Thursday Buzz: Jumpstart Your Event’s Website

Ready to make a snazzy-looking website-based schedule for your event?

The Online News Association (ONA) can help. The journalism group has released its conference calendar online  (opens in a new tab), making its formatting and settings available to any organization—whether a journalism group or an association.

ONA uses it for its own annual convention—and now you can, too. The association worked with the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation (EEJF) to fund the open-source release.

“You can make a beautiful schedule that displays event dates, session times, presenter bios and photos and other essential details,” the association said in a press release  (opens in a new tab).

It’s a WordPress plug-in that can be managed through the spreadsheet function of Google Docs. The schedule boasts a variety of color settings for different tracks. It’s easy to manage  (opens in a new tab) with all the fill-in-the-blanks set. Speakers can also be added  (opens in a new tab) to the plug-in.

And the best thing is that the open-source calendar is free. Look into it here!  (opens in a new tab)

Tweet of the Day

Having an Adele moment, @westrochlil  (opens in a new tab)? #assnchat  (opens in a new tab) https://t.co/oXTIPBc9EC  (opens in a new tab) https://t.co/jq7lKCTGEq  (opens in a new tab)

— ACGI Software (@ACGISoftware) February 4, 2016  (opens in a new tab)

“Hello from the other side, I must’ve called a thousand times …” Hit singer Adele sang those lyrics regarding a romantic relationship, but it also applies to customer service.

Wes Trochlil, who writes about associations and data management, shared his experience  (opens in a new tab) of contacting organizations online and not getting a response within three days.

“This is the 21st century. Customers (especially those saying ‘I’m ready to buy’) expect immediate gratification. Are you giving it to them, or not?”

It’s something to think about—especially with Facebook Pages allowing users to send messages and see how quickly admins respond  (opens in a new tab). The customer service platform Zendesk also has begun to focus on response time  (opens in a new tab).

How instant is your gratification?

Links for Afternoon Reading

Are you lacking motivation in the office? Gamification could be a strategy to solve that problem—and can be seen in action with Badgeville’s new MotivationMetrics platform  (opens in a new tab). Antoinette Siu wrote about it over at CMSWire  (opens in a new tab).

Email addiction? It’s a thing. Research says professionals waste five hours a day on their phones—and that includes email usage. Over at Inc., Jessica Stillman shared how to manage emails  (opens in a new tab).

Looking to boost your career? Look into Facebook. There are many Facebook groups out there that cater to career achievement and support. The Muse‘s senior editor, Stacey Gawronski, explained how to get started  (opens in a new tab).

A sample of the interactive calendar ONA created for its 2015 conference.