Event Planning Checklist - A Framework For Your Event Before Looking Ahead

By Gurpreet Singh

No matter, it's your first event or the hundredth one, planning for it and executing exactly the same, is a daunting task. Every event is unique in its own way and brings some challenges with it. And in an order to ensure its success, you need to go out-of-the-way to come with some out-of-the-box ideas that show your creativity and fulfill the need of the company you are organizing the event for. It is always good to start with the basics before moving on to any intricate details, hope this checklist helps you hit the goal like a pro.

Map Out A Strategy: A good and successful event starts with a good plan, thus, you should start with it. Create your strategy at first, so, you know what to do when to do, how to do without any confusion. Also, it will help you pay personalized attention to every single detail that further makes it convenient for you to handle things smoothly.

Choose The Right Venue: Selection of the right venue before it's too late is the very second step of any event planning. It is important not only to select a venue, which is convenient for the guests to reach, but also available on particular dates. It has to be spacious enough to accommodate audience conveniently.

Selection Of Beautiful Theme: After finalizing the venue, another challenging thing is the selection of a theme that goes well with your objectives. Thus, you have to be very particular about it. Play with colors or designs to create a theme that'll blow the mind of the audience and help you get a flurry of compliments.

Finalize The Audio and Video Arrangements: Make sure you book the Lighting, Digital Signage, Audience Response System, LED Walls, and Sound System to add life to your event. It will keep your audience alive and help them understand your objectives better.

Food To Fuel: Food must be on your checklist, as it may fuel up the guests and give them one more reason to love your event. Also, it will give a delegate and delightful experience for the participants.

Keep your eyes on all the above things, so, you don't take the wrong turn. If you still feel stressed or don't have enough time to spend on all these arrangements, don't hesitate to hire an expert that puts their creativity and experience to come up with something that exceeds your expectations.

Are you searching for Venue Finding Agency in India? Phoenix is one of the best Corporate Event Management Company in India, and Pan Asia.

Article Source: Event Planning Checklist - A Framework For Your Event Before Looking Ahead

Songs About The Music Business

By Doug Poe

Music is their business, so it was not surprising to hear the hosts of Sound Opinions dedicate an entire episode to the music business. Jim DeRogatisi and Greg Kot, who run the weekly program for National Public Radio, discussed on a recent show their favorite songs about the joys and pitfalls of the record industry.

Greg Kot picked "Nothing Is Good Enough" by Aimee Mann, "Mercury Poisoning" by Graham Parker, and "E.M.I" by the Sex Pistols as his favorite tunes about the music business, while co-host Jim DeRogatisi chose "Have a Cigar" by Pink Floyd, "So You Wanna Be a Rock and Roll Star" by Patti Smith, and "Caught Can I Get a Witness" by Public Enemy. All six were worthy selections, but there were many more they could have mentioned.

Here are ten other popular songs written about the grind or delight of a career in music.

Death On Two Legs by Queen

Although it never received the acclaim of "Bohemian Rhapsody" this opening track from A Night at the Opera has Freddie Mercury taking his best shots at underhanded deal makers in the industry.

Geno the Manager by Hall and Oates

Unlike many songs about those involved in the music business, this one actually shows appreciation for the guy watching over the duo.

The Entertainer by Billy Joel

It is a fickle career to enter, as the Piano Man so clearly points out in this jaunty acoustic number from Streetlife Serenade.

Paint a Vulgar Picture by the Smiths

As an artist lies dying, Morrissey blasts the fact that the record company is preparing to capitalize on the tragedy by repackaging her material.

Goon Squad by Elvis Costello

The title group in this Armed Forces track are industry executives, who Costello warns "have come to look you over and they're giving you the eye, they want you to come out to play but you better say goodbye."

Free Man In Paris by Joni Mitchell

Reflecting on his youthful days in France, this fed up record exec dreams of getting out of the hit making machinery on this single from Court and Spark.

Don't Call Us We'll Call You by Sugar Loaf

Most aspiring artists were already well acquainted with this response when the band made it a Top Ten single in 1974.

Keep the Customer Satisfied by Simon and Garfunkel

Here the customers are those buying their albums, and the title serve as the mantra the duo keeps receiving from their record company.

Thank You Very Much by the Kaiser Chiefs

"It should be a thrill but it feels like a drill" Ricky Wilson sings in the chorus on this track from Retirement, an album with several other references to the pitfalls of success.

Daily Records by the Who

Pete Townshend on this delighftul track from Face Dances emphasizes that he just wants to keep making songs, as he grows increasingly wary of the business side of the music world.

Article Source: Songs About The Music Business

How To Know When You Need A New Advertising Agency

By Morris Raymond

Even though many of us don't own or run our own businesses, we know that times can be pretty rough in the business world. In order to stand out and compete, businesses will take on the services of an advertising agency so that while the business focuses on having a solid product or service to offer, the advertising agency can focus on making the business a consumer juggernaut.

In practice, this sounds great. In fact, the argument can be made that this is the way to go for businesses looking to stay ahead of the game versus their competition. Far more often than you'd think, businesses will try to take on advertising internally, figuring that no one knows their business better than they do. The problem with this is that at some point, you're too close and drawing conclusions on advertising strategy is being done based on emotion rather than analysis & assessment. In the same way you can't really tickle yourself, it's hard to handle your own advertising.

But, sometimes the job isn't getting the job done. What was once an exciting partnership isn't quite as productive, and you wonder what the future holds. Moreover, you hope you see the signs of decline before it starts affecting your bottom line.

How can you tell it's time for a new advertising agency? Well, that be harder than you think. Here are a few tell-tale signs it's time to part ways:

You Encounter Nothing But "Yes" Men - A business owner may find the idea of uniform agreement pretty nice simply because it makes you feel as though you've got all of the answers. The problem is that an advertising agency needs to be able to challenge their client to think differently.

You Lose Track of the Numbers - How advertising dollars are spent weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly helps a business know where they stand financially, where they need to re-group, and how best to move forward. Transparency is key, but if an advertising agency isn't keeping communication about these numbers open, the business who hired them is flying blind.

Your Advertising Agency is Missing in Action - When things are new & exciting, the advertising agency you hired for your business is maintaining regularly scheduled communication, providing a breakdown of all that is happening with your account. Over time, though, the communication becomes less frequent, and the business starts feeling left out and less important. Tension can fester, making subsequent meetings with the agency feel forced and uncomfortable. Both sides may dread appointments. It's time for a change.

The one thing businesses need to keep in mind when working with an advertising agency is that in order for plans and strategies to play out, it takes time. Each side plays their part in achieving goals & milestones along the way. However, keep in mind that an advertising agency works for your business, and if they aren't cutting it anymore, you have to find an agency that will.

Contact    MindEcology, an Austin advertising agency with industry-leading expertise that focuses on what's most important - you.

Article Source:  How To Know When You Need A New Advertising Agency

Getting Ranked On Fiverr

By Richard Peck

Just like getting a #1 position in Google, achieving a high "rank" in Fiverr is one of the most effective ways to achieve traction with their service.

Regardless of what you're offering, being highly ranked on any of the "category" pages is what gives you the ability to determine exactly what you're trying to achieve in terms of growth with the service.

The point is that whilst offering a service (which actually generates results) is of the utmost importance, there are a number of things you can do to encourage the growth of your brand / account by utilizing a series of "tricks" / "tactics" to help improve your overall rank.

Before we begin, the most important thing to realize is that Fiverr doesn't really want you to "game" their system. You generally get more of what you don't need (not what you actually need), and as such if you're in "need" of getting ranked, you'll generally not feel the benefits of it.

You need to provide a service which actually works before even considering the rankings of your gigs...

With that out of the way, it's vital to first understand that Fiverr - like Google - uses a number of "factors" to determine which gigs show at the top of its category pages.

These factors are the ones you need to focus on in order to ensure that you're able to get the most effective ranks on the system. To this end, the factors are as follows:

Reviews (both number and rating)

Number of orders (including queued)

Completeness of profile (is your profile complete)

Quality of "Gig" (extra services, images etc)

Keywords

If you're able to effectively "optimize" your gigs to fulfil the requirements of the above, you'll stand a better chance of making progress. However, it does not guarantee success or buyers...

Reviews

Each time you "complete" an order, the buyer is prompted to leave a review. This typically means they will provide the user with feedback and a "star" rating to denote the quality of the work provided.

Obviously, having a healthy account with many 5-star orders means that Fiverr will value the input of the account, and thus be more disposed to ranking it higher.

There's no other way to get reviews than to provide good work. Whilst you may wish to create several smaller "gigs" ($5 article writing or something) to get some quick buyers, the overall way that Fiverr ranks the results is based on the number of reviews over a sustained period.

Number of Orders

Some "gigs" on Fiverr are being purchased at the rate of 40+ per day.

These orders tell Fiverr that the service provided by the account is not only in demand but of high quality. To this end, if you're looking at getting ranked highly, it's obviously going to be helpful to have a number of new orders coming in on a daily basis.

The only way to increase order velocity is to provide a VERY good service at a very inexpensive price. For example, if you have an SEO service - offer it at 50% the price you'd normally hope to achieve for the first 3 months. This will give you the ability to attract more ephemeral buyers whilst you build up the "gig" to something more substantive.

Completeness of Profile

Make sure you upload a good profile image, list your qualifications / achievements and generally provide people with the ability to identify your core strengths without you having to tell them.

They say that success leaves clues. Your profile should be a "tattoo" of your quality of work - meaning that if you are serious about getting your gigs ranked on their platform, you should ensure that each of your gigs has the most appropriate content in its description, quality images and you respond to any requests quickly and completely.

Quality Of "Gigs"

Next, the "quality" of any gigs posted on the system is also important.

Adding extra services, writing a complete "description" of the gig and generally having a system which allows people to provide users with the ability to see what they're buying before they pay for it - allows users to get the most out of the system in the most effective way.

It's generally a good idea to add multiple price-bands to your gig, as well as ensuring that you have any of the underlying copy written correctly.

Keywords

Finally, the "keywords" of your gig matter a lot.

If you add a number of keywords, keep them specific to the service you're looking to provide. This not only ensures that you're able to get the most out of the system, but that Fiverr is able to effectively provision the gig in the search results etc.

As mentioned, these are only guidelines. If you want more information about how to make money with Fiverr, you basically need to provide a service and present it in a way which focuses on specific results.

Article Source: Getting Ranked On Fiverr

Miss Electrician

By Chibuogo Mojekwu

As a fourteen year old student in my eleventh grade, university applications and picking my courses have become very real and fast approaching. Over the past few years, my dream occupation has fluttered between many choices; some being mechanical engineering, computer science, data analysis and surprisingly, even modelling. But thankfully, on one fateful day on campus, I finally decided what I wanted: Electrical Engineering.

Sure, my friends made my choices hard and even made fun of me and called me names for my absurd choice of occupation. I acquired many names, some being Miss Electrician, Alternating Current, name it. I grew to love my course and let's say, the names stuck on me, making me basically 250% sure of what I wanted to be.

Why electrical engineering? That is the question that pops into many of our minds. My peers are all picking computer science as their course because they feel other forms of engineering such as mechanical and electrical are outdated in the working world. Yes, the 'computer' trend is actually the new 'wave' but people fail to realize that electrical engineering is the backbone behind all these computer related occupations. Tell me what modern day machine or computer works without electricity. If you can name some, if any, do these machines work fast and efficiently? I guess not. Electrical engineering is an important field in science and technology related studies and must not be ignored.

Our life would be unthinkable without the use of electrical energy. Let me give a few examples to show the importance of electrical energy. Electrical lighting is indispensable for working during the dark hours of the day. A huge proportion of electrical energy is used for the lighting of shops, offices, homes and for outdoor lighting. Man is relieved from heavy physical labour by the use of electrical devices. There are many buildings where an air-conditioning system including heating, cooling and ventilation is installed for the operation of which electrical energy is required. At higher temperatures, foodstuffs can only be kept for a prolonged period of time in refrigerators or cold-storage rooms which usually are also operated with electrical energy.

Without electrical energy, there would be no broadcasting and television systems, no telephone communication or telegraphy. In order to arrange automatic sequences of operation in production, devices of control and regulation engineering are required which, today, are driven almost exclusively by electrical energy.

To conclude, I will summarize five reasons why I want to study electrical engineering.

� Electrical engineers have good graduate prospects.
� They enjoy high starting salaries.
� Electrical engineers are always in demand.
� They are at the forefront of future technologies.
� They have wide global opportunities.

What discouraged me at first was the fact I am an African young lady and this course is not very common among women, especially negroes. But later on, I realized I can do whatever I want no matter my gender, and I will achieve my now-realized dream in life, even if it means being called ' Miss Electrician'.

Article Source:  Miss Electrician