Next Gen destination organization and membership calendars will address private and shared uses simultaneously. They will exhibit native economies linking organizations together efficiently and profitably as groups sharing common geographic and economic affinities. Next Gen destination calendars will be multi screen-savvy working effectively at desktops, on mobile devices and on social media sites.
To accomplish this, Next Gen calendars will rely on system intelligence that manages event category topologies within networks where members push events as opposed to pulling them as additions or subscriptions from remote and isolated calendar installations. We can also expect a new emphasis on calendar branding that differentiates one calendar from another within a constellation of shared event resources. Since branding is so critical to success and so many calendars are forward-facing to the public on webs and mobile, one-size-fits-all systems with lack-luster styling capacities will render certain systems dead on arrival at company and destination headquarters. Designers will insist on fully articulated style sheets that they can use to tease-out every graphical nuance needed to complement well-crafted and costly brands.
The development of Next Gen calendars will be driven by a realization that internal and external calendar operations are deep structures with multiple event sub-strata rather than a series of shallow profiles with little or no identifiable complexities or destination synergies.
Let me explain using a project I am doing.
I’m working with a large DMO with over a thousand members. It is exemplary of groups that share the same calendar needs and challenges. If you think for a moment, you can immediately identify what the organization and its members need in order to run their own internal operations while contributing to the collective operations of the DMO. This is the easy part.
The challenge is affecting a universal event solution where each member calendar is a unique entity that is capable of direct and intelligent communication with all other network member calendars and a destination calendar that serves as a central event repository. I’m not talking about sharing. That’s ho hum. I’m not talking about pulling or gathering. I’m talking about pushing events outward the way that you would push an internal event like a meeting schedule outward to a colleague in an office on another floor of your building. Next Gen calendars will demonstrate a native intelligence that allows one calendar to maintain its individuality while apprehending and interfacing with equally unique network calendars that share destination-wide event affinities. If effect, Next Gen calendars will speak to the diverse needs of unique stakeholders and destination marketers in a common language through a shared system logic and purpose.
What isn’t happening at this point in calendar development is the ability to participate in other calendars on their terms. What’s missing is collective participation based on shared event sub-strata that belong to every stakeholder within a destination’s shared calendar constellation.
When I started working with my group, they had a calendar that accepted event submissions from members and non-members through an online form. They also had a separate internal calendar for their own internal organizational activities and events.
Each of their members also has their own calendar to organize internal events.
As we might guess, some member’s events are also public events. The same can be said for my client’s events. Some of their events are private and some need to be shared.
The question is how can all things happen quickly without duplicating efforts?
This is where topologies come into effect. Everybody organizes their activities into separate calendars comprised of events based on similarities that are unique to the calendar’s owner. An organization can have 50 calendars or one calendar compiled from 50 calendar sources. This traditional approach is helpful only up to a point.
Beyond this point are a series of questions that Next Gen calendars will address. “Why not one calendar, with 50 layers?” “Why not develop calendars with unique event sub-strata or categorization levels that have a system-wide knowledge of event sub-strata or categorization levels used by other calendars within a destination event constellation?” Why not facilitate sharing among calendars through mutually agreed upon categories that are common to all calendars where events are pushed to a community calendar that acts as a central repository for shared events within those categories?”
Now, we’re talking. So, as a member of a New Age destination marketing organization, I have my own calendar. It looks like mine and it is organized the way I need it for my operations. It is also intelligent. It can see the DMO’s calendar-related thought process in real time. I add an event to my calendar. Let’s call it a beer tasting. Let’s pretend I’m a brewery. To me, as the brewery owner, my tasting event means many things. Internally, it relates to event/scheduling sub categories such as planning, advertising, staffing, public viewing, etc. These are the ways that my tasting displays and is used on my internal calendar. Externally, my event means other things. It relates to the DMO’s unique set of event/scheduling sub categories. Therefore, as I add my event to my calendar topology, I also push it to the DMO’s calendar based on how their calendar is organized. For example, my tasting may fall into a category called July 4th Events on the DMO calendar. While I have no ability to affect the DMO event structure, I can see what that event structure is and push my event into their category system automatically for approval and posting.
I guess you have figured it out. We already invented this and it’s ready to go viral. It is called Uincalpro. It saves time, it ties members together, and it is revenue-producing since a fee can be charged to participants for using the calendar for all internal and external operations. Contact us for a demo.
