On Line Calendar Setting -- Doodle.com When is Good.net

Welcome to Planner's Pointer's Planners Pointers is a blog and talk cast to help beginning event planners with their event planning. Give them ideas on planning better events, books to read and websites to discover.

You get into your office and look at your to do list.  There are two items: 1. emailing your executive committee to schedule a date for a committee conference call.  2. Herding cats.  You decide on the second choice first because it's easier and less time consuming.

Take heart!  Help is on the way!  There are two, and probably more, ways of scheduling meetings, conference calls and other one to one meetings on the Internet.  One is Doodle.com and the other is WhenIsGood.net.

Here are the easy things to remember.  Both are free, but you can purchase subscriptions from the companies.  Both are easy to use, although WhenIsGood.net seem a little easier than Doodle.

Where they differ is that Doodle has you create an account, WhenIsGood doesn't, although you can.  By creating an account you can keep track of the scheduling that you have done.

Another way they differ slightly is WhenIsGood gives you a range of dates and times in which you simply select the times, while Doodle.com gives you a range of dates to select, but you have to do an additional step of adding the times.  Both gives you the option of creating the email response yourself with the information, or selecting to have them send the email.  If you choose to have the program send the email, both methods call up your email account with the information and you add the email addresses.  I like this choice myself since the url information will be correct and I don't have to cut and paste or worry about typos.  Doodle goes one step further and allows you to both Tweet and add the info to Facebook.

Doodle sends email updates when someone responds to the poll automatically, WhenIsGood has that as an option.  I like the updates since it keeps me informed about who has responded without logging in the website.

Give these tools a try! I like both of these website tools.  They save me time and frustration. 

Planner's Pointers is produced by me, Mary Pam Kilgore, of Kilgore Business Services, LLC  You may reach me through my website www.kilgorebusiness.com  You can find my blog at http://plannerspointers.blogspot.com/  You can reach me by phone at 412-260-4178.  Follow me on Twitter @marypam

Off the beaten track holiday stops

Welcome to Planner's Pointer's Planners!

Holiday Activities are in the air!  In Pittsburgh there are several favorites like ice skating at the PPG Place rink, visiting the holiday displays at the Carnegie Museum and shopping at places like the Tanger Outlets. Today we are talking about shops and museums near these near places that are worth the trip and  make the visit even more special

Going to Downtown Pittsburgh -- Checking out the bargins at Macy's, Sak's, and other downtown stores?  Going ice skating at the PPG Place rink?  How about adding a visit to ToonSeum.  Located on the heart of the Pittsburgh's Cultural District, ToonSeum's goal is to create awareness and appreciation for the art of  cartooning.  The ToonSeum offers workshops for people of all ages and skill and exhibitions of original cartoon art.  To learn more about ToonSeum log on the website www.toonseum.org or call 412-232-0199

Tanger Outlets opened a little more than a year ago.  Located across the street from the Meadowlands Casino on Racetrack Road in Washington PA.  With 75 name brand stores there is loads of holiday shopping fun to be had.  While you are there save some time to go around the corner to Quail Acres located at the corner of Racetrack Road and Route 19.  Quail Acres has several delightful boutiques that are a worthwhile addition to your holiday shopping.  Artemis Botanicals Bath Shop has beautiful hand made soap.  There is even a great store for dogs called "Dogs Rule."

There are several other off the beaten track shopping areas and museums in Pittsburgh.  We hope to tell you more about them in 2011.

Planner's Pointers is written by me, Mary Pam Kilgore, of Kilgore Business Services, LLC  You may reach me through my website www.kilgorebusiness.com  You can find my blog at http://plannerspointers.blogspot.com/

Old Technology meet Smart Phones

Welcome to Planner's Pointer's Planners Pointers is a blog and talk cast to help beginning event planners with their event planning. Give them ideas on planning better events, books to read and websites to discover.

I was entering business card information into my contacts lists when I noticed that one of my new contacts had a phone number that spelled out a word.  What an idea!  I have always thought that being able have a phone number such as 1-800-MEETING would be really cool memory hook.  Then I looked at my smart phone and realized that it wouldn't work.  Why?  Because the keypad of on my smart phone isn't the same as a regular phone. 

The telephone keypad layout that is most familiar to us in the United States has been around since the 1960s when touch tone dialing was introduced.  There is lots of information on the web about how the keypad was developed.  One of the most interesting things that I learned was the letter assignment to particular number isn't standardized across the world. 

My Planners Pointers tip for today is:  If you want to use a phone number that spells a word -- great!  Just make sure you add the corresponding numbers on your business cards.  For example:  WORD = 9673

Planner's Pointers is written by, Mary Pam Kilgore, of Kilgore Business Services, LLC  You may reach me through my website www.kilgorebusiness.com  You can find my blog at http://plannerspointers.blogspot.com/  You can reach me by phone at 412-260-4178.  Follow me on Twitter @marypam.