That Point In Time

An Event is defined as a noun as “something that happens or is regarded as happening; an occurrence, esp. one of some importance.” OR “the outcome, issue, or result of anything.” OR “something that occurs in a certain place during a specific interval of time.”.

Today, inauguration day, the world witnessed an event “of some importance”. Whether or not you agree with the new administration, you can certainly agree that this was a rather important event. And, all around us there were many other events that took place today. Some you may have heard of (a new VP was sworn in as well, apparently) and some you may not have heard of (my mother went to the eye doctor). But, I can assure you that my mother’s trip to the eye doctor was much more important than the inauguration (likely, only to her).

Later this evening, there will be parties throughout Washington, DC. I’m not invited to any of them and chances are good that attempting to crash one of those parties would get me into some serious trouble… maybe even resulting in my “final” event. But, those lucky few who will attend one of the many parties have spent the last few weeks planning their outfits, their mode of transport, and their seating arrangements. Tonight, they’ll spend 4 or 5 hours attending the event and tomorrow they’ll talk about it with the others they met and their friends. Some of their conversations will be rather matter-of-fact and others will be pure gossip.

Alas, PUBLIC CHALK was not used in the planning of any of the events of today. I imagine the invitations were a tad more formal than an e-mail delivered to your Yahoo! or GMail account. Some may have even been presented on a silver platter. But, certainly, all could have been planned on PUBLIC CHALK because… all of them follow that same recipe… people talk about the event before it happens… then they attend the event… and then they talk some more about the event after it happens.

Some events are more important than others and therefore, the conversation about those events will last longer for those events. Some are recurring. Some are short and sweet. Some are totally unexpected. But these are all topics for another day.

ETJ

But, when does it end?

As you might have noticed and/or read about in my last blog, we have taken a decidedly event-based direction on PUBLIC CHALK. As I discussed, we think that an event, in general, has a minimum lifespan of 2 weeks… what with all the planning beforehand and all the gossiping afterward.

Throughout the design of PUBLIC CHALK, we attempted to keep everything as simple as possible. Turns out, in some areas we did a very bad job and in some areas we did too good of a job. As we ask people to try out the system, we notice immediately where the flaws in our user interface are and most of the time it results in the removal of a step or field and every once in a while it results in some copy-update that makes the page make more sense.

But, just the other day we were watching one of our guinea pigs test out PUBLIC CHALK. They had created an event and dutifully put in the start time, the location, and a description and then asked a question that we hadn’t allowed for, “But, when does it end?”

I guess in our zeal to keep things simple we figured that, being mostly social events, that it would be over when it was over. But, in the real world, this doesn’t work. For example, if you start a party at 2pm, some guests are going to expect to stay until 10pm and be fed dinner somewhere along the line. If that isn’t your intent, then you had better put an end time of 5:30 on the event so people know to leave your apartment and go get their own food. You also don’t want the lingering house guest who ends up staying at your place for an entire weekend when the party was over on Saturday evening.

And, it isn’t only about people staying too long – but also about people not coming at all. If you create an event that starts at, lets say 2pm on Saturday, and no end time is specified even though you fully expect it to be over by 5pm then you are going to exclude those people who have a prior commitment at 7pm on Saturday.

All this timing! And, as they say, timing is everything. On a more personal note, I host a yearly “Holiday Kickoff” party. The first year, I started the party at 5pm and scheduled the catering company to show up at 6pm. That resulted in my guests showing up fresh from a restaurant dinner at 7:30 to a fully catered party… to bad all the food was cold by then. I’ve since changed it to 2pm which results in my guests showing up hungry at 4pm. By the time the caterer gets there at 6pm people are ready to eat. And, whoever isn’t there at the beginning of the party… well, we just start without them. Oddly, I’ve ended up with weekend house guests as a result of this party. Maybe this year, I’ll put an end time on the whole affair!

ETJ

The Main Event

In our latest release, PUBLIC CHALK takes on events. This is a decidedly different route/service than we had taken/provided in the past, but it just seems to make sense to use the technology that has been built to make PUBLIC CHALK work to use it for event planning.

The main reason is that we noticed that an event has a minimum lifespan of two weeks. The first week of an event happens when you or one of your friends or one of the companies with whom you do business decides to plan an event and you get the invite. The discussion begins almost immediately… What should I wear? Who will be there? Where is this event? There are probably some e-mails or phone calls between the prospective attendees who know each other and some valuable planning might even come out of those sessions such as, “Lets be prepared to discuss the NYC transit system since the head of the MTA will be there.” Or, more likely, “Kim said she is brining light beer so I’d better bring my own Guinness.”

Then, the event actually takes place and just like any other event in the world – there are going to be some great friends or acquaintances who simply will not be able to attend. They’ll have an array of lame excuses and you’ll want to counter those with stories, text messages, and pictures of what is going on as it is happening.

Finally, there is the aftermath of the event. The picture of Jim wearing the lampshade in place of his pants followed by the picture of Judy wearing Jim’s pants… on her head. Or, maybe it is just a really informative video about 21st century transportation options in NYC. Either way, it is priceless to share these stories/memories with friends.

So, You’ll see that PUBLIC CHALK will allow you to create an event, invite your friends, and start chatting about the event immediately. As usual, you can still share photos, links, and commentary, but now it will be surrounding a particular event. Oh, and, if you want to have a more private side conversation, go ahead and create a board and invite the appropriate people – that’s still available!

Happy Event Hosting!

ETJ