WELCOME TO THE
Library
Pull something off the shelf. I write most weeks about the parts of an event nobody sees.
New on the shelf
everything on the shelf
What happens after someone registers for your event
She registers, gets a confirmation, and then hears nothing for six weeks. Whatever excitement she had gets a chance to cool all the way down. This post covers what should be reaching her in that stretch and how to set it up once.
The registration anxiety nobody admits to
Scrolling back through email threads to work out who sent their bio and who still owes you slides is not tracking, though it feels close enough until it isn't. This post covers what to use instead and how little it takes to set up.
Why your inbox can't tell you where your speakers stand
Scrolling back through email threads to work out who sent their bio and who still owes you slides is not tracking, though it feels close enough until it isn't. This post covers what to use instead and how little it takes to set up.
How to build your retreat tech so it actually works as a system
Connected tools and a working setup are two different achievements. This post covers how the pieces fit together so that registration, confirmations, and reminders keep moving without you remembering to push them.
What's actually missing from your retreat tech (7 gaps with fixes)
Seven things that go missing from event tech setups, each one small enough to overlook and large enough to cause a scramble. This post covers what each looks like when it's finally in place, and how to get there.
Why rebuilding your retreat tech keeps giving you the same problems
You rebuilt the whole thing and within a month the same problems came back. That repetition is telling you something useful. This post covers what it usually means and where the real issue tends to sit.
How to audit your retreat tech layer by layer before your next event
Before you add another tool, it's worth finding out what's already broken in the ones you have. This post walks through a layer-by-layer check you can run in an afternoon, and what to do with what you find.
Set up vs. built: Why your event tech keeps failing
Everything is connected, everything is technically working, and things still fall through. This post covers the difference between a setup that exists and one that was genuinely built, and how to tell which one you're running.
You’re building your retreat backwards (start with the tech)
Most retreats get built in an order that guarantees you'll redo half of it. This post makes the case for starting somewhere that feels counterintuitive, and covers what it saves you later.
Stop being the search engine: how to build a retreat coordination hub
When every question comes back to you, you've become the place people look things up. This post covers how to build the place they should be looking instead, and what has to live there for it to work.
WHY STAYING HANDS-ON WITH EVENT TECH CAN SLOW EVERYTHING DOWN
Keeping the tech yourself feels faster and safer, and for a while it genuinely is. This post covers what it costs once other people need access to it, and how to hand it over without losing track of anything.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PLANNING YOUR EVENT AND BUILDING YOUR TECH
Planning your event and building the tech behind it are two separate jobs, and treating them as one is why both keep taking longer than you budgeted. This post covers where the line sits and what belongs on each side of it.
IS YOUR EVENT TECH SETUP COMPLICATED… OR JUST UNFINISHED?
The setup that feels impossibly complicated is very often just half-built, and those two problems have completely different solutions. This post covers how to tell which one you have before you scrap everything and start again.
THE HIDDEN COST OF STRETCHING EVENT TECH ACROSS WEEKS
Twenty minutes here, half an hour there, and it feels like progress. This post covers what it actually costs to keep restarting the same build, and why the work never seems to get closer to finished.
WHY YOUR EVENT TECH SETUP KEEPS GETTING DELAYED
The tech has moved to next week four weeks running, and you're not avoiding it out of laziness. Something specific is blocking it every time. This post names what that usually is and what it takes to get past it.
HOW TO BUILD A RETREAT BACKEND THAT ACTUALLY MAKES PROFIT
The places money leaks out of a retreat are rarely the places you'd think to check. Most of them sit in the setup rather than the spending. This post walks through where they are and what to build so the profit survives to the end.
HOW TO BUILD A RETREAT BACKEND THAT SUPPORTS YOUR LEADERSHIP
How present you get to be during your own retreat is decided weeks earlier, by what you did or didn't build. This post covers the setup that lets you lead the room instead of tracking it from the side.
She registers, gets a confirmation, and then hears nothing for six weeks. Whatever excitement she had gets a chance to cool all the way down. This post covers what should be reaching her in that stretch and how to set it up once.