Good News: You Can Finally Bag the Binder
(An edited version of this article was published in MeetingMentor Magazine in Winter 2019)
It really wasn’t that long ago that planners were holding their binders above their heads, defiantly crying “...from my cold, dead hands!” We lived by the binder. We died by the binder. And we never needed to do upper-body workouts because of them.
Fortunately, the binder’s omnipresence has significantly diminished over the last few years, but I’m often shocked at how much of our industry business is still conducted using printouts and photocopies. Just this year I was blown away when on my last major event I watched the planner and the venue’s catering manager flip through duplicate binders of several hundred pages worth of BEOs, and I was handed 65 printed pages of billing for the breakout AV. So much for sustainability...
Even though most planners have embraced bringing laptops with them on-site, I’m equally astonished to see how many of them are rocking 20 pound, 17” Dell laptops that probably weigh at least as much as those binders did. With all the lightweight, power-packed laptops and tablets that are now available, it’s time to kick those remaining binders, and back-breaking laptops, to the curb.
Learning the Lingo
There have never been more options when it comes to personal, portable computing, so it’s worth taking a minute to know what’s out there. First up, there’s the traditional laptop. It’s got a screen that flips open and a keyboard, and maybe it’s got a touchscreen. Simple, cheap (unless you’re an Apple fan), effective, and they’ve gotten the job done for the last 15 years, but as we’re about to learn, there’s a whole lot more out there.
Next, there’s the “2-in-1”. This generally means a laptop in which the screen can flip all the way over and back against the keyboard. Once you do this, you’ve essentially got a tablet, as the screens on these devices are touchscreens, and can often accept pen/stylus input. It’s actually a great way to “test drive” whether or not a tablet might be right for you, based on how much you like/dislike the tablet modes of these devices.
Finally, there’s the actual “tablet.” Let’s be honest, the 800lb gorilla in the room is the iPad. It’s the tablet that all other tablets must be measured against, but at their core tablets are all similar in form factor: basically they’re a slab of screen with a touch display, and you can usually buy an optional keyboard and pen/stylus.
Are those the only options? Nope, and the landscape is getting more and more wild by the day, but let’s put that on the shelf for the moment and start talking about how moving to a 2-in-1 or tablet can improve your event-planning workflow.
Site Visit Superstar
One of the biggest revolutions in my own personal workflow was when Apple introduced the Apple Pencil for their iPad Pro devices. I’m a voracious note-taker, and for decades had wanted a quick and easy way to get my hand-written chicken scratch imported into my computer. Every so often I’d try the latest and greatest handwriting recognition software, and every time I’d find it lacking and revert to my trusty 6” notebooks for taking notes at my desk, attending meetings, or on-site. I literally have boxes of notebooks covering my decades in the industry.
When the Apple Pencil and iPad Pro combo was released, I found note-taking nirvana. The handwriting recognition of apps like Nebo was amazing, and writing on the iPad felt almost as natural as writing on paper. My site-visit workflow was immediately changed forever. Instead of furiously writing down notes as we went through the space and then laboriously transcribing those notes for reference, I could just take notes directly on my iPad, and import them directly into note-taking apps like Evernote, OneNote, or Notes. I could sketch diagrams of potential room layouts, cut and paste a few notes, and email it directly to the planner, all from the same device.
You see, handwriting was only the beginning. With tablets and 2-in-1 devices, you can take pictures and sketch over them (“What can we do to cover THIS?”), import PDFs and note the locations of power outlets and where you’d like the bars, and even use apps to estimate the difference between what the diagram says the height of the room is vs. what it actually is at its lowest point over there in the corner. The last time I showed up for a site visit and the CSM saw me taking handwritten notes over their room diagram PDF she said, “Oh, man… I need one of those…”
Building a Better Binder
Once you’re back in the office, it’s time to start putting together your digital binder. I’ve already mentioned a couple of apps that can help you do this: Evernote and OneNote. Both are great applications, but OneNote comes with Office 365, making it an attractive option for those that are already living la vida Microsoft. Nebo is my handwritten note-taking app of choice, as it seems to be the best at figuring out 95% of my terrible handwriting, and it can easily export to pretty much whatever you want. It’s also available on basically any device that you can write on, including Android, Windows, iPadOS, and Chrome.
From there, you can start building your digital binder. You can create a page that has all your site visit notes, along with any PDFs or photos you shot. You can create new pages for all the information that follows, including AV quotes, BEOs… anything. While binders had an instinctive “feel” for what goes where and the ability to flip through them scanning for what you want, digital notebooks have an amazing counterpoint: they’re searchable. More than a fair trade in my eyes.
The biggest advantage of a digital binder, by far, is the fact that they’re sharable. It’s one thing to compile everything into one place to create the Event Bible, it’s quite another instantly share it with your entire team, allowing them to add to it, comment, and contribute in a way that would put Gutenberg to shame. What good is a crisis communications plan if it’s sitting in a binder back in the event office when something goes wrong?
More than Mobile
The biggest problem with the giant, beastly laptops of the past is that they’re, well… giant beastly laptops. As a result, they have a tendency to stay plugged in, sitting on a 6’ classroom back at the show office. “What are we supposed to have for gluten-free options for this room tonight?” “Hold on, let me go back and check…”
Tablets and 2-in-1s have gotten so lightweight and small that they can easily be carried around with you all day. Some are so compact they can fit in a purse, lightweight backpack, or heck even a fanny pack (I hear they’re back in style). Once you’re on-site, there’s no excuse for not having every word of your digital binder just a few taps away, and the answer to any question literally at your fingertips. Whether it’s scrolling through a show-flow during rehearsal as you get to know the speakers, or keeping tabs of what time the centerpieces are supposed to arrive in Ballroom D, the newer breed of lightweight devices has you covered.
Cost Concerns
OK, so takeaway number one for this article should be that there’s a ton of lightweight, powerful tablets and 2-in-1s that can handle all your event needs. But here’s the really cool part: these devices don’t need to cost you an arm and a leg. Unless you’re doing video editing, almost all of the mid-range to high-end devices are going to be able to handle pretty much whatever you throw at them, but there are a few exceptions.
The one, BIG thing that keeps me from leaving the Windows/Office ecosystem is PowerPoint. While there are versions of PowerPoint for every major platform, including Android, iOS, and ChromeOS, only on MacOS and Windows can you easily combine and cut/paste slides between decks, and MacOS PowerPoint just never looks… quite right. If that’s the kind of thing you do all the time like I do, you have to keep Windows in your playbook. The good news is that the Microsoft Surface line is amazing, with fantastic pen support, so you’re more than covered in laptop, 2-in-1, and tablet form factors.
If you only need to open the occasional PowerPoint for reference purposes, then pretty much any platform can support you. The iPad (not Air, not Mini, not Pro, not… anything) now supports the Apple Pencil, and can run PowerPoint and any other Office applications. It also runs as low as $275 as of this writing, so it’s a bargain for what you get out of it, even taking into account the optional keyboard and Pencil. If you’re all in on Apple, and dead-set on a laptop, I recommend the MacBook (again- not Air, not Pro). My 2016 MacBook is (almost 3 years later) light, so thin you could slice meat with it, and plenty fast for my day-to-day needs. You can still get them new online for under $1000.
The Future’s So Bright
I couldn’t leave this conversation without talking about the latest crop of devices. 2019 proved to be the year that device manufacturers started throwing spaghetti against the wall again after years of “black slabs” in phones, tablets, and other devices. Samsung introduced the Fold (an Android phone with a literally folding display), and Microsoft announced the Neo and Duo (dual-screen devices that fold open, shut, and all the way around). While these devices are probably best left for early-adopters, they show us the future of lightweight computing. It’s a future where everything we need is in our pocket, and if a 4” screen isn’t enough to properly display the necessary doc, well... just “unfold” your device to get a better view.
Even the cost of these new devices is amazing. While it may seem ridiculous to shell out $1500 minimum for a Fold, think about that for a second. When laptops first came out they were all $2000+. Now we hold more computing power than was necessary to launch humankind to the moon for less than $200. Is $1500 that much to ask for cutting edge, literally folding display technology? It’s a brave, new world indeed, and I sincerely hope you all will give your carry-on luggage a break and start looking at the amazing options that are available!