Spreadsheets in Early Days
As a junior high school student in 1980, I purchased an HP scientific calculator for my math and science courses. It helped me with my math and science homework, but what I was most interested in were the programming features. Over several months, I learned to write dozens and dozens of computer programs. In the process, I discovered my passion for tech. Mid-year, I decided to drop my architectural drafting course to enroll in the first computer programming class at our school. The architecture teacher tried to convince me during lunch that changing classes was a mistake. But I have never regretted it.
Later in the same semester, I got a part-time position at a local store called The Bite Shop. They sold many brands of computers, including Apple IIs and Commodore PETs. At the time, home computers were still considered a novelty. Customers were interested in how they could be used. Advertisements from that time suggested using computers to balance your checkbook and stock prices, organize recipes, or play games. Productivity software, particularly word processing and spreadsheets, provided the strongest argument for buying a computer.
In fact, just a year before, the first spreadsheet software for a computer, ViiCalc, was released exclusively for Apple II computers. The first digital versions of paper-based worksheets containing numbers and calculations could be created by consumers using personal computers. My colleague at The Byte Shop was a college student who could not contain his excitement about VisiCalc. He would try to solve any customer’s problem using a spreadsheet. He had a “spreadsheet-moment” — a moment when a person realizes that using special purpose software can be more efficient than their traditional methods.
VisiCalc was a major contributor to the development of personal computers beyond their hobby and gaming uses. Lotus 1-3-2, Microsoft MultiPlan, and HTML3_ Microsoft MultiPlan HTML3_ soon took over the spreadsheet market for the IBM PC. Microsoft developed Excel when Apple released its original Macintosh machine in 1984. Microsoft saw the potential of the GUI and released it first on the Mac computer in 1985. The Windows version was released in 1987. After earning a B.S. After graduating with a B.S. I was fortunate enough to be exposed to spreadsheets as a high school student and to work on what would later become the #1 spreadsheet application in the industry, with more than a billion users around.
My spreadsheet story serves as a good example of the digital transformation event planning is currently experiencing. In the last four decades, computers and software revolutionized analog paper-based models, allowing for easier creation, manipulation, and duplication of information. Word processors and spreadsheets were among the first categories of software to be developed, revolutionizing writing and accounting. Then came design, education and reference, messaging, planning, gaming, and other home entertainment categories. Event planning, like spreadsheets, is experiencing its moment thanks to the recent advances in cloud computing, widespread adoption of smart mobile phones, and new software designed specifically for event planning.
Event planners deserve better.
In my last article, “Help! In my last article, “Event Planning is Driving Me Crazy,” I described my experience in planning monthly events for the Scout Troop, my son. This seemingly simple task was taking a lot of time and energy. I finally decided to take action and created Eventene, a software solution that simplifies event planning. I set out to streamline the event planning process using the tools that organizers have used to plan events, such as spreadsheets, email, and online surveying services.
While designing Eventene, I realized the event planning industry needed its revolution moment. That tipping point is where event planners recognize that they can achieve major productivity improvements by using special-purpose software instead of a combination of traditional tools. In January 2018, we launched Eventeneversion1.0, or the “MVP”(Minimal Viable Products). Since then, many of our early users have told us that they experienced their moment.
The event is designed to handle events of all sizes, from dinner parties and city tours to larger-scale events and weeklong city tours. Eventide captures the key components of an event by identifying its essential building blocks. This includes the details, description, participants, and itinerary. Organizers can easily make changes and copy their events once they are in digital format.
Sending out a few emails can easily be used to plan social events for less than 15 attendees. It might not be worth the effort for events of this size to create an affair with a digital framework that automates sending and tracking. Once the number of invitations reaches 15 or 20, it is more efficient to use software to automate sending, tracking, and distribution. For any event planner who manages different-sized events, a small investment of time in learning specialized software can result in massive time and effort savings over the long term. Eventenecan handles invitations and tracks for dozens or hundreds of people. This makes it a powerful event-planning tool at any scale. The more attendees at an event, the less time and effort the organizer has to spend, and the more powerful Eventene becomes.
The event planning industry has reached a new level. Event planners deserve better software to be more productive and save time and effort. It is time to offer organizers a service that will allow them to increase their productivity. This is similar to what spreadsheet users have been able to do for the last 40 years. We are developing Eventen to achieve this goal. Our customers will benefit from a more efficient software solution that makes event planning fun and easy. When I see one of our clients experiencing a special moment, I smile and remember my high school job, where I watched our customers’ eyes light up in wonder and awe when they saw a spreadsheet for the first time.