Tech solution needed:
Corey asked me to post this dilemma i told him about a few weeks ago, which he has been thinking about but can’t up with a solution to. Hopefully his savvy blog followers will have suggestions for a program.
Here’s the email:
I need to find an easier method/ program for doing my work.As i’m developing a conference, the agenda, done in word, is constantly changing. I move sessions all around, change the times, etc. here are examples of inefficiencies that take up tons of time— If I change the start time by 10 minutes, i have to go back and change all the time slots for the whole program to reflect it. i would love to plug in “Private equity 101, 45 minutes” and have all the times automatically change if I drag it to a new position on the agenda.— If i swap an hour long session and a 45 minute presentation, i have to change all the subsequent start times— I have 3+ different versions, because for example the version i send to sales can’t show potential speaker names. I would love to have one single copy and then elect if I want to include speaker names/ session details/ just titles, etc. Right now if i make one change to my master which includes all the speakers i have sent invites out to, i need to make all changes manually in multiple word docs.there HAS to be a program out there, right?
Any ideas? Obviously it would be possible to code something up with Word macros, but this should be a self maintaining for a non-technical user.
excuuuuse me? Non-technical? I believe i used to hold the title of Tech Support!
The answer is to work in Excel. It would be easy to hide and delete columns you don’t want to display. It has lots of functions related to time. You could put each session on a row, enter in the number of minutes, and then have Excel calculate the start and end times.
corey, could you help me with that, that sounds like a good idea, thanks!
Hire a personal assistant to do all of this for you. Need to change a time? Not your problem to update the agenda anymore, it’s the assistant’s problem.
The excel is absolutely the way to go, I can send Corey a version of a timed agenda that has the basic code and structure already built into it if you’d like.
Dave