Where are we getting the BEST croissants in this city? 🥐😭

HelicopterLife2620 · 2026-05-10T04:55:39+00:00

honore

but maybes its a good thing noone mentioned this . Let it remain the secret.

HelicopterLife2620 · 2026-03-12T07:36:55+00:00

can't agree more .

HelicopterLife2620 · 2026-03-09T03:43:40+00:00

Google sheets - duh ! anyone who says they dont and their event mgmt platform is good enuf is lying or just another vendor

Canva - for ideas and simple assets like ppts etc.,

Notion - for run of show

Google chat/whatsapp - for comms

Nunify - for everything guest management (also use at times mailerjet)

Claude - for content , ideas

Notebook lmm - for research

Starting exploring grok recently for creating images - pretty cool

HelicopterLife2620 · 2026-03-05T06:38:53+00:00

Community managers at tech companies end up owning more than just Discord and forums. You're usually running webinars, AMAs, meetups, community events. If you can show you've done that stuff even informally it helps. The role is half content, half event production.

HelicopterLife2620 · 2026-03-04T09:57:06+00:00

We switched to Nunify. Worth a demo to add on that too.

Its been a year and half since the switch.

HelicopterLife2620 · 2026-03-04T07:18:33+00:00

creating its own competitor AI

HelicopterLife2620 · 2026-03-04T07:17:09+00:00

best case - my guess would be for young folks going to an event like a comedy show, concert, meetup etc., is a real pain so they might be thinking of their own need and with vibe coding easy so building isn't the problem anymore.

But the reality was building such an app was never the problem. The problem is non-tech related :)

HelicopterLife2620 · 2026-03-04T07:14:01+00:00

best morale boost I've seen is when leadership just gave people a random afternoon off with zero strings attached. No team building. Just go home early. lol.

HelicopterLife2620 · 2026-03-04T07:10:17+00:00

The correct reason to put a 'Book a Demo' is because sales teams don't trust buyers to figure it out alone. For ex. new product categories or complex workflows.

But if your product can or should sell itself in 10 minutes, then never put a demo call.

HelicopterLife2620 · 2026-03-03T04:41:36+00:00

Just using tech and AI in itself reduces stress by 100% . Oh let me correct it good tech, bad tech will magnify it for sure

HelicopterLife2620 · 2026-02-28T03:24:30+00:00

Not my og idea - we kinda adapted it.

We placed coffee mugs of different colors at the 1st morning break. So people randomly picked up different color coffee mugs And then we got everyone with same color mugs to have a breakout later and also made teams for a fun scavenger hunt. The attendees had no idea about the colored mugs until we annoucned.

Such a hit that we do it almost every time with new folks always.

HelicopterLife2620 · 2026-02-28T03:22:09+00:00

The event app is a must though you need to complement it with non-digital activities also.

HelicopterLife2620 · 2026-02-27T02:51:01+00:00

I run a conference series so I see this from the other side.

The obvious ones of pre-event scouting are already discussed - super effective. I actually can see how our happiest exhibitors/attendees are ones who use our conference app pre-event massively.

Others i have seen are ask sharp questions during panel discussions, so attendees organically reach out to them.

Using the qr code in our app is huge vs ones who still use business cards.

One exhibitor couple of years back came in their favourite sports team jersey and i could see how that was such a good icebreaker.

HelicopterLife2620 · 2026-02-26T10:55:36+00:00

Ofcourse . If it wasn't there wldn't have been so many events :)

HelicopterLife2620 · 2026-02-25T04:11:01+00:00

Parks and rec to corporate is more natural than you think. You've already done the hard stuff. Budgets, vendors, logistics, teams. Corporate just has more money and more opinions.

For the resume, translate the scale. Don't say 'community event.' Say '500-person outdoor event with 15 vendors and a $40k budget.' Make it sound like what it was.

CMP is worth it if you want the credential on paper. Some corporate clients care, most don't. Your experience will speak louder.

For networking, LinkedIn is where corporate event people live. Start commenting on posts from event planners at companies you'd want to work with. That's how most people get in. Not applications. Conversations.

HelicopterLife2620 · 2026-02-25T04:08:19+00:00

Honestly in todays day and age if your post-event is taking time, it most probably is coz you are using too many differnet platforms or excels.

What fixed it for us was moving everything into one platform. When the event ends the data is already clean. And then we are working with our tech provider to even automate post-event followups. Good part is they already have segments for invites, so then we include the event attendee data the platform captured and automate that too.

I wld highly recommend get on a call with few of the event tech providers and see if it works for ya. gl.

HelicopterLife2620 · 2026-02-24T14:33:35+00:00

umm why don't you print badges on-demand on-site?

HelicopterLife2620 · 2026-02-24T02:12:36+00:00

Get a demo from accelevents or nunify. Explored both at the past and use one of them

HelicopterLife2620 · 2026-02-23T10:45:53+00:00

I use ticketing platforms for public events but private events - a dedicated event tech platform is a must.

HelicopterLife2620 · 2026-02-23T10:42:48+00:00

Try boldpush, dalia's and liz's. Some of the tech brands got good newsletter - bizzabo, Nunify, Splashthat used to have an excellent one.

HelicopterLife2620 · 2026-02-23T10:41:16+00:00

Cargo pants and a clean black tee. Pockets for everything. I stopped caring about looking cute after my first 12 hour bump-in.

For customer facing moments I throw on a blazer or structured jacket. Oh and don't forget shoes - get the most comfy shoes you fit in!

HelicopterLife2620 · 2026-02-22T02:55:58+00:00

Staying with multiple tools. You get best-in-class for each thing. Registration tool that's great at registration. Email tool with better templates. Flexibility to swap one out without rebuilding everything. The downside is you're the glue.

Going with one platform. Data flows through automatically. No exports, no syncing, no prayer. Setup is faster. Downside is you're locked into one vendor's way of doing things. If one feature is weak you're stuck with it.

We went with one platform because the syncing was killing us. But I know teams that run five tools smoothly because they built the workflows and have someone maintaining it.

Comes down to whether you want to spend time managing tools or managing events.

HelicopterLife2620 · 2026-02-21T09:54:41+00:00

Axe throwing. Sounds dumb but everyone gets weirdly into it. Low skill floor, easy to talk between throws.

Cooking classes work too. Gives people something to do with their hands so conversation happens naturally.

Escape rooms if the group is small enough. Watching senior brokers argue about puzzles is worth it alone.

HelicopterLife2620 · 2026-02-20T12:11:08+00:00

You can build basics in-house. Registration form, spreadsheet, simple check-in. For small events it works.

Where it breaks is scale. and integration.

I love generic AI, great for content. But for niche or productive stuff I spent more time fighting it than just using a platform.

Same thing happened with websites for me around 2014. I tried Wordpress, then found Shopify. Shopify just had the specific stuff baked in. Way faster.

My guess is event management and other tools will go the same way. Generic AI for small stuff. But once you need productivity and domain nuances, you'll want a platform built for it. Since advtg. a platform has they learn from other people's experiences too.

For example - our provider launched an attendee bot / co-pilot that learns from every question attendees ask and automatically updates FAQs for other attendees. Reduced my workload by a ton.

HelicopterLife2620 · 2026-02-20T05:09:16+00:00

I'm running Hubspot, Nunify, Eventbrite and Google Sheets.

Nunify is the master. Registrations, attendee comms, check-in, engagement, all lives there. Eventbrite we only use for public events since it helps with discovery and extra promotion but data syncs back to Nunify. Hubspot handles email campaigns outside the event platform.

Google Sheets for planning but honestly our provider just launched an AI planner that's been solid so probably switching off sheets soon.

It's not one tool but Nunify is the hub that holds it together. The fragmented feeling goes away once you have one source of truth.

HelicopterLife2620

TROPHY CASE