February
2002 Newsletter
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Your Table is Ready
The Houston Advertising Federation’s ADDY
Awards Show is their largest event of the year.
When the call went out for volunteers to coordinate ticket fulfillment and table assignments, we joined the committee.
There will be 400 to 600 attendees, pre-assigned ten to a table. There are Gold, Silver and Bronze tables sold at different rates that change as the deadline approaches. Information comes in sporadically. Final attendee and table counts can change up to the night of the event.
In a meeting with last year’s committee chair, we were entrusted with The Book. It’s a solid three inches thick with emails, faxes, RSVPs and confirmations stapled to each form that was completed for each company.
As paper-based systems go, it’s great. But it’s not conducive to the frenetic activity in the final days before such an event. And it only presents data by Company Name.
The Houston Advertising Federation used a Filemaker database for the invitation mailing. We set up a related database with a drop-down menu of invited companies. Once a company name is selected, address, phone and fax data is duplicated in the new database.
Information about tables, tickets, payments, distribution and attendees is entered once, then used to generate the reports necessary to coordinate the various elements.
Click a button to get a summary of Gold, Silver and Bronze tables sold. Click another and review total revenue and outstanding balances due.
Reports by Last Name, Company Name and Table Number are easily generated any time, and are invaluable on event night. As long as an attendee knows their name (or their company’s name), we’ll be able to direct them to their table.
The ADDYs are on February 16th. Call 281-537-1657 for ticket information. It’s a great show. We hope to see you there.
Consolidating Functions
Our newest client is the marketing department
of a full-service, temporary utility company. They solve
the temporary power problems of today’s industrial,
commercial and entertainment markets with an impressive
array of products and services.
Microsoft Project and Excel are currently used to track marketing jobs and their budgets. Lotus Approach is employed to record telemarketing and direct mail data.
These disparate tools are no longer appropriate for the department’s expanding workload and the various types of projects they are asked to produce.
Their situation is hardly unique. Processes usually evolve on an as-needed basis. Someone designs and implements a basic system. Someone else enhances it. New tools are introduced. The number and scope of projects expand.
Job tracking solutions stop working when the tools and processes employed are no longer uniformly applicable to every project. Systems designed to manage small numbers of large projects are usually too cumbersome to manage large numbers of small projects.
Today’s marketing organizations produce dozens or even hundreds of jobs simultaneously. Turnaround times range from 48 hours to six months. We design systems and processes that manage all projects, large and small, and keep them on stakeholders’ radar from inception to completion.
By the end of the month, our new client’s system will go live. A Filemaker Pro database will track projects and budgets, with modules to manage direct mail and telemarketing logistics. We’ll give a final update in our next newsletter.
Wayward Similes &
Metaphors
(Newsletter filler lifted from the Car Talk
section of Cars.com.)
“She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.” (Jonathan Paul, Garrett Park)
“He grew on her like he was a colony of E. coli and she was room-temperature Canadian beef.” (Brian Broadus, Charlottesville)
“The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.” (Malcolm Fleschner, Arlington)
If you need a plan that works, you know who to call…
Let’s stay in touch.
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