Here’s How Smart Party Planners are Owning the Holiday Season
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus… and it’s you. Get your friends, family, and/or colleagues together and make a plan, so you’ll all have a night to remember. First, though, take off that Santa hat (rarely a good look outside of stock photos) and put on your project management hat.
The Economics of Holiday Shopping
The holiday season means big money for the US economy. Year after year, holiday sales hover around 20% of total annual sales. According to a Gallup poll, last year Americans spent an average of $830 on gifts, with nearly a third spending over a grand.
Christmas creep is real, and it has nothing to do with inappropriate comments around the punchbowl: Christmas-shopping marketing is no longer held at bay by Thanksgiving.
Come on, though, let’s not make this season about the money and the queues and the gift cards that were clearly purchased at 7pm on Christmas Eve. No, let’s make this season about friendship, family, and warmth. Time to plan an epic holiday party!
Serious Fun: Plan Your Party Like a Pro
Around 90% of companies have some sort of official holiday party, and your Facebook is probably filling up with invitations as we speak. Make sure yours is the good one by not only planning ahead, but by planning smart. This process works for South by Southwest, so it’ll probably work for you. Hey, ho (ho ho), let’s go!
Step One: Create a Wantoo Board. This takes less than a minute. Name your board, then find a suitable image URL to give it a theme, from classic to ironic to just plain bad.
Step Two: Invite people to your board. You can email, text, or WhatsApp the Wantoo Board to whoever you want to include. You can post it on Facebook or in your Slack group as well. However you communicate at work or at home, that’s how you can easily share your board and set the stage for great ideas to flow.
Participants can vote for the party ideas they like…
… as well as adding ideas of their own.
(By the way, you can also use a Wantoo Board to crowdsource decoration and party theme ideas, or to round up a list of the shops in your area that carry the salted-top matzos, or even to figure out where to get the best Christmas tree.)
Step Three: Prioritize. Once your Wantoo Board starts gathering some great party ideas, you can start deciding which ones will make it to the big night. ’Tis not the season for a spreadsheet: make decisions in Wantoo with drag-and-drop simplicity.
There. You did it. An actionable plan for a memorable party. The holiday season will be epic this year, thanks to your superb event management skills. Rather than mess around, now you’ll have more time to research what the hell is actually in egg nog.
Happy Holidays, everybody!
About Wantoo
Wantoo is a simple, powerful cloud-based platform that makes it easy to listen, analyze, and act on feedback from your team, your customers, or anyone else. Our minimalist, intuitive UI is as friendly to your product team as it is for your customers. We are proud to be listed in the 2016 CIX Top 20 most innovative companies in the nation. For more information, visit wantoo.io.
