I thought I would spend the time and just update this list of tools – times have moved on and technology has changed – I thought it would be interesting to see what has changed…

On his post a few weeks ago, Julius listed 75+ tools for event managers – well inspired by his list, I’ve compiled my own list. Now you can tell the difference between myself and Julius – his list contains almost every conceivable piece of web 2.0 software, online marketing tool and web resource, whereas mine contains a little more hardware..!

So, without further ado, here are the top ten things I use every day to plan, deliver and manage my events.

1. Mac Book (Black) – my fave piece of kit ever – my B-E-A-utiful Mac Book. It runs my life and I use it all day everyday. The hard-drive is nearly full, but that doesn’t stop it from running sweetly from morning through til night.
   I now have an even better MacBook Pro – I upgraded whist working out in the US this summer.  Still runs my life and is used and abused every day – in the office, on the road and at events
2. Nokia N95 – even though its held together with gaffer tape, my trusty N95 has been with me through thick and thin (and rain, snow, being dropped from the roof of a 4×4, mud etc). Because I don’t wear a watch, my phone spends most of its time being my clock – but for phone calls (lots of phone calls) and the odd text, my N95 has done me proud.
   A couple of summers ago I moved over to an Apple iPhone 3Gs (can you see a theme here!).  Synced to my MacBook Pro and Exchange Server (see below) so that I can keep track of my world – and the rest of my team.
3. Laser Measure – now its not that I don’t trust hotels when they tell me how big a room is, but, simply, I don’t trust them – my favourite was the hotel with the ’12 foot ceiling’ which was actually only 11 feet high – which meant that the 11.5 foot custom built set didn’t fit!!
4. Microsoft Office 2007 – despite the fact that I’m a Mac man for build and OS, I can’t get away from Excel and Word for running all my projects. I use the latest version of office, with all the bells and whistles (mainly because of my work with Microsoft) but day-in-day-out, you can’t beat Office for usability. I quite like Groove as well, but its been replaced in my everyday life with Basecamp (see below)
   Yep – still using Basecamp to share information both within and outside my team at event management company, Entourage Live.
5. OSX Widgets – on a Mac, you get a dashboard (which floats over the rest of your programmes) in which I run a couple of cool widgets which I use everyday. Included in this are the calculator (because other people in the office steal mine all the time), currency exchange calculator, Twidget (which allows me update my Twitter Profile from my desktop) and Address Widget, which lets me quickly find my contacts.
6. Speaking of Twitter – follow me here or the official eventsecrets twitter – updated when I remember, and a little dull at the best of times, catch up with me and my event planning ideas on Twitter! I must confess I’m getting slightly addicted!
7. maps.google.co.uk – My weapon of choice for working out where I’m going, what I’m doing and where I am! Festival planning is made easier when you can see aerial photos of your event sites.
8. WordPress – download from wordpress.org – I use WordPress every day. Not only to manage this event management site, but also my freelance event manager site over at robhaworth.com and now for event management company Entourage Live – if you are looking for an extendable, easy to use, customisable content management system then this is for you.
9. Exchange Server and Entourage (now using Apple Mail – I made the switch about a year ago when Apple started supporting Exchange Server) – with WordPress looking after my websites, Microsoft’s Exchange Server and Entourage (think Outlook for Mac) look after my email. I use email all day every day, with Exchange and Entourage looking after the lot – they keep my address book, calendar and mail sync’d meaning that my team can work collaborate better with shared calendars and contact lists.
10. Basecamp - last but not least is Basecamp – I probably don’t use this to its full power, but Basecamp is great for sharing docs, managing projects and keeping an online, sharable to-do list. I invite clients, suppliers and colleagues to a Basecamp site and then keep all the project files and to-dos in one place.

So that’s my list – what I use day-in-day-out to create the events that I do. From festivals to conferences all of these tools are used together to help me plan and execute all my events, in a collaborative and successful way. Let me know what you use, and what you think of these tools I’ve listed!