Is there a mobile tech solution for event planners?

February 9, 2020 7:59 PM

I am a event organizer/program coordinator and need a mobile tech solution to keep track of my to-do lists, notes, ideas for future programs etc. I'd love this solution to mimic writing on paper but be easy to share, access on a mobile device and have the ability to add tags for easy sorting and retrieval.

I do most of my planning on spreadsheets and white boards. The whiteboard is my favorite method but I hate that I can't save the data (other than by taking a photo) or reuse it (without rewriting everything). Also, I'm out of my office a lot and it's frustrating not to have access to the whiteboard when I'm in meetings. I've resorted to taking photos of it before my meetings so I can use it as a reference. It seems like there must be a better way (please don't say spreadsheets...I just don't find them visually helpful in processing info...they serve a specific purpose but I find planning on a whiteboard 100% more useful).

Also, I'll take notes in meetings but don't have a good system for processing them into short, medium or long term lists. This is where the tagging features would be helpful. So, I'd like to move from a paper note system to an electronic one that is easy to carry around and uses a stylus. I'd also like it to be more free-form versus being limited to writing on specific lines.

My boss is a big iphone user (I have a low grade LG phone) and uses her notes feature for what I'm describing. I'm very visual...so just using the notes feature wouldn't be an ideal solution for me. We are a PC office and I would like to be able to access and manipulate the info from my desk PC, but getting an apple solution would make sharing things with my boss much easier. Unfortunately, I don't think getting an iphone would give me the note taking real estate I'd like. Would an ipad mini do what I need? Is there an apple app that offers the tagging feature? Is there an inexpensive PC device + pen that would sync with my desktop? Are there other options I should consider? I'd like to spend less than $300 but would spend more for the perfect solution. (My work has some older ipads that I could use if there is a app that would do what I want).

I found this question very interesting but that Mefite already had some of the tech which I don't. If you were building a system from the ground up...what would you do?

posted by victoriab to Technology (5 answers total)

Maybe Trello? It's a decent middle ground between the visual flexibility of a whiteboard and the structure of a spreadsheet. You can use it in a structured way to track tasks or in a more flexible way to move around notes and ideas. Everything can be labeled and tagged, and you can pick up cards and drag them around.

It's mainly text-oriented though, rather than stylus input. But if you wanted to, you can try using a stylus in an app like Paper and turn your drawings into attachments to Trello cards, or work on paper/a whiteboard and attach your photos to cards.

Pretty much everything you're likely to want, except maybe large attachments, is in the free tier, so it's easy enough to try it out.
posted by zachlipton at 8:36 PM on February 9, 2020

Coming in to also recommend trello. It’s project management software, and event planning is project management.
posted by sleeping bear at 11:32 PM on February 9, 2020

Zenkit or Milanote? (No android app for milanote yet but can use webapp).
posted by dobbs at 12:00 AM on February 10, 2020

Trello looks like a very good option. Any suggestions on the device/stylus part because my iPad is too old to use it.
posted by victoriab at 4:46 AM on February 10, 2020

If your company uses MS Office, OneNote could be exactly what you need. It has apps on all platforms and is integrated into Office (so you can do things like send emails directly to specific pages), and it can handle handwriting, keyboard input, inserted files (documents, images, whatever). Notebooks can be easily shared between users.

Here's a quick demo video.
posted by current resident at 2:00 PM on February 10, 2020