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Thursday, December 19, 2013

What DoStuff's Doing: CELEBRATING!

No comments: Posted by Anonymous at 3:38 PM Labels:

Weeks 12/5 - 12/19

'Tis the season!  We have all earned our time for celebration and rest given how hard we have been working the past few weeks.  Read on for news of our latest redesign improvements, platform fixes, 2ND BOOTCAMP with Dallas and Seattle, as well as our holiday plans.

Redesign the Rad Reindeer

Because if the Redesign were a reindeer, it would totally takeover Rudolph's role to guide Santa's sleigh into the future.

Oh heeeyyyy did you all hear that Do512 and Do312 launched officially?! We'll start 2014 off with soft launching our California cities, DoLA and Do415.

Our Dev team did some superstar stuff these past few weeks related to redesign , some of which was mentioned in our previous posts.

One BIG change was made across all your sites as a result of our A/B testing: smaller event cards on your listing pages.

See the test results below:

As you can see, Variation 1 as representative of the smaller cards didn't test significantly better, but many of you felt strongly about it aesthetically. So it is now live for you all!

Another BIG improvement is specifically related to BIG ON SALES or how ticket on sale info displays. Instead of the "BUY" button on the event card or page, the button will display the date that tickets go on sale or, if day of, the time.* You can checkout Do312's Big On Sales list to see how it looks.

*This information is scraped or entered under Ticket Info on event pages in Admin. Want some help getting a Big On Sales list set-up? Let us know!

Here are some additional redesign improvements and fixes:
  • You can now delete/remove photos in the Manage Photos modal in Admin.
  • We shrunk the width of the Search box when opened so it does not overlap your logo.
  • A "Contact" check is included in the event creation form so users can let you know if they are interested in running RSVPs or advertising. 
  • Error pages will now direct users to contact your subdomain email, such as do512@do512.com.


Re: RSVPs

We've made quite a few fixes to RSVPs given your feedback, so it deserved a section unto itself.  Here is what we've completed:
  • If you elect to uncheck "Send confirmation email?" in the RSVP setup, a confirmation email will not send.
  • You can customize additional text RSVPer receives upon confirmation in the "RSVP confirmation email" field.
  • "Affiliation" entry works and saves for RSVPers.
  • You can set an RSVP passcode to lock events.
  • 21+? appears on all RSVP/Giveaways modals default checked.
Look for more RSVP upgrades (anyone requesting email customization?) we're going to prioritize Episode 5 beginning in January!


Bootcamp: Do206 and 214!

That's Seattle and Dallas, respectively. These two new terrific teams joined us at DoStuff HQ this past Monday and Tuesday to learn all that we could cram into the two days about what it takes to make build a Do community in their cities.  

Check out their class photos:


Do206


Do214


One Big Happy Graduating Class!

Do206 plans on launching in January, while Do214 will launch later in the spring! We'll keep you posted on their progress.

Sales Part-ay

As those of you who participated on Michael's sales call learned last week, we have good conversations happening and ideas in the pipeline.  Look for further upcoming updates regarding Goose and AB.

Also, SXSW! Get those ideas out there and begin you planning.

Happy Holidays!!!

As mentioned in an email Kristin sent out, we are planning on taking some R&R over the holidays weeks so that we can come back for 2014 refreshed and ready to kill it. (If you need anything support related that is urgent, simply label it "URGENT" in the subject line.) It's been a big year, and this next one is going to be even bigger!

We at DoStuff are all planning on time with friends and family. Some of us are travelling, from New Mexico to Florida to NYC! 

The first full week of January, DoStuff will regroup to close Episode 4 and start Episode 5. We look forward to filling you in on the details of our plans for global domination once we've strategized sufficiently.

Until then, we hope you all enjoy the season as well and take it easy!


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Friday, December 13, 2013

Redesign UPdate: IMPORTANT Image Changes, Follow Artists, and Ongoing Event Fix

No comments: Posted by Anonymous at 3:17 PM Labels:
The following improvements are important to review as they may affect your work flow AND may have been something you requested!

Image Changes

We apologize for any confusion regarding appropriate image dimensions.  We've changed some of the necessary dimensions and want to make them clear.

Hero -> Photo

The space formerly known as hero and now the photo has been resized for not only events but ALSO artist, venue, and user pages.
  • Dimensions: 1200x450 
  • The photo is automatically cropped to center faces

A reminder about how EVENT photos will be chosen:
  1. Manually added*
  2. Headliner (top artist) photo
  3. Venue photo
*This is currently by default BUT you can request a specific scraper fix to input scraped images as the "photo" as opposed to the poster.

Poster

Posters show below event description on event pages.
  • Dimensions: at least 450 w, no height requirement
  • Posters less than the required width will not display

A reminder about how EVENT posters will be chosen:
  1. Manually added
  2. From scraper

Search Results/Latest

The images at the top of your Search Results and Latest pages now display your default photo.
  • Dimensions same as all photos! 1200x450

Header

The header across the top of your site has not changed, but just to lay out all image specifications:
  • Dimensions: 1200x125

Justin created this handy dandy visual to explain it all:

User Image Guidance

Many of you noted that it was not clear to your users creating events the difference between a photo and a poster. As an answer, we input guidance directly within the event creation process.  Check it out!


Other Sweet Fixes

  • You can select to "Follow Artists" in the event activity feed.
  • Ongoing events now show their FULL date range until they are officially past.
  • You can now see your new site in all its splendour on older versions of Safari!


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Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Redesign UPdate: Event Image Changes

No comments: Posted by Anonymous at 3:33 PM Labels:
To improve how you manage event images on the new site, we have made a couple changes.

Hero to Photo

The image formerly known as the "hero" is now the photo. The photo is chosen in the following order (so if not the first, the second and so on):
  1. Manually added
  2.  Headliner (top artist) photo
  3. Venue photo
Where the photo displays:
  • Top of event page 
  • Background of the event card on the listing page

Poster as Poster

The poster is still the poster. It is chosen in the following order:
  1. Manually added
  2. Scraped
Where the poster displays:
  • Below the event description on the event page

For an example, check out this event: http://donyc.com/events/2013/12/12/dj-uestlove-presents-bowl-train

  • Photo is ?estlove's photo as headliner
  • Poster is Brooklyn Bowl's poster

Management

You'll notice a "DO NOT USE" space in the event "Manage Photos" modal. Don't use it! It was part of the transition as we made these changes.

The photo going forward will NOT be a scraped image. This is an incentive to have good headliner images and improve band content!

The poster is intended as a space for the text posters that venues use for shows. Some venue calendars you scrape may show artist photos and appear redundant in that space. If you don't want a scraper to pull in images for this reason, request a fix to the scraper to ignore them (please be aware of whether you are requesting a fixed to a shared network scraper).

We have also now made it easier to edit event pages on your site! If you haven't checked out the little pencil icon in the bottom corner, do so! You'll be able to delete images from the front-end event edit page as we want to make this an easier place to make changes as you check over your site.
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A/B Testing: Win Button Stats

No comments: Posted by Anonymous at 11:37 AM Labels:
Check out some recent stats for how the button changes are doing.

Variation 1 is the test with the more visible "WIN" button.

Both ONLY include users that did not enter the site through an event detail page and did not stay on the site for more than 30 minutes.




The test is continuing, and we'll keep you posted as to the clear WINNER.

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Tuesday, December 10, 2013

A/B Testing: Win Button!

No comments: Posted by Anonymous at 3:27 PM Labels:
We thought you all would be interested in learning the latest A/B test we are running regarding user engagement on the new site! We've changed prominence and positioning of some of the call to action buttons.

What We're Testing:


  • Reordering the buttons on listing page hover and mobile from "ADD + BUY + WIN/RSVP" to be "WIN/ RSVP + BUY + ADD"
  • Changing "WIN" to read "ENTER TO WIN" on the event details page
  • Showing by default WIN and RSVP buttons without hover

  • On mobile listings, showing WIN and RSVP buttons on the bottom of the event card




Where We're Testing: 


  • This is currently showing on 50% of Do512 traffic.

How We're Testing: 


  • We are looking at ALL metrics, not just whether more people click the WIN button.
  • Those metrics include whether this new placement
    • Cannibalizes clicks on other things
    • Changes time on site, pages/visit/bounce rate

We'll keep you posted as to how this test compares to the current design. Thoughts or questions, comment below!

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Do512 and Do312 LAUNCHED!

No comments: Posted by Anonymous at 9:59 AM Labels:
Yesterday, Do512 and Do312 launched officially with the new site. While every metro team has worked hard in the transition process, these teams had large audiences, plenty of partners, and history to turnover.

To mark this historic moment, Kristin shared these images of evolution:
          
Original Logo

V 1.0

       
V 2.0

V 3.0

V 4.0

V 5.0




















































How far we have come! Who knows where we'll be in another few years. To see the whole trip down memory lane, check out the album.


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Monday, December 9, 2013

Featured Venue Widget Update

No comments: Posted by Anonymous at 8:46 AM Labels:
You asked for the Featured Venue Widget to be more customizable, so we input the event photo as the background image.  And we were just so excited about it we couldn't wait for a longer update to tell you!

Check it out:


If you find this makes the actual listing harder to read, you can work with your designer to make it more legible.

Note: The image selected for the widget is the event photo* not the poster.

*Going forward, we are now calling the "hero" the "photo" so as not to be all design jargon-y and confusing. More image updates coming your way soon!
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Thursday, December 5, 2013

What DoStuff's Doing: Redesign Rally and Start to the Holiday Season

No comments: Posted by Anonymous at 10:19 AM Labels:

Weeks 11/19 - 12/4

Time has flown these past two weeks here at DoStuff HQ! And it's only going to speed up for all of us as the holiday vortex - the week of Christmas through New Year's - nears. Despite time for travels, turkey, and taking it easy last week, we've still been pushing hard. Read on for all that DoStuff has gotten done and some of what we plan to do regarding redesign, new metros, and programs!

Redesign Rally

We are in the final stretch of finalizing the redesign and getting everyone transitioned to the new platform.  Do512 and Do312 soft launched this past Monday and will hard launch this coming Monday. That's 75% of our sites nearly transitioned and includes our pioneer metros! This is HUGE and would not be possible without the hard work that everyone has put in to make it happen.

Thanks so much to everyone for their ongoing efforts to make the site the best possible site it can be. We appreciate your insight in our Opportunities project. This past week, we prioritized all fixes and improvements to push for closure on the majority of redesign related work.  

Some of the most recent improvements that are currently live include:
  • The band lineup now appears at the top of the event activity feed and links to all band pages.
  • We clarified "Follows" in the event activity feed.
  • HTML descriptions now work only for users set as Promo Users for site security reasons. 
  • We improved event descriptions to be slightly more customizable and include line-breaks.
  • Day + date are now shown at the top of the homepage, and day + date headers appear in search results.
  • Promo User's can be set to "Auto-redirect" so the user will bypass the Promo User page and be taken directly to the most recent upcoming event voted on by the Promo User.
  • Mobile UI has been streamlined, and you can upload a mobile-specific logo.
  • COMMENTS from Featured Reviewers (scraped comments) are now visible. Check out how this looks on DoLA.
  • POSTER images now display below the event description.  See this example on doNYC.

Some of the most recent fixes include:
  • The Spam Bot question now appears on the event creation form so that users can successfully add events!
  • When opening to "View More" events on a user page, the page no longer displays repeating events.
  • When editing your user profile, you can now change your password.
  • Promo User lists now can be set to sort events by popularity.
  • We've optimized the backend for your site to run even more smoothly with more traffic.

Important note regarding IMAGES:
  • Since we slimmed down the hero area, the ideal height is now 450px.
  • We are defining the image designation and will clarify any current confusion soon!

As mentioned in the last Redesign UPdate, we are A/B testing certain design elements given your feedback and user feedback.  We are currently testing slimmer events on listing pages. See the comparison:

We'll judge which is preferable based on time spent on these pages, bounce rate, and user actions.

We also continue to update documentation with what you need to know regarding these improvements and the redesign overall.  Check out our latest addition of AD SPECS guidance.

New Metro News

Do617 (Boston), Do416 (Toronto), and HazDF (Mexico City) are rapidly moving toward early 2014 launches with progress made on the partner, content, and design fronts.  Do617 continues to break early Twitter follower records. Check out Do416's social efforts on Facebok and Twitter. Stay tuned for HazDF's social debut.

On December 16th and 17th, DoStuff will host Do206 (Seattle) and Do214 (Dallas) for their training bootcamp!

Conversations with new markets are happening with potential partners in Philadelphia, Vancouver, Montreal, Calagry, Denver, Detroit, San Antonio, Milwaukee, and Portlands - that's Oregon as well as Maine!

Programs and Partnerships

The Macallan campaign wrapped reporting and the Eric Andre Adult Swim promotion came to a close. Nokia is running smoothly ahead.

On the potential programs side, we've been having good discussions with brands from Pabst to Pandora. More info to come!

SX! Start thinking about it if you have not already.  We sure are.

Miscellaneous But Noteworthy

  • We're working to finalize more documentation regarding Promo User page customization. 
  • We are also working on Tortuga and Big Ears festival. 
  • The new newsletter template is nearly finalized. 
  • Guestlist app is moving toward completion! 

DoStuff Stuff

Our funding conversations went well the past few weeks and will continue after the holidays. We are moving forward in conversations to expand our current team so that we can better support you all and continue to grow.  

We are planning on transitioning from Episode 4 to Episode 5 in early January.  We're pushing through all tasks under the "This Episode" heading in the Opportunities project and also on all of our ongoing projects. We will definitely be informing you all how the final stretch goes and what our priorities are the upcoming episode.

We hope you all had wonderful Thanksgivings and are enjoying the start to the holiday season!

*Hearts and Merriment*

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Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Redesign UPdate: Mobile Logo, A/B Testing, and Vanity URL

No comments: Posted by Anonymous at 11:19 AM Labels:
A very Happy Thanksgiving Eve to all! Before you get to traveling, cooking, napping, family-timing, or whatever your holiday celebration entails (minus our international partners...), we have some sweet redesign updates for you to check out.


Mobile Logo

You requested a way to change the logo for mobile to one that fits better with responsive resizing. Now it's available!
  • In your SASS editor below "Logo URL" you have a field for "Mobile Logo URL." 
  • pload your mobile logo to your Admin assets and simply copy the link to this location.
  • Specs: We recommend the same height as your current logo but square, so about 106x106.
  • If you don't input a mobile logo, your site will simply keep the regular logo as it has done when resized.


A/B Testing

Based off of user feedback and your feedback thus far, we are going to be A/B testing some design changes. Google Analytics has programming to easily facilitate A/B testing changes to determine a winning element.
  • Our first test and change that we implemented was tightening the Event Hero space to reduce the lines between the event title and additional info, which now allows the user to see more of the event page and makes the presentation of information more streamlined overall.
  • We will continue to implement various tests, such as expanding event details on mobile versus opening the event details on a new page, and keep you updated as to the decisions we make.
  • Ultimately, the goal is to build an amazing site that encourages engagement, gets people to go do stuff, makes you more successful with partners ($), and inspires more DoXXX love. We are keeping this top of mind when making decisions that would be impossible to 100% please 100% of all involved. 


Vanity URLs

Promo Users used to be the only pages that could easily have vanity URLs, but now we have added the feature to Events.
  • When you edit any Event page, you will find a "vanity" field in the "Advanced" section under "Permalink."
  • You can use this instead of the Promo User vote to apply the vanity URL to events.
  • We will be adding Vanity URLs to your HTML pages and venues eventually.

Other Stuff

We've cleaned up the event activity feed!
  • Addition to the feed is now attributed to "DoXXX" as opposed to the venue.
  • "Follow" works and makes clear what the user is selecting to follow.

Okay, that covers our most recent redesign highlights. Thanks all for your continued feedback and investment in what we're building. Enjoy your holiday!
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Thursday, November 21, 2013

User Description Update

No comments: Posted by Anonymous at 8:37 AM Labels: ,

To our Content Connoisseurs:

We recently made a change to the way user/Promo User descriptions work and want to clarify in case you come across anything strange on your user pages.

We removed the ability for ANY user to show HTML/JS or special code input in their description (for security reasons on your new site).  If you have a regular user page and the description has any code, it will simply show up on your site as code rather than centered text in fancy colors, etc.
To fix these special pages, simply take the following steps:
  1. Open the user page to "edit"
  2. Check "Promo User"
  3. Copy the code in the "Description" field to the "New Promo Descr." field
For your Promo Users that had their descriptions in the "Description" field, we automatically copied their descriptions to the "New Promo Descr." field for you.

You may notice that some of your Promo User pages on your new site that did not previously show images in the description over the hero image now do.  For example: http://newstuff.do512.com/TribezaAustin

We had been hiding any image in the descriptions as we transitioned to the new site, but now have unhidden them for the cases when you want to include images over the hero.  You can simply remove these from the "New Promo Descr." field as you find them if you don't want them to show.

Hope that explanation makes sense! Here are the cliff notes just in case:
  • Only Promo Users can have specially coded descriptions
  • Those descriptions MUST be included in the "New Promo Descr." field
  • Some of your promo users have images in their "New Promo Descr." that we have unhidden and you may want to remove
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Tuesday, November 19, 2013

What DoStuff's Doing: Post Dos

No comments: Posted by Anonymous at 1:23 PM Labels:

Weeks 11/4 - 11/18

These have been an eventful few weeks here in Austin with Fun Fun Fun Fest, F1, and fall finally settling in. They have been an especially eventful few weeks for the DoStuff network given redesign transitions and our FIRST official Onboarding Bootcamp with our newest cities. Read on for details. 

Redesign Transitions

Do314 and Do615 officially made the transition a few weeks ago, and doNYC and Do317 soft launched last week and hard launched this week.  That's half our network now running fully on the new platform! Given that this redesign has been a year plus in planning, we are thrilled to finally see it a reality. A big thanks to their teams for inputting their detailed feedback in our Opportunities project to make sure their sites are flawless.  We're so close to getting them there!   

As you have seen, we have a little pop-up survey running requesting feedback from users.  Here are some points of praise:
  • "Cool...cool, cool" 
  • "Much easier to navigate. Flows nicely." 
  • "I'm a graphic designer and I love the new clean flat design! First glance- very good"
  • "It looks more modern but has retained all of the features I am used to from the old site. I think it will grow on me soon." 
  • "I like that it is responsive! Big Visuals are nice."
  • "Awesome sauce with a side of clam"

Not all the feedback has been so positive, of course.  Changes to products people already love can inspire resistance. (Remember Katie G's story about how they had to hunker down at Facebook HQ because people were protesting the implementation of Newsfeed!? Fortunately, DoStuff HQ and none of your offices have been similarly mobbed.) So here are some of the points of contention:
  • "I love the clean responsive look. However, everything in my opinion is overbearingly huge. Usually, the more you can see in one glance, the more user friendly a website can be."
  • "Font and events too big. Can see only a few events. Contrast between background and text not high enough."
  • "like the old design better, it was much cleaner."
  • "It's very hard to navigate. Trying to look clean and tidy and cool and new but not achieving desired intention."

We may not be pleasing everyone initially, but we will continue to improve the product and your fans on the fence will grow to love it as they discover and become accustomed to its awesomeness.

Next week, we're soft launching Do312 and Do512, our network pioneers with the largest audiences! We'll keep you posted on their press pushes and community responses.

Redesign Upgrades

Given the feedback you all have been inputting in the Opportunities queue, we have been prioritizing and pushing out many major and minor improvements.  Here are some of the things we've completed:
  • PHOTO pages! Here's an example.
  • We have given you the ability to customize your pages.  This allows you a super flexible way to represent content. Check out how Do512 used this new feature for Car2Go.
  • Cleaned up mobile dropdowns
  • Improved ad displays
  • Fixed "Follow" button to work on Event Activity Feed
  • Added auto-fill to Giveaway/RSVP modals for logged in users
  • Input a fix for all the crazy characters popping up on your site so that you don't have to manually edit (phew...)
  • Improved calendar and map views

We have much to do still, and please continue to help us out by inputting your feedback and following the progress of fixes in Asana.

Also, check out our Redesign Section in HelpDesk for everything from new proposal templates to content guidance.

Onboarding Bootcamp

A few of our major Episode 3 projects involved defining an onboarding process and creating a polished Bootcamp with corresponding documentation to set up our new markets for success.  While all our current teams have done extraordinarily well given the prior support setup we offered, we wanted to build something turn-key and holistic that draws from our experiences.  Episode 4 has entailed actually implementing the result of those projects with Do416 (Toronto), Do617 (Boston), and HazDF (Mexico City).

Last Tuesday, we kicked off our first 2-day intensive Bootcamp with these three awesome teams.  They went through several sessions led by Kristin, Michael, Stuart, and myself that covered everything from building a mission to defining their editorial voice to sales strategies to understanding the platform.  There is so much to learn about what we do!

Each team member received a Field Guide relevant to their role that you can view here:

It was mostly work, but there was some play! Check out pics courtesy of Adi and Mary: 

Tuesday night at Easy Tiger
Wednesday lunch and grad ceremony at El Meson
Our class photo graduation gift!
Blooper group shot in the oncoming cold front bluster!

















Each of these teams is back home and raring toward an official launch. It looks like Do416 and Do617 will launch in January and HazDF will launch in April.

Do617 has already begun a social media tease.  They gained 1200 Twitter followers in 24-hours and their Facebook page is blowing up! Be sure to follow and support all our network's new cities on social!

As to our other new cites, Do206 (Seattle) and Do214 (Dallas), both are in the hiring stages to find their teams and ready to move forward.  We will likely host them for a Bootcamp in January.  If you have any leads for potential GMs or CMs, send them our way!

Programs

All the pieces of the Bud Light Platinum campaign have been put into play - wahoo! Adi continues to check in with Do415, DoLA, and doNYC regarding Tastemaker promotions for Nokia and sending Nokia reports. Thank you for your dedication to making it work! Also, some of our metros are working with Adult Swim! Do512, Do615, and DoLA are all working on a promo campaign for Eric Andre.

Festivals

Do415 got NoisePop going! Though we are in the post-fest season, we have also been working on Florida Country Superfest and FloydFest.

Other Important Project Progress

We know you all have been curious about the new newsletter template.  We have been refining it and plan to have a finalized version for you within the next few weeks!

Surveys are moving forward across the network! Much of doNYC's results have been finalized and DoLA has settled on a sweet prize to get theirs going.

As you may be aware or have read in our debut post, one of the important projects Scott and Michael have had this Episode is to raise a round of funding so that we can grow bigger and faster.  They have been travelling to NYC, LA, SF and back again in service of this project and have had stellar conversations thus far.  You can see the deck that they share here.  We will keep you posted as to their progress and what it entails for how we can better serve you all!

Fantastic Fall

Our November has started off sweetly, and we'll finish it sweetly. Thanksgiving is already next week then the holidays are here! We know you're busy and pushing hard. We hope you take time to savour the sweetness in all your hard work by celebrating and relaxing with friends and family.

As always, please comment here or reach out with questions and thoughts.



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Thursday, November 14, 2013

Redesign UPdate: More Launches, Weird Character Fixes, and RSVP/Guestlist Stuff

No comments: Posted by Anonymous at 1:12 PM
We have some important redesign related updates to share, so please read on...

Launches

This past week, both Do317 and doNYC soft launched their new sites and will hard launch next week! Big thanks to their teams for their awesome effort in identifying priority fixes and keeping up the transition momentum.

Weird Characters

We know you've been frustrated by the weird characters popping up on your site due to accents, tildes, apostrophes, and other symbols. We have good news: we have not only a long-term but now also a short-term fix! You no longer need to manually edit corrections. We have corrected much of the appearance of these weird characters, and will continually work to make sure they're automatically corrected. BUT we could use your help in doing so.

When you find weird characters on your site, please send support@dostuffmedia.com a link to that page without manually editing it. That way we can build a fix for all cases of that weirdness.

RSVP/Giveaway Stuff

On your new sites, it no longer makes sense to have the RSVP/Giveaway "Special Offer" text read "Click 'Like' to Win" or anything similar because users no longer have the 'Like' button - only 'Add' and 'Win' or 'RSVP.' It's still important that you have a call to action included in the "Special Offer" field, so you'll want to change these out with new copy that makes sense. Just something to be aware of as you prep for your transitions or adapt to your new site.

Also, we recommend that everyone include a link to your Guestlist page in the "Featured Stuff" section opened with search similar to how you have had it in you "Must Do/Big Stuff" dropdown.

Any thoughts of questions on this stuff or other stuff, please let us know.



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Thursday, November 7, 2013

DoStuff's SX Video

No comments: Posted by Anonymous at 11:01 AM Labels:

We Help People Do Awesome Stuff

And made a video a while back with your help to better explain what exactly that means.  Check it out here and on our website.


Thanks for all your contributions!
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Do317 in Live Nation's Internal Newsletter

No comments: Posted by Anonymous at 9:56 AM Labels:
Do317 was in good company earlier this week with a mention in Live Nation's national internal newsletter.  Check it out! (Highlighting our addition.)
Livenation
Internal Announcements
Live Nation News
Ticketmaster News
Industry News




Live Nation News

Liberty Media Reports Third Quarter 2013 Financial Results
The Wall Street Journal - Nov 05, 2013
ENGLEWOOD, Colo/--(BUSINESS WIRE)--November 05, 2013-- Liberty Media Corporation ("Liberty Media") (Nasdaq: LMCA, LMCB) today reported third quarter 2013 results.



Arctic Monkeys Announce New Tour Dates
Rolling Stone - Nov 05, 2013
Arctic Monkeys have announced a fresh batch of U.S. tour dates for January, including a headlining gig at New York City's Madison Square Garden on February 8th, 2014.



Paul Simon & Sting: On Stage Together
The Wall Street Journal - Nov 05, 2013
NEW YORK, Nov. 5, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Live Nation Global Touring announced today that Paul Simon & Sting, two of music's most renowned and enduring artists, will embark on a concert tour throughout North America in February and March 2014.



The Prodigy to Headline NYE 2013 @ The O2
Altsounds - Nov 05, 2013
Live Nation and The O2 are thrilled to present the ultimate New Year’s Eve party as legendary dance / rock crossover group The Prodigy will be joined by Rudimental DJs, the original ninja-DJ Jaguar Skills, north London dubstep-rock band Modestep and Godfather of rave Slipmatt, to bring you what is set to be the biggest and best NYE rave going.



Matt Schwegman Heads to Louisville, The Vogue Joins House of Blues Family
Do317 Blog - Nov 05, 2013
House of Blues Entertainment announced today that they have hired Matt Schwegman, Entertainment Manager at The Vogue, to spearhead their new soon-to-be-named 900 seat venue in Louisville, KY.




Ticketmaster News

NHL and Ticketmaster Renew Their Agreement
BroadwayWorld.com - Nov 05, 2013
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES, Nov. 5, 2013 /PRNewswire/ The National Hockey League (NHL) and Ticketmaster, a Live Nation Entertainment company (NYSE:LYV), today announced the extension of a multiyear ticketing agreement, which includes enhanced ticketing options and greater convenience for hockey fans.



Ticketmaster UK Strengthens Executive Team
Event Magazine - Nov 05, 2013
New starters include Nick Griffith who joins the company from SkyIQ as sales operations director, and Tommy Tyekiff, formerly of Ingenious Media, who has been recruited as vice president and will be responsible for business transformation in January 2014.




Industry News

Red Hot Chili Peppers, Soundgarden, Arcade Fire Confirmed for Lollapalooza’s Expanded South America Trek
billboardbiz - Nov 05, 2013
Red Hot Chili Peppers, Soundgarden, Arcade Fire, Nine Inch Nails, Pixies and Phoenix are among the headliners confirmed for Lollapalooza’s 2014 South American trek.



Pitbull to Host American Music Awards
Rolling Stone - Nov 05, 2013
Mr. Worldwide himself, Pitbull, will touch down in Los Angeles to host the American Music Awards when they air live November 24th on ABC, The Associated Press reports.



Janis Joplin Honored with Hollywood 'Walk of Fame' Star
Rolling Stone - Nov 05, 2013
Exactly forty-three years and a month after she passed away, Janis Joplin was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame yesterday.



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Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Redesign UPdate: Launched + Footers + Content Guide

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Launched! 

Do314 and Do615 have officially launched their redesigned sites! A big thanks to their teams for putting in the effort to be the first to make the move.

We have a little pop-up survey on the new site. Here's some feedback so far:

  • "this site looks SUUUUPER SHARP!! the calendar page (monthly calendar page) is very clutch, it looks like it links well all across each page. super easy searchability, and filtration by type of event is suuuper cool. good work guys!" 
  • "love it love" 
  • Lots of "great"s 
  • A link to this classic clip. 


When a new site is launched, we make sure to redirect newstuff.doxxx.com and the old mobile site to the proper site.

 Footer 

Additionally, we wanted to let you know that you can now input links in your footer section, such as "About" and "Advertise." To do so:

  1. Navigate to your Pages (Note: If you currently use "Content Blocks," simply copy and paste that info into a new page as we are no longer using those for this purpose.) 
  2. Open the page you wish to include to "Edit" 
  3. Check "Show in Footer" Designate the order - 1 for first on the right, 2 to follow, etc.* 
  4. "Update" and your footer is set! 

*"Terms of Service" and "Privacy" are designated automatically as last.

Content Guide 

We have gathered this info and more content guidance regarding all aspects on the new site that bear greater clarification here, from Hero Images to Photo Pages. Please let us know any other info you still need! This article exists in a section we are building out with Redesign documentation that will shortly include all proposal templates and pitch decks as well.

 We continue to make improvements given your valuable feedback, so thanks to everyone who is inputting items in our Opportunities queue!
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Friday, November 1, 2013

What DoStuff's Doing: Debut

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Doing Big Stuff

Well Doers, it's hard to believe we are nearly a month out from the Summit. We've been pushing hard at DoStuff to get you all ready for your redesign transitions, to onboard our newest cities, and to support you in delivering brand programs.  We know you've been pushing hard to deliver those programs, to prepare for Halloween and the upcoming holidays, and to build and strengthen partnerships. Not to mention whatever else this time of year has brought you (World Series extravaganza? Rocktober? Crazy weather?)...

We want to continue the good communication with you that happened around the Summit but realized recently (with some help from you all) that there may be a disconnect between DoStuff and your team: we have a good idea of what you're up to but you may have little idea what exactly we're doing.

We've messaged you in the past about our Episode process and Projects that get our attention when we aren't directly supporting you, but we've let that drop in our effort to just keep pushing. In the spirit of open communication, we want to pick that up again in a new and consistent way.

This blog will serve as a means by which we will update you bi-weekly about our current focus and Episode progress. These updates will be for you to skim or study as your time permits.

Because we have so many other channels of communication as well (Google Group blast, NewStuff posts in Admin, Editorial Tumblr, telepathy), we will begin to consolidate much of that so we can provide a centralized source for all news from DoStuff.  We'll still email you about urgent stuff, but you'll also be able to reference that communication here.

DoStuff's Big Goals

We let you all know last January that we had adopted Asana's Episode process to outline Projects that we take on in order to better envision and target our long-term growth.  Then we gave you a list of those projects. But how did we choose those projects? What did they all mean?

Before we dive in to telling you about our current focus for Episode 4 (yes, we're in Episode 4!), we want to give you some context for how we choose and prioritize projects.  It's easier to understand the what when you know the why.

When we pitch our projects and our servants (Scott/Fef/Kirk) prioritize them, we do so with our big picture goals for 2013 in mind.  For a project to be deemed important enough given all that we could be doing, it has to best align with these 2013 goals:

  1. Put our current metros on track for super success (defined by market-size and timeline for growth)
  2. Add new metros and set them up to win similarly
  3. Run awesome, network-wide brand programs that position us for explosive growth in 2014

So for example, our Dev team couldn't pitch a project to have event listings pulse to the headliner's latest hit because it would cost a lot of time and not necessarily set you all up for super success.  Customer Operations will prioritize a project that is more timely than one further in the future, supporting you in metro redesign transition versus festival redesign, for example.  The prioritization process isn't perfect but something we're improving every Episode.

Episode 4   

Our E4 started in mid-September and will run through mid-December.  The timeline for episodes is up to our discretion based on what we know we MUST accomplish in the given period.  In this Episode, we determined we MUST accomplish your transition to the new site and a Bootcamp for our new cities.

Those two big items to accomplish have largely defined our project priority.  Here's an overview of the projects we laid out for this episode.

Redesign
  • Transition all current cities to new site
  • Train & support all metros on new site sales - This includes ideating on what's going to work and building out the necessary documentation
  • Metro launch and optimization - Our dev team has worked primarily out of this project in refining the new site
New metros
  • Train & support new metros - Each new city (Toronto, Mexico City, Boston, Seattle, and Dallas) has a unique Project that lists what we need to do to set them up from pre-Bootcamp through Bootcamp to launch
  • Develop new metro account management process - Given that we want to be launching lots of new metros in the near future, we are working to streamline the process
  • New metros in pipeline and signed
Programs
  • Each current program has a separate project that may carry over to the next episode
  • New network programs in pipeline and signed
  • Bulletproof program delivery system - We want every brand program to kill it, and that can best happen when have a set process that anticipates all delivery entails
Customer Operations
  • Migrate HelpDesk to Google sites - We'd like to set you up with more resources on a more flexible platform
  • Faciliate network surveys - For your marketing/sales reference
  • Finish site reporting - We've developed and are refining a new reporting system 
Admin/Back-end Upgrades
  • Finish Guestlist App - It's on its way!
  • Migrate to Radmin - This is our new Admin interface we debuted at the Summit
  • Move theme editor to Radmin - So that you have something prettier and more functional than the current SASS editor
  • Make repeating events work better - We want these to be more flexible and make more sense
  • Overhaul dupes queue
DoStuff Stuff
  • Bi-weekly company updates - Similar to the purpose of this blog, we needed a way to communicate big picture stuff better internally
  • Set-up intranet - So that we have a singular resource for documents from those for new hires to platform protocol
  • Affordable Healthcare Act + DoStuff - Have you all seen the news lately?
  • Raise $$$ - So we can grow better and faster


Whoa... Big Stuff

And that is a condensed list. From here on out, we will update you as to our progress on these Projects.  As we stated in that first Episode email, we won't necessarily complete 100% of our Projects, but we are working like h-e-double-hockey-sticks to try.

The next post, expect some info on how all this applies to our revamp of the Opportunities queue so you have a clearer idea as to what happens to your valuable input.

Comments or questions? Please ask.  Requests? By all means, let us know.

Thanks for your contributions to our network and your communities! We are all doing incredibly BIG stuff. 


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Thursday, December 19, 2013

What DoStuff's Doing: CELEBRATING!

Weeks 12/5 - 12/19

'Tis the season!  We have all earned our time for celebration and rest given how hard we have been working the past few weeks.  Read on for news of our latest redesign improvements, platform fixes, 2ND BOOTCAMP with Dallas and Seattle, as well as our holiday plans.

Redesign the Rad Reindeer

Because if the Redesign were a reindeer, it would totally takeover Rudolph's role to guide Santa's sleigh into the future.

Oh heeeyyyy did you all hear that Do512 and Do312 launched officially?! We'll start 2014 off with soft launching our California cities, DoLA and Do415.

Our Dev team did some superstar stuff these past few weeks related to redesign , some of which was mentioned in our previous posts.

One BIG change was made across all your sites as a result of our A/B testing: smaller event cards on your listing pages.

See the test results below:

As you can see, Variation 1 as representative of the smaller cards didn't test significantly better, but many of you felt strongly about it aesthetically. So it is now live for you all!

Another BIG improvement is specifically related to BIG ON SALES or how ticket on sale info displays. Instead of the "BUY" button on the event card or page, the button will display the date that tickets go on sale or, if day of, the time.* You can checkout Do312's Big On Sales list to see how it looks.

*This information is scraped or entered under Ticket Info on event pages in Admin. Want some help getting a Big On Sales list set-up? Let us know!

Here are some additional redesign improvements and fixes:
  • You can now delete/remove photos in the Manage Photos modal in Admin.
  • We shrunk the width of the Search box when opened so it does not overlap your logo.
  • A "Contact" check is included in the event creation form so users can let you know if they are interested in running RSVPs or advertising. 
  • Error pages will now direct users to contact your subdomain email, such as do512@do512.com.


Re: RSVPs

We've made quite a few fixes to RSVPs given your feedback, so it deserved a section unto itself.  Here is what we've completed:
  • If you elect to uncheck "Send confirmation email?" in the RSVP setup, a confirmation email will not send.
  • You can customize additional text RSVPer receives upon confirmation in the "RSVP confirmation email" field.
  • "Affiliation" entry works and saves for RSVPers.
  • You can set an RSVP passcode to lock events.
  • 21+? appears on all RSVP/Giveaways modals default checked.
Look for more RSVP upgrades (anyone requesting email customization?) we're going to prioritize Episode 5 beginning in January!


Bootcamp: Do206 and 214!

That's Seattle and Dallas, respectively. These two new terrific teams joined us at DoStuff HQ this past Monday and Tuesday to learn all that we could cram into the two days about what it takes to make build a Do community in their cities.  

Check out their class photos:


Do206


Do214


One Big Happy Graduating Class!

Do206 plans on launching in January, while Do214 will launch later in the spring! We'll keep you posted on their progress.

Sales Part-ay

As those of you who participated on Michael's sales call learned last week, we have good conversations happening and ideas in the pipeline.  Look for further upcoming updates regarding Goose and AB.

Also, SXSW! Get those ideas out there and begin you planning.

Happy Holidays!!!

As mentioned in an email Kristin sent out, we are planning on taking some R&R over the holidays weeks so that we can come back for 2014 refreshed and ready to kill it. (If you need anything support related that is urgent, simply label it "URGENT" in the subject line.) It's been a big year, and this next one is going to be even bigger!

We at DoStuff are all planning on time with friends and family. Some of us are travelling, from New Mexico to Florida to NYC! 

The first full week of January, DoStuff will regroup to close Episode 4 and start Episode 5. We look forward to filling you in on the details of our plans for global domination once we've strategized sufficiently.

Until then, we hope you all enjoy the season as well and take it easy!


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Friday, December 13, 2013

Redesign UPdate: IMPORTANT Image Changes, Follow Artists, and Ongoing Event Fix

The following improvements are important to review as they may affect your work flow AND may have been something you requested!

Image Changes

We apologize for any confusion regarding appropriate image dimensions.  We've changed some of the necessary dimensions and want to make them clear.

Hero -> Photo

The space formerly known as hero and now the photo has been resized for not only events but ALSO artist, venue, and user pages.
  • Dimensions: 1200x450 
  • The photo is automatically cropped to center faces

A reminder about how EVENT photos will be chosen:
  1. Manually added*
  2. Headliner (top artist) photo
  3. Venue photo
*This is currently by default BUT you can request a specific scraper fix to input scraped images as the "photo" as opposed to the poster.

Poster

Posters show below event description on event pages.
  • Dimensions: at least 450 w, no height requirement
  • Posters less than the required width will not display

A reminder about how EVENT posters will be chosen:
  1. Manually added
  2. From scraper

Search Results/Latest

The images at the top of your Search Results and Latest pages now display your default photo.
  • Dimensions same as all photos! 1200x450

Header

The header across the top of your site has not changed, but just to lay out all image specifications:
  • Dimensions: 1200x125

Justin created this handy dandy visual to explain it all:

User Image Guidance

Many of you noted that it was not clear to your users creating events the difference between a photo and a poster. As an answer, we input guidance directly within the event creation process.  Check it out!


Other Sweet Fixes

  • You can select to "Follow Artists" in the event activity feed.
  • Ongoing events now show their FULL date range until they are officially past.
  • You can now see your new site in all its splendour on older versions of Safari!


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Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Redesign UPdate: Event Image Changes

To improve how you manage event images on the new site, we have made a couple changes.

Hero to Photo

The image formerly known as the "hero" is now the photo. The photo is chosen in the following order (so if not the first, the second and so on):
  1. Manually added
  2.  Headliner (top artist) photo
  3. Venue photo
Where the photo displays:
  • Top of event page 
  • Background of the event card on the listing page

Poster as Poster

The poster is still the poster. It is chosen in the following order:
  1. Manually added
  2. Scraped
Where the poster displays:
  • Below the event description on the event page

For an example, check out this event: http://donyc.com/events/2013/12/12/dj-uestlove-presents-bowl-train

  • Photo is ?estlove's photo as headliner
  • Poster is Brooklyn Bowl's poster

Management

You'll notice a "DO NOT USE" space in the event "Manage Photos" modal. Don't use it! It was part of the transition as we made these changes.

The photo going forward will NOT be a scraped image. This is an incentive to have good headliner images and improve band content!

The poster is intended as a space for the text posters that venues use for shows. Some venue calendars you scrape may show artist photos and appear redundant in that space. If you don't want a scraper to pull in images for this reason, request a fix to the scraper to ignore them (please be aware of whether you are requesting a fixed to a shared network scraper).

We have also now made it easier to edit event pages on your site! If you haven't checked out the little pencil icon in the bottom corner, do so! You'll be able to delete images from the front-end event edit page as we want to make this an easier place to make changes as you check over your site.
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A/B Testing: Win Button Stats

Check out some recent stats for how the button changes are doing.

Variation 1 is the test with the more visible "WIN" button.

Both ONLY include users that did not enter the site through an event detail page and did not stay on the site for more than 30 minutes.




The test is continuing, and we'll keep you posted as to the clear WINNER.

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Tuesday, December 10, 2013

A/B Testing: Win Button!

We thought you all would be interested in learning the latest A/B test we are running regarding user engagement on the new site! We've changed prominence and positioning of some of the call to action buttons.

What We're Testing:


  • Reordering the buttons on listing page hover and mobile from "ADD + BUY + WIN/RSVP" to be "WIN/ RSVP + BUY + ADD"
  • Changing "WIN" to read "ENTER TO WIN" on the event details page
  • Showing by default WIN and RSVP buttons without hover

  • On mobile listings, showing WIN and RSVP buttons on the bottom of the event card




Where We're Testing: 


  • This is currently showing on 50% of Do512 traffic.

How We're Testing: 


  • We are looking at ALL metrics, not just whether more people click the WIN button.
  • Those metrics include whether this new placement
    • Cannibalizes clicks on other things
    • Changes time on site, pages/visit/bounce rate

We'll keep you posted as to how this test compares to the current design. Thoughts or questions, comment below!

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Do512 and Do312 LAUNCHED!

Yesterday, Do512 and Do312 launched officially with the new site. While every metro team has worked hard in the transition process, these teams had large audiences, plenty of partners, and history to turnover.

To mark this historic moment, Kristin shared these images of evolution:
          
Original Logo

V 1.0

       
V 2.0

V 3.0

V 4.0

V 5.0




















































How far we have come! Who knows where we'll be in another few years. To see the whole trip down memory lane, check out the album.


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Monday, December 9, 2013

Featured Venue Widget Update

You asked for the Featured Venue Widget to be more customizable, so we input the event photo as the background image.  And we were just so excited about it we couldn't wait for a longer update to tell you!

Check it out:


If you find this makes the actual listing harder to read, you can work with your designer to make it more legible.

Note: The image selected for the widget is the event photo* not the poster.

*Going forward, we are now calling the "hero" the "photo" so as not to be all design jargon-y and confusing. More image updates coming your way soon!
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Thursday, December 5, 2013

What DoStuff's Doing: Redesign Rally and Start to the Holiday Season

Weeks 11/19 - 12/4

Time has flown these past two weeks here at DoStuff HQ! And it's only going to speed up for all of us as the holiday vortex - the week of Christmas through New Year's - nears. Despite time for travels, turkey, and taking it easy last week, we've still been pushing hard. Read on for all that DoStuff has gotten done and some of what we plan to do regarding redesign, new metros, and programs!

Redesign Rally

We are in the final stretch of finalizing the redesign and getting everyone transitioned to the new platform.  Do512 and Do312 soft launched this past Monday and will hard launch this coming Monday. That's 75% of our sites nearly transitioned and includes our pioneer metros! This is HUGE and would not be possible without the hard work that everyone has put in to make it happen.

Thanks so much to everyone for their ongoing efforts to make the site the best possible site it can be. We appreciate your insight in our Opportunities project. This past week, we prioritized all fixes and improvements to push for closure on the majority of redesign related work.  

Some of the most recent improvements that are currently live include:
  • The band lineup now appears at the top of the event activity feed and links to all band pages.
  • We clarified "Follows" in the event activity feed.
  • HTML descriptions now work only for users set as Promo Users for site security reasons. 
  • We improved event descriptions to be slightly more customizable and include line-breaks.
  • Day + date are now shown at the top of the homepage, and day + date headers appear in search results.
  • Promo User's can be set to "Auto-redirect" so the user will bypass the Promo User page and be taken directly to the most recent upcoming event voted on by the Promo User.
  • Mobile UI has been streamlined, and you can upload a mobile-specific logo.
  • COMMENTS from Featured Reviewers (scraped comments) are now visible. Check out how this looks on DoLA.
  • POSTER images now display below the event description.  See this example on doNYC.

Some of the most recent fixes include:
  • The Spam Bot question now appears on the event creation form so that users can successfully add events!
  • When opening to "View More" events on a user page, the page no longer displays repeating events.
  • When editing your user profile, you can now change your password.
  • Promo User lists now can be set to sort events by popularity.
  • We've optimized the backend for your site to run even more smoothly with more traffic.

Important note regarding IMAGES:
  • Since we slimmed down the hero area, the ideal height is now 450px.
  • We are defining the image designation and will clarify any current confusion soon!

As mentioned in the last Redesign UPdate, we are A/B testing certain design elements given your feedback and user feedback.  We are currently testing slimmer events on listing pages. See the comparison:

We'll judge which is preferable based on time spent on these pages, bounce rate, and user actions.

We also continue to update documentation with what you need to know regarding these improvements and the redesign overall.  Check out our latest addition of AD SPECS guidance.

New Metro News

Do617 (Boston), Do416 (Toronto), and HazDF (Mexico City) are rapidly moving toward early 2014 launches with progress made on the partner, content, and design fronts.  Do617 continues to break early Twitter follower records. Check out Do416's social efforts on Facebok and Twitter. Stay tuned for HazDF's social debut.

On December 16th and 17th, DoStuff will host Do206 (Seattle) and Do214 (Dallas) for their training bootcamp!

Conversations with new markets are happening with potential partners in Philadelphia, Vancouver, Montreal, Calagry, Denver, Detroit, San Antonio, Milwaukee, and Portlands - that's Oregon as well as Maine!

Programs and Partnerships

The Macallan campaign wrapped reporting and the Eric Andre Adult Swim promotion came to a close. Nokia is running smoothly ahead.

On the potential programs side, we've been having good discussions with brands from Pabst to Pandora. More info to come!

SX! Start thinking about it if you have not already.  We sure are.

Miscellaneous But Noteworthy

  • We're working to finalize more documentation regarding Promo User page customization. 
  • We are also working on Tortuga and Big Ears festival. 
  • The new newsletter template is nearly finalized. 
  • Guestlist app is moving toward completion! 

DoStuff Stuff

Our funding conversations went well the past few weeks and will continue after the holidays. We are moving forward in conversations to expand our current team so that we can better support you all and continue to grow.  

We are planning on transitioning from Episode 4 to Episode 5 in early January.  We're pushing through all tasks under the "This Episode" heading in the Opportunities project and also on all of our ongoing projects. We will definitely be informing you all how the final stretch goes and what our priorities are the upcoming episode.

We hope you all had wonderful Thanksgivings and are enjoying the start to the holiday season!

*Hearts and Merriment*

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Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Redesign UPdate: Mobile Logo, A/B Testing, and Vanity URL

A very Happy Thanksgiving Eve to all! Before you get to traveling, cooking, napping, family-timing, or whatever your holiday celebration entails (minus our international partners...), we have some sweet redesign updates for you to check out.


Mobile Logo

You requested a way to change the logo for mobile to one that fits better with responsive resizing. Now it's available!
  • In your SASS editor below "Logo URL" you have a field for "Mobile Logo URL." 
  • pload your mobile logo to your Admin assets and simply copy the link to this location.
  • Specs: We recommend the same height as your current logo but square, so about 106x106.
  • If you don't input a mobile logo, your site will simply keep the regular logo as it has done when resized.


A/B Testing

Based off of user feedback and your feedback thus far, we are going to be A/B testing some design changes. Google Analytics has programming to easily facilitate A/B testing changes to determine a winning element.
  • Our first test and change that we implemented was tightening the Event Hero space to reduce the lines between the event title and additional info, which now allows the user to see more of the event page and makes the presentation of information more streamlined overall.
  • We will continue to implement various tests, such as expanding event details on mobile versus opening the event details on a new page, and keep you updated as to the decisions we make.
  • Ultimately, the goal is to build an amazing site that encourages engagement, gets people to go do stuff, makes you more successful with partners ($), and inspires more DoXXX love. We are keeping this top of mind when making decisions that would be impossible to 100% please 100% of all involved. 


Vanity URLs

Promo Users used to be the only pages that could easily have vanity URLs, but now we have added the feature to Events.
  • When you edit any Event page, you will find a "vanity" field in the "Advanced" section under "Permalink."
  • You can use this instead of the Promo User vote to apply the vanity URL to events.
  • We will be adding Vanity URLs to your HTML pages and venues eventually.

Other Stuff

We've cleaned up the event activity feed!
  • Addition to the feed is now attributed to "DoXXX" as opposed to the venue.
  • "Follow" works and makes clear what the user is selecting to follow.

Okay, that covers our most recent redesign highlights. Thanks all for your continued feedback and investment in what we're building. Enjoy your holiday!
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Thursday, November 21, 2013

User Description Update

To our Content Connoisseurs:

We recently made a change to the way user/Promo User descriptions work and want to clarify in case you come across anything strange on your user pages.

We removed the ability for ANY user to show HTML/JS or special code input in their description (for security reasons on your new site).  If you have a regular user page and the description has any code, it will simply show up on your site as code rather than centered text in fancy colors, etc.
To fix these special pages, simply take the following steps:
  1. Open the user page to "edit"
  2. Check "Promo User"
  3. Copy the code in the "Description" field to the "New Promo Descr." field
For your Promo Users that had their descriptions in the "Description" field, we automatically copied their descriptions to the "New Promo Descr." field for you.

You may notice that some of your Promo User pages on your new site that did not previously show images in the description over the hero image now do.  For example: http://newstuff.do512.com/TribezaAustin

We had been hiding any image in the descriptions as we transitioned to the new site, but now have unhidden them for the cases when you want to include images over the hero.  You can simply remove these from the "New Promo Descr." field as you find them if you don't want them to show.

Hope that explanation makes sense! Here are the cliff notes just in case:
  • Only Promo Users can have specially coded descriptions
  • Those descriptions MUST be included in the "New Promo Descr." field
  • Some of your promo users have images in their "New Promo Descr." that we have unhidden and you may want to remove
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Tuesday, November 19, 2013

What DoStuff's Doing: Post Dos

Weeks 11/4 - 11/18

These have been an eventful few weeks here in Austin with Fun Fun Fun Fest, F1, and fall finally settling in. They have been an especially eventful few weeks for the DoStuff network given redesign transitions and our FIRST official Onboarding Bootcamp with our newest cities. Read on for details. 

Redesign Transitions

Do314 and Do615 officially made the transition a few weeks ago, and doNYC and Do317 soft launched last week and hard launched this week.  That's half our network now running fully on the new platform! Given that this redesign has been a year plus in planning, we are thrilled to finally see it a reality. A big thanks to their teams for inputting their detailed feedback in our Opportunities project to make sure their sites are flawless.  We're so close to getting them there!   

As you have seen, we have a little pop-up survey running requesting feedback from users.  Here are some points of praise:
  • "Cool...cool, cool" 
  • "Much easier to navigate. Flows nicely." 
  • "I'm a graphic designer and I love the new clean flat design! First glance- very good"
  • "It looks more modern but has retained all of the features I am used to from the old site. I think it will grow on me soon." 
  • "I like that it is responsive! Big Visuals are nice."
  • "Awesome sauce with a side of clam"

Not all the feedback has been so positive, of course.  Changes to products people already love can inspire resistance. (Remember Katie G's story about how they had to hunker down at Facebook HQ because people were protesting the implementation of Newsfeed!? Fortunately, DoStuff HQ and none of your offices have been similarly mobbed.) So here are some of the points of contention:
  • "I love the clean responsive look. However, everything in my opinion is overbearingly huge. Usually, the more you can see in one glance, the more user friendly a website can be."
  • "Font and events too big. Can see only a few events. Contrast between background and text not high enough."
  • "like the old design better, it was much cleaner."
  • "It's very hard to navigate. Trying to look clean and tidy and cool and new but not achieving desired intention."

We may not be pleasing everyone initially, but we will continue to improve the product and your fans on the fence will grow to love it as they discover and become accustomed to its awesomeness.

Next week, we're soft launching Do312 and Do512, our network pioneers with the largest audiences! We'll keep you posted on their press pushes and community responses.

Redesign Upgrades

Given the feedback you all have been inputting in the Opportunities queue, we have been prioritizing and pushing out many major and minor improvements.  Here are some of the things we've completed:
  • PHOTO pages! Here's an example.
  • We have given you the ability to customize your pages.  This allows you a super flexible way to represent content. Check out how Do512 used this new feature for Car2Go.
  • Cleaned up mobile dropdowns
  • Improved ad displays
  • Fixed "Follow" button to work on Event Activity Feed
  • Added auto-fill to Giveaway/RSVP modals for logged in users
  • Input a fix for all the crazy characters popping up on your site so that you don't have to manually edit (phew...)
  • Improved calendar and map views

We have much to do still, and please continue to help us out by inputting your feedback and following the progress of fixes in Asana.

Also, check out our Redesign Section in HelpDesk for everything from new proposal templates to content guidance.

Onboarding Bootcamp

A few of our major Episode 3 projects involved defining an onboarding process and creating a polished Bootcamp with corresponding documentation to set up our new markets for success.  While all our current teams have done extraordinarily well given the prior support setup we offered, we wanted to build something turn-key and holistic that draws from our experiences.  Episode 4 has entailed actually implementing the result of those projects with Do416 (Toronto), Do617 (Boston), and HazDF (Mexico City).

Last Tuesday, we kicked off our first 2-day intensive Bootcamp with these three awesome teams.  They went through several sessions led by Kristin, Michael, Stuart, and myself that covered everything from building a mission to defining their editorial voice to sales strategies to understanding the platform.  There is so much to learn about what we do!

Each team member received a Field Guide relevant to their role that you can view here:

It was mostly work, but there was some play! Check out pics courtesy of Adi and Mary: 

Tuesday night at Easy Tiger
Wednesday lunch and grad ceremony at El Meson
Our class photo graduation gift!
Blooper group shot in the oncoming cold front bluster!

















Each of these teams is back home and raring toward an official launch. It looks like Do416 and Do617 will launch in January and HazDF will launch in April.

Do617 has already begun a social media tease.  They gained 1200 Twitter followers in 24-hours and their Facebook page is blowing up! Be sure to follow and support all our network's new cities on social!

As to our other new cites, Do206 (Seattle) and Do214 (Dallas), both are in the hiring stages to find their teams and ready to move forward.  We will likely host them for a Bootcamp in January.  If you have any leads for potential GMs or CMs, send them our way!

Programs

All the pieces of the Bud Light Platinum campaign have been put into play - wahoo! Adi continues to check in with Do415, DoLA, and doNYC regarding Tastemaker promotions for Nokia and sending Nokia reports. Thank you for your dedication to making it work! Also, some of our metros are working with Adult Swim! Do512, Do615, and DoLA are all working on a promo campaign for Eric Andre.

Festivals

Do415 got NoisePop going! Though we are in the post-fest season, we have also been working on Florida Country Superfest and FloydFest.

Other Important Project Progress

We know you all have been curious about the new newsletter template.  We have been refining it and plan to have a finalized version for you within the next few weeks!

Surveys are moving forward across the network! Much of doNYC's results have been finalized and DoLA has settled on a sweet prize to get theirs going.

As you may be aware or have read in our debut post, one of the important projects Scott and Michael have had this Episode is to raise a round of funding so that we can grow bigger and faster.  They have been travelling to NYC, LA, SF and back again in service of this project and have had stellar conversations thus far.  You can see the deck that they share here.  We will keep you posted as to their progress and what it entails for how we can better serve you all!

Fantastic Fall

Our November has started off sweetly, and we'll finish it sweetly. Thanksgiving is already next week then the holidays are here! We know you're busy and pushing hard. We hope you take time to savour the sweetness in all your hard work by celebrating and relaxing with friends and family.

As always, please comment here or reach out with questions and thoughts.



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Thursday, November 14, 2013

Redesign UPdate: More Launches, Weird Character Fixes, and RSVP/Guestlist Stuff

We have some important redesign related updates to share, so please read on...

Launches

This past week, both Do317 and doNYC soft launched their new sites and will hard launch next week! Big thanks to their teams for their awesome effort in identifying priority fixes and keeping up the transition momentum.

Weird Characters

We know you've been frustrated by the weird characters popping up on your site due to accents, tildes, apostrophes, and other symbols. We have good news: we have not only a long-term but now also a short-term fix! You no longer need to manually edit corrections. We have corrected much of the appearance of these weird characters, and will continually work to make sure they're automatically corrected. BUT we could use your help in doing so.

When you find weird characters on your site, please send support@dostuffmedia.com a link to that page without manually editing it. That way we can build a fix for all cases of that weirdness.

RSVP/Giveaway Stuff

On your new sites, it no longer makes sense to have the RSVP/Giveaway "Special Offer" text read "Click 'Like' to Win" or anything similar because users no longer have the 'Like' button - only 'Add' and 'Win' or 'RSVP.' It's still important that you have a call to action included in the "Special Offer" field, so you'll want to change these out with new copy that makes sense. Just something to be aware of as you prep for your transitions or adapt to your new site.

Also, we recommend that everyone include a link to your Guestlist page in the "Featured Stuff" section opened with search similar to how you have had it in you "Must Do/Big Stuff" dropdown.

Any thoughts of questions on this stuff or other stuff, please let us know.



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Thursday, November 7, 2013

DoStuff's SX Video

We Help People Do Awesome Stuff

And made a video a while back with your help to better explain what exactly that means.  Check it out here and on our website.


Thanks for all your contributions!
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Do317 in Live Nation's Internal Newsletter

Do317 was in good company earlier this week with a mention in Live Nation's national internal newsletter.  Check it out! (Highlighting our addition.)
Livenation
Internal Announcements
Live Nation News
Ticketmaster News
Industry News




Live Nation News

Liberty Media Reports Third Quarter 2013 Financial Results
The Wall Street Journal - Nov 05, 2013
ENGLEWOOD, Colo/--(BUSINESS WIRE)--November 05, 2013-- Liberty Media Corporation ("Liberty Media") (Nasdaq: LMCA, LMCB) today reported third quarter 2013 results.



Arctic Monkeys Announce New Tour Dates
Rolling Stone - Nov 05, 2013
Arctic Monkeys have announced a fresh batch of U.S. tour dates for January, including a headlining gig at New York City's Madison Square Garden on February 8th, 2014.



Paul Simon & Sting: On Stage Together
The Wall Street Journal - Nov 05, 2013
NEW YORK, Nov. 5, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Live Nation Global Touring announced today that Paul Simon & Sting, two of music's most renowned and enduring artists, will embark on a concert tour throughout North America in February and March 2014.



The Prodigy to Headline NYE 2013 @ The O2
Altsounds - Nov 05, 2013
Live Nation and The O2 are thrilled to present the ultimate New Year’s Eve party as legendary dance / rock crossover group The Prodigy will be joined by Rudimental DJs, the original ninja-DJ Jaguar Skills, north London dubstep-rock band Modestep and Godfather of rave Slipmatt, to bring you what is set to be the biggest and best NYE rave going.



Matt Schwegman Heads to Louisville, The Vogue Joins House of Blues Family
Do317 Blog - Nov 05, 2013
House of Blues Entertainment announced today that they have hired Matt Schwegman, Entertainment Manager at The Vogue, to spearhead their new soon-to-be-named 900 seat venue in Louisville, KY.




Ticketmaster News

NHL and Ticketmaster Renew Their Agreement
BroadwayWorld.com - Nov 05, 2013
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES, Nov. 5, 2013 /PRNewswire/ The National Hockey League (NHL) and Ticketmaster, a Live Nation Entertainment company (NYSE:LYV), today announced the extension of a multiyear ticketing agreement, which includes enhanced ticketing options and greater convenience for hockey fans.



Ticketmaster UK Strengthens Executive Team
Event Magazine - Nov 05, 2013
New starters include Nick Griffith who joins the company from SkyIQ as sales operations director, and Tommy Tyekiff, formerly of Ingenious Media, who has been recruited as vice president and will be responsible for business transformation in January 2014.




Industry News

Red Hot Chili Peppers, Soundgarden, Arcade Fire Confirmed for Lollapalooza’s Expanded South America Trek
billboardbiz - Nov 05, 2013
Red Hot Chili Peppers, Soundgarden, Arcade Fire, Nine Inch Nails, Pixies and Phoenix are among the headliners confirmed for Lollapalooza’s 2014 South American trek.



Pitbull to Host American Music Awards
Rolling Stone - Nov 05, 2013
Mr. Worldwide himself, Pitbull, will touch down in Los Angeles to host the American Music Awards when they air live November 24th on ABC, The Associated Press reports.



Janis Joplin Honored with Hollywood 'Walk of Fame' Star
Rolling Stone - Nov 05, 2013
Exactly forty-three years and a month after she passed away, Janis Joplin was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame yesterday.



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Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Redesign UPdate: Launched + Footers + Content Guide

Launched! 

Do314 and Do615 have officially launched their redesigned sites! A big thanks to their teams for putting in the effort to be the first to make the move.

We have a little pop-up survey on the new site. Here's some feedback so far:

  • "this site looks SUUUUPER SHARP!! the calendar page (monthly calendar page) is very clutch, it looks like it links well all across each page. super easy searchability, and filtration by type of event is suuuper cool. good work guys!" 
  • "love it love" 
  • Lots of "great"s 
  • A link to this classic clip. 


When a new site is launched, we make sure to redirect newstuff.doxxx.com and the old mobile site to the proper site.

 Footer 

Additionally, we wanted to let you know that you can now input links in your footer section, such as "About" and "Advertise." To do so:

  1. Navigate to your Pages (Note: If you currently use "Content Blocks," simply copy and paste that info into a new page as we are no longer using those for this purpose.) 
  2. Open the page you wish to include to "Edit" 
  3. Check "Show in Footer" Designate the order - 1 for first on the right, 2 to follow, etc.* 
  4. "Update" and your footer is set! 

*"Terms of Service" and "Privacy" are designated automatically as last.

Content Guide 

We have gathered this info and more content guidance regarding all aspects on the new site that bear greater clarification here, from Hero Images to Photo Pages. Please let us know any other info you still need! This article exists in a section we are building out with Redesign documentation that will shortly include all proposal templates and pitch decks as well.

 We continue to make improvements given your valuable feedback, so thanks to everyone who is inputting items in our Opportunities queue!
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Friday, November 1, 2013

What DoStuff's Doing: Debut

Doing Big Stuff

Well Doers, it's hard to believe we are nearly a month out from the Summit. We've been pushing hard at DoStuff to get you all ready for your redesign transitions, to onboard our newest cities, and to support you in delivering brand programs.  We know you've been pushing hard to deliver those programs, to prepare for Halloween and the upcoming holidays, and to build and strengthen partnerships. Not to mention whatever else this time of year has brought you (World Series extravaganza? Rocktober? Crazy weather?)...

We want to continue the good communication with you that happened around the Summit but realized recently (with some help from you all) that there may be a disconnect between DoStuff and your team: we have a good idea of what you're up to but you may have little idea what exactly we're doing.

We've messaged you in the past about our Episode process and Projects that get our attention when we aren't directly supporting you, but we've let that drop in our effort to just keep pushing. In the spirit of open communication, we want to pick that up again in a new and consistent way.

This blog will serve as a means by which we will update you bi-weekly about our current focus and Episode progress. These updates will be for you to skim or study as your time permits.

Because we have so many other channels of communication as well (Google Group blast, NewStuff posts in Admin, Editorial Tumblr, telepathy), we will begin to consolidate much of that so we can provide a centralized source for all news from DoStuff.  We'll still email you about urgent stuff, but you'll also be able to reference that communication here.

DoStuff's Big Goals

We let you all know last January that we had adopted Asana's Episode process to outline Projects that we take on in order to better envision and target our long-term growth.  Then we gave you a list of those projects. But how did we choose those projects? What did they all mean?

Before we dive in to telling you about our current focus for Episode 4 (yes, we're in Episode 4!), we want to give you some context for how we choose and prioritize projects.  It's easier to understand the what when you know the why.

When we pitch our projects and our servants (Scott/Fef/Kirk) prioritize them, we do so with our big picture goals for 2013 in mind.  For a project to be deemed important enough given all that we could be doing, it has to best align with these 2013 goals:

  1. Put our current metros on track for super success (defined by market-size and timeline for growth)
  2. Add new metros and set them up to win similarly
  3. Run awesome, network-wide brand programs that position us for explosive growth in 2014

So for example, our Dev team couldn't pitch a project to have event listings pulse to the headliner's latest hit because it would cost a lot of time and not necessarily set you all up for super success.  Customer Operations will prioritize a project that is more timely than one further in the future, supporting you in metro redesign transition versus festival redesign, for example.  The prioritization process isn't perfect but something we're improving every Episode.

Episode 4   

Our E4 started in mid-September and will run through mid-December.  The timeline for episodes is up to our discretion based on what we know we MUST accomplish in the given period.  In this Episode, we determined we MUST accomplish your transition to the new site and a Bootcamp for our new cities.

Those two big items to accomplish have largely defined our project priority.  Here's an overview of the projects we laid out for this episode.

Redesign
  • Transition all current cities to new site
  • Train & support all metros on new site sales - This includes ideating on what's going to work and building out the necessary documentation
  • Metro launch and optimization - Our dev team has worked primarily out of this project in refining the new site
New metros
  • Train & support new metros - Each new city (Toronto, Mexico City, Boston, Seattle, and Dallas) has a unique Project that lists what we need to do to set them up from pre-Bootcamp through Bootcamp to launch
  • Develop new metro account management process - Given that we want to be launching lots of new metros in the near future, we are working to streamline the process
  • New metros in pipeline and signed
Programs
  • Each current program has a separate project that may carry over to the next episode
  • New network programs in pipeline and signed
  • Bulletproof program delivery system - We want every brand program to kill it, and that can best happen when have a set process that anticipates all delivery entails
Customer Operations
  • Migrate HelpDesk to Google sites - We'd like to set you up with more resources on a more flexible platform
  • Faciliate network surveys - For your marketing/sales reference
  • Finish site reporting - We've developed and are refining a new reporting system 
Admin/Back-end Upgrades
  • Finish Guestlist App - It's on its way!
  • Migrate to Radmin - This is our new Admin interface we debuted at the Summit
  • Move theme editor to Radmin - So that you have something prettier and more functional than the current SASS editor
  • Make repeating events work better - We want these to be more flexible and make more sense
  • Overhaul dupes queue
DoStuff Stuff
  • Bi-weekly company updates - Similar to the purpose of this blog, we needed a way to communicate big picture stuff better internally
  • Set-up intranet - So that we have a singular resource for documents from those for new hires to platform protocol
  • Affordable Healthcare Act + DoStuff - Have you all seen the news lately?
  • Raise $$$ - So we can grow better and faster


Whoa... Big Stuff

And that is a condensed list. From here on out, we will update you as to our progress on these Projects.  As we stated in that first Episode email, we won't necessarily complete 100% of our Projects, but we are working like h-e-double-hockey-sticks to try.

The next post, expect some info on how all this applies to our revamp of the Opportunities queue so you have a clearer idea as to what happens to your valuable input.

Comments or questions? Please ask.  Requests? By all means, let us know.

Thanks for your contributions to our network and your communities! We are all doing incredibly BIG stuff. 


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