WARNING: This post may be a long read for those interested, depending on your awareness of the tools I'm about to mention. Grab a cup of coffee, a pen and a notepad, and let's take our work to the next level!

Registered users will receive a confirmation email and a reminder email a day or two prior to the event. When it comes time for you to prepare for the event, you can export the data into a spreadsheet or print a final report. Super simple and helpful.

Here's another example I used of our Christmas potluck sign-up (I opened back up registration so you could see the entire registration process):

ISSUU

Like I said, my main job is editor of a 20- to 24-page magazine, as well as other publications. Issuu is my go-to when I want a sleek look for my magazines and newsletters on digital platforms.

I have spoken with a few of my colleagues about Issuu, and some have had issues with the privacy of their content. Issuu makes it easy for your content to be seen only by anyone with a link to it (or wherever it's embedded). They use the term "Unpublish."

For $39/month, we are able to insert links that jump within the document and links that take you to external pages and emails. The extra cost gives you the ability to turn off advertising and links to other Issuu documents.

Its "Shelf" feature allows you to combine a series of publications in a very visually appealing way. Here's what our "shelves" currently look like on our website:


I also use Issuu to digitally publish our internal newsletter-turned-magazine, Watts Watt, but you can't see them by visiting our personalized Issuu link. I have them "unpublished," and only those with a direct link can view them.

ADOBE BRIDGE

Y'all, if you are still using Photoshop to edit photos, there's a much simpler, more efficient way to do it! Adobe Bridge! I've been using it for over a year now and wish someone would've clued me in long before that.

It's part of the Adobe Creative Suite of apps and is DEFINITELY a tool you should be utilizing if you are required to do any photo editing. Let me show you why.

First, there's this feature called "Camera Raw" that has EVERY. SINGLE. EDITING. TOOL. YOU. NEED. in one place. If it seems like I'm yelling, I am. It's that awesome.

Select as many photos as you want, right-click and select "Open in camera raw." Prepare to be amazed. If you already know what I'm talking about, keep reading...you may learn something new; I learn about a new feature every time I use it!

As examples, I'm using some recent photos I took of my little ginger in the snow. This is what it looks like when you open in camera raw:


Notice the toolbar of awesomeness on the right:


Do you realize what this means?! No more doing this in Photoshop...for every. single. change:


I never realized how annoying that was until I discovered I didn't have to live that way. But wait, there's more...

Simply click the tabs at the top of the toolbar section and you see several different editing tools at your fingertips (click to enlarge):




Then, there's this toolbar across the very top that has EVEN MORE things you never knew you needed:


From here you can —among other things I have yet to discover — rotate, adjust the aspect ratio, fix red eyes, edit only selected parts of photos and — the big one — remove spots and blemishes...and entire cars, like such (click to enlarge):



BUT, perhaps my favorite feature: You can edit all the photos AT THE SAME TIME.

If you have a large group of photos that, for example, need increased exposure, click this:


Now, any adjustment you make will apply to ALL photos.

That's STILL not all.

When you're finished, click "Save Image(s)" in the bottom LEFT (not "Done" in the bottom right). You'll see this dialog box:


You can choose to save them in the same location or create a new folder, and you can also choose to rename them.

If your camera takes photos that are a bajillion MBs, you can resize them all at once in this box. In the middle of the box is "Quality." Select a size between 1 and 12. I resize copies of photos for this blog to be smaller than the copies I may get printed someday because if they're too large, they will take forever to load. Be sure to save high res copies in case you need to use them for print.

You can also use this to resize photos to a certain width, height and resolution. I used this to quickly resize employee head shots to 400x400 for our IT department.

SURVEY MONKEY

Survey Monkey is not necessarily a new thing, but it's super simple to use and gives me the results I need. It's easy to embed, link to and share.

I love the way it presents survey results, which can also be exported into a spreadsheet. In addition, you can share a private link to the results with an outside user, who does not have access to the rest of your account information. For example, I used it to conduct an employee survey for our HR department and gave one of our HR administrators the link to the results. She was able to access all the information she needed from the survey.

I have used it for small surveys and large, like our annual meeting survey. Nearly 400 users submitted the survey online, most likely from mobile devices. If you haven't noticed, I tend to only use tools that translate well across all different platforms. Survey Monkey is no different.

Oh, and it's FREE (up to 100 responses per month), so there's that.

ADOBE PORTFOLIO

I'm not sure how I ran across Adobe Portfolio, but wow! I'm so glad I did!

FREE with an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription, Portfolio allows you to create a mobile responsive website! It's a great tool to display several projects or events. I recently used it to communicate all the holiday events OEC had available as a supplement to a printed Holiday Events Guide.

Explore it here.

JOTFORM

In recently dealing with the obnoxious built-in forms of Co-op Web Builder, I researched different forms that would provide content on the back-end in a much more efficient manner. Enter JotForm.

They are easily customizable and FREE (up to a certain number of submissions). You can export the data into several different formats and send automated email confirmations. In addition to using them for work-related forms, I also use it as my personalized planner order form.

GREENVELOPE

Do you ever need to send evites? Greenvelope is a very cool way to send invitations via email. They're very professionally-designed and look great on all platforms. Here's an example of one I recently made for a Christmas party:


In the email, the personalized envelope opened itself and out came this card. I wish I could show you how cute the animated email is. It's not so cute, however, that it can't be used professionally. We also used this service to send out golf tournament and annual meeting invitations to a few recipients.

Greenvelope tracks who has opened the email and automatically sends reminder emails as the event or RSVP deadline nears.

DOODLE

You've likely heard of or used Doodle but, if not, it's just another tool you can have in your arsenal when you need it.

We have a massage therapist come to our office to conduct chair massages a few times a year. With limited spots available, I link to a Doodle poll from our MailChimp weekly enewsletter for those interested to see available time slots and to sign up for one. It's free, easy to use and achieves everything I need it to. I will continue to use EventBrite for large events, but for smaller sign-ups, Doodle is all I need.

It would also be super useful if you need to schedule, say, photos to be taken. Every other year, we publish employee portraits in the December issue of our magazine. This will be the year for that, and I'll need to designate times for dozens of employees to take their portraits. Doodle allows you to pass the buck to others, rather than stressing about scheduling around meetings and whatnot. Let them look at their calendars and figure out the best time and sign up on their phones using Doodle. The hardest part for you becomes setting it up!


I sincerely hope if your work contains similar functions that you have found something valuable. I would also like to know what YOU use on a regular basis to make your job easier and more efficient! Feel free to share in the comments below!