribd as well and from wepapers. Please share.
Have fun. Here’s to a year with ideas even bigger than these.
Here’s a lens with all the links plus an astonishing array of books by our authors.
NEW BONUS: A different coop ebook, (click for free download) this time with contributions from authors that include JC Hutchins, Cory Doctorow, Joseph Finder and Chris Brogan.
This is the 2nd video from Loic, after they have set up a lot more of the Le Web venue. I watched some of Le Web live and the live video on Ustream was flawless.
Well done!
Jason Keath has put together a great list of social media tools for event planning, over at Mashable.
I mentioned in their comments that I like what Ustream are doing. They have been doing an amazing job with big events, the Le Web stream was exceptional. Once everyone gives them a shot i really think it could be the tool that helps local events to grow. A small event, that can host 200 people, can now attract more viewers online than could fit into their venue, its exciting. Eventzi will be a part of it all. Its an exciting time for event hosts, you have a great selection of tools and we will do our best, to be the best event tool available, especially with Eventzi Version 2.0.Telling stories, especially on the web is powerful, Gary V is great at it.
This is a quick video of the huge LeWeb room getting setup and ready for the 2,200 participants from 46 countries this year. Loic is fantastic. Good Luck!
Not Good Enough
Last month we got a slap in the face by one of our users and rightly so. It was for a problem with Eventzi and as we went along more problems popped up.
When people tried to buy tickets, certain email addresses would get a message saying, “please enter a valid email address”. It turned out that the issue was due to our team blocking email addresses with full stops in the first part of the email e.g. scott.purdie@purdie.com, because the top email providers dont allow it, however commercial businesses do. The problem affected the hosts ticket sales, which isnt good at all.
After the initial investigation, more problems were hitting this user with buttons disappearing due to upgrades the team made without seeing changes i had made. Then when we had that sorted the credit card option wasn’t appearing and the event host had to change settings on PayPal.
Problem was, we were poor at communicating from start to finish. We didn’t communicate well with the person who initially reported the problem (its should have been acknowledged within an hour, the problem made clear a lot earlier and it shouldn’t have been a problem at all. Superb customer service is a constant target.
Improving
After reviewing what went wrong, we have reworked our internal process for dealing with problems. We will acknowledge the problem asap, then get every single detail possible, then work on it until its fixed with updates each day for the user.
After a fresh slap in the face has done us the world of good, it became clear that the processes we were using were wrong. We should give new users a guide to getting started when they sign up, while setting the right expectations from the start. Problems should be communicated and solved with less pain.
Adobe Photoshop is the most powerful editing software for images. It has a lot of great features and can be used by professionals or amateurs. If you need to do something on photoshop, a quick google search will uncover a range of tutorials, the YouTube videos are best.
However, Photoshop is very expensive and not everyone can afford it. However there are free alternatives to Photoshop. If you want to edit images for your event please consider GIMP. Once you get past the name, its all good.
GIMP is the most popular free alternative to Photoshop. It works on Windows, Mac and Linux. You can download it here.
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On our Twitter account we promote Seth Godin’s genius every day, I don’t use genius lightly either, I am serious.
Today he released a hot blog post called the best new way to make an internal sale. You can get your attendees to do the talking, this is brilliant.
Twitter / eventzi