How to Plan And Execute Your Shows Using Trello

In this video you'll learn how to manage and plan any consecutive webcast, podcast, or hangout such as a weekly show, a launch series, or educational seminar. By using Trello, a free online project management tool available on your smart phone, tablet, and desktop, you'll feel organized prepared and excited for your upcoming live event. This makes your guest feel welcomed and at ease, which gives the viewer a better experience. I'm going to refer to the project you'll be managing as a webcast. However, the following advice can be applied to any consecutive live, online event. To get started, let's quickly go over Trello. When you sign up for your free account, you'll see that it's a blank canvas. First, you'll want to add a board. Each board has a number of lists, each of which have a collection of cards on them. You're able to customize the name of each list and card. You can drag and drop cards between lists, and even move them between boards. To begin, we'll start over on our Administrative List on the far left. Treat this as a catch all and go-to space for anything you might need regarding your webcast. First, create a Branding card under your Admin List. On this card add any information you or a member of your team might need across multiple platforms. I suggest at the bare minimum including your signature colors and fonts, attaching a logo, your show description, short host bio, and your vision and/or mission. Consider attaching a host headshot, any media sheets, and cover art for each platform you might be posting to. Another helpful card to have on file is Guest Templates. Here create a template for any email you might be sending on a regular basis. Consider your guest request, approval, follow up, and post live event emails. Of course personalize each of them, but create the template so that you might be able to hand this off in the future. Finally, your show card is another great card to have under admin, but for a different reason. A great thing about Trello cards is that you can easily duplicate them. Create one template card for every show that includes any information you'll want on there each time. Duplicate the card and then drag and drop it off in your Planning List. The Planning List is where you'll be when you're booking your guests and planning the show concept. Pay attention to the Labels feature in Trello. This will help you see at a glance where your focus needs to be. We use the following five labels most often: No Guest, Waiting on Guest Ok, Guest Booked, Guest Tested + Promo, and Content Ready. The order was chosen to correspond with Trello's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 keyboard shortcut. Select the card and type a 1 to signify no guest, type a 2 to record that you're waiting for a potential guest to respond, and so on. A couple I wanted to touch on briefly was the Guest Tested + Promo and Content Ready this label means someone on our team has conducted the test and the guest has been sent promotional material. The Content Ready label is if you are working with others on creating your content. Once a card is filled out with the overview and ready, you would apply this label in addition to your guest labels. Use the Trello Filter option to view only upcoming webcasts where you are without a guest, cards using specific keywords, or that have certain team members attached to them. In the same area you can find more on Powerups. You'll want to enable the Calendar and Voting power up. The Calendar Powerup allows you to see cards based on their due dates. Assign a due date to each card to show when the webcast will need to be in production and ready to go. Filtering and calendar views are both great ways to get focused in the planning portion. Even leading up to planning the actual show though, you can be using the Brainstorming List to feel organized. As you search, come across articles, or receive introductions keep note of potential future guests or topics by creating cards. By enabling the Voting Powerup you can allow team members to add their input. Push up the priority of cards that receive more votes. Getting back to planning our upcoming webcasts, when we've booked a guest and are refining the concept, we move the show card from planning into Preproduction. In preproduction we'll look at working with a team, working our system, and working on artwork. On each card, you're able to assign people and subscribe to the card to receive notifications. This improves the delegation process. To work through a process each week, you and your team can attach checklists. We've created a Checklist template card that houses each of the checklists we might need as we produce our webcasts under the Admin List. This allows us to easily add a new checklist without having to recreate it each time. Consider creating a checklist for every point in your process. As you get close to your webcast you may choose to prepare your outside media by allowing team members to easily drag and drop images, videos, and audio files onto your card. You can also choose to attach your cover art in the multiple formats you might need it in for later. Communication is key in preparing any live event. Use the comment area on each card to keep your team in the loop. This is great for eliminating long email chains that are sure to get lost in your inbox. You can even tag members to ensure they are notified. Utilize the description area on your show card. We like to use this to prepare meta data, promotional copy, and show notes. Use the HR shortcut, of three dashes (---) to create a horizontal line that divides the different areas in your card. You might even want to consider creating a separate template card for a script. Getting into postproduction- The great thing about live webcasts is that you don't have to spend hours in postproduction editing, adding lowerthirds, etc. (at least that's the goal). Once your card is in the Postproduction list you know that this is the final step in the webcasts's life. Include all information you may need for replay promotion, including links to where the replay can be viewed and any promotional copy and coverart you haven't added already. Move the show over to the replay list for when it's ready to be added to your social media scheduled promotions. I have a long list of promotional tips, but that's for another video. Thanks for watching part 1 of the three part series on how Ovaleye uses Trello to plan and execute consecutive webcasts for ourselves and our clients. To get the following two videos and a free report on our live webcasting best practices, join our list at www.ovaleye.tv/join. Thanks for watching!