Spammy spam spam. Nobody likes it. Least of all you and your ECP partners.
Similar to on your sites, we will be adding a spam prevention question to all old ECPs this afternoon, 5/28. The spam question appears when users on the old ECP:
Register
Enter an RSVP
Enter a Giveaway
The question currently reads, "What is 5 + 5?" but can be changed in the Dashboard of the old ECP Admin.
Please give your partners a heads up and inform them a)now they won't get spam emails and b)they can easily have the question changed. Just be sure the answer is obvious because it has to be entered exactly for the real user to get through it.
At the beginning of May, we at Team DoStuff ceremoniously gathered in Austin to close out our 5th Episode in DoStuff posterity and plan our 6th. Our Episode process mirrors Asana's (yes, we love Asana that much!) as a means of prioritizing and accomplishing long-term building projects within a determined timeframe - in addition to the daily work of keeping this train humming along. At the start of E5, we let you all know our best of intentions. Now we want to share how we did as well as what's next.
Overall, E5 saw some stellar output on all fronts: significant product strides, more streamlined support, solid NBD developments, and a stronger DoStuff with additional peeps and funding. E6 will be a focused continuation of E5 during which we refine some of our bigger developments.
Episode 5: DoNE!
Product
Speed Optimization - WIN - This was one of our first complete projects of E5. Our Dev Master of the Do-niverse, Kirk, explained what exactly we did and why it was important here. The gist: we made sites on our new platform sooooo much faster. This caused some caching hangups, but we've largely resolved those so you don't have to remember to punch those eight busting buttons in hopes that one will make changes live on your site.
Lenses/Lists/New ECPS - WIN - Our Dev team pushed hard on this to have a new lense for SXSW, and we are now at the stage when we are about to test our first lense and rolling out the new ECP platform for your use (details to come)!
WYSIWYG Editor - WIN - Last week, we rolled out our new front-end editor to replace the old WYSIWYG that did not give you what you saw. Given your feedback, we made some subsequent changes by including HTML clarification in Admin and giving your old ECP platform the WYSIWYG editor back. This was a big effort and a longterm BIG improvement for your content management process.
(r)Admin Launch - E6 - It is launched! On the backend. You will have access to your pretty new content management system soon.
Guestlist App - loss-ish - We had a testable app but not a native one and not one up to the very important task of keeping your RSVP partners happy. As it's not of core importance to your needs right now, we are tabling and will revisit to build something better.
New Dev HIRE - We had been actively looking for a new Developer that was enough of a superstar to roll with our small but mighty team for quite some time. The diligent search was well worth it because we found Mike Doyle, who started last week!
We have our snazzy new email template. Some of you have started using it (subscribe to Do312's, Do416's, and Do214's newsletter!) and everyone will be by the end of E6 (for streamlining campaigns and because it's awesome)!
Instead of Local Sales calls with you all, we began Goals calls that will cover some sales strategies. Goals help set the direction for where you are going and motivate you to get there. This is something you all specifically requested and hugely important to growing smarter and faster (and together)!
We hired Aaron of Do314 to spearhead New Metro Sales and Graham to lead Brand Sales.
San Antonio is officially the newest metro to join our network & Las Vegas is oh so close. If all goes as planned they'll both be coming to ATX in June for Bootcamp.
We began Network Sales calls on the reg to discuss and sync on partnerships.
Closed $450K in network sales!
Brands with new or expanded deals: Goose Island, Nokia, Pabst, LoneStar, Deep Eddy, Zagat, and Taxi Magic!
Strong momentum: Healthcare.gov, Anheuser-Busch, and many more in the pipeline...
Operations
We have redone Middle Earth (between the Do512 Lounge and DoStuff office) with desks for our growing family, a meeting room, retro booth, ping pong table, and call closet. OH SWEET CALL CLOSET.
Need insurance terms and recommendations? We created those. Dry? Maybe. Useful? Most Definitely.
Episode 6: Rolling!
E6 is going to be shorter than previous episodes (ending the first week of July). We're testing this shorter timeframe to make it easier for us to provide guidance on what we're going to get done and when. We also tested out a new process for determining what we were going to work on.
We stole the idea from Pandora, because it's the best we've seen for making it clear that you can't do everything - but you can come to consensus on what's most important. The "buyers" of projects were Michael, Kristin and Scott + a representative crew of GMs. We'll continue to test how we do this, so let us know your thoughts.
Product
We're mostly focused on getting the tools that get used daily in better shape - so that Content Managers can get their routine jobs done better/faster, and have more time to work on the cool shit that makes you stand out: lists, unique events, quality audits, etc.
Don't worry though, there's some good love going into the most important of our customer facing pages: events. AND the dev guys each have a week or so for "lab" work - where they'll focus on something they're excited about, or we want to prototype, or we can make happen lickity-split.
The specific projects:
Radmin: Transition Event/Venue/User/Artist Management - Exactly as it sounds. All your page management will be in the not only visually but also functionally improved content management system.
Radmin: Queues - Your pending queue will be more comprehensive so that you have better control over automated events before they go live, including the band data associated with events.
Radmin: Ad Management and Reporting - We'll be fixing the functionality of weights and image uploads (no more work arounds, 0 weight setting, forgetting the second image upload...) as well as giving you new features, like the ability to export reports to Google Docs and generate a report of all ad units for time frames rather than by specific advertisers so you can get an overview of your total #s!
Lense Creation and Management - Our new lenses/ECPs are a great improvement with lots of possibilities for you all. We will be giving you full ability to create and manage them.
Enhanced Layout of Event Pages and Customization - These will include tags, related posts/lists/events/venues, and "Latest" news so that your site become a more integrated, targeted experience for your users and exposes them to the full breadth of awesomeness you have to offer!
Delivery
This episode Team Delivery is all about doing things better, faster, stronger. Here at HQ we're trying to do the work of dozens with a team of 14. You all are 1/4 of that size trying to do the work of 14. We're all a bunch of badasses as is, but we're ready to take it up a notch.
To get us to said higher notch, our projects this episode are heavily focused on ways to make all of our work more efficient and effective so that you have more time and more tools to grow your audience and operate your business.
The projects:
Support you in getting your #s up with Content/Editorial guidelines! This includes surfacing the most successful lists and types of content, reminding you when it's time to start cranking it out, giving our GMs more tools to help them understand and support the work their trusty CMs are doing, manually helping to improve the quality of event and artist pages on your sites (with your approval of course), and much more.
Plan for keeping LearnStuff timely so that you all have up-to-date information available in a single resource.
Bootcamp Reboot to prep for our new metros and so we get them setup for success and integrated into our DoFamily with a bang.
Improve our communication processes with you, including new feature roll-outs. We really do want you to know what feature changes are coming up and how it will impact you and your partners. We'll do our darndest to send more and better updates your way, but unfortunately it will still be up to you to read them. Reading is hard for the best of us when we're busy, so let us know if you have suggestions for us as to how we can make it easiest for you to get the info you need.
New ECP/Lense documentation so that you can once again take control of their creation and management without us in the middle.
Complete CSS Customization documentation so that it is easier for you to pretty up your content without knowing how to code. (And so we can force our hard working CSS Pimp Master Stuart to turn off his computer and go to bed.)
Overhaul KPI reporting to better collect and track your data as well as a system that allows us to respond to data so that we pick on areas of need and capture best practices. The completion of this project will mean a much simpler reporting process for you to complete and more actionable information that you can use to grow your audience.
NBD
We have a gained a ton of forward momentum on NBD these past few months. To make sure that momentum truly turns into big wins for you, our partners, and us at DoStuff, our focus will be putting foundational documentation and processes in place. That way we'll sync better to deliver better to grow better.
We will also focus on finding and connecting "whales" - brands that are a fit with our network's audience and are already spending a lot around music, culture and/or local. Brands like Samsung, American Apparel, Converse, etc...
An overview of the projects:
Revised template decks for both new metro and brand sales so that we have better resources for making deals happen!
Streamline process between NBD/sales and you all so that everyone is excited and best prepared to deliver awesome programs/campaigns.
Hire Sales/Marketing support!
Operations
Goal here is, as always, keeping the wheels on the bus. But we're also adamant that Ops become a piece of the company that adds value. Just like the others.
To that end, we have a number of processes we hope to develop and pass on to you guys so we're not all recreating the same wheel.
Some of the projects:
Real company stuff: company policies and an Intranet to improve our organization!
Credit card payment setup for DoStuff and for metros.
A streamlined Internship program - we need one! (Do you? Check out this recent guidance on developing your program.)
Each of our episodes is an improvement upon the last given what we learn both in planning and execution. This was certainly the case for E5, during which we got more done in a fast 4 months than we ever have in the past. E6 will be a quicker sprint to July and will likely see even greater efficiency. As we work to constantly improve our effectiveness, we do so with the aim of facilitating your growth as cultural institutions in your scenes. So thanks for sticking with us on this train! It's been an amazing ride so far and we are only just picking up steam!
Till then. Keep your dancing shoes on and keep reaching for the stars!
OTHER BIG NEWS
The DoFamily has grown: Josh Feingold, GM of DoLA, and his wife, Jennifer, welcomed their first baby into the world! Julian (boy=surprise!) was born yesterday. Big CONGRATS!
We realize that the BIG changes we made to editing on the front-end of your site and Admin may have caused some confusion and frustration. Our realest apologies for that.
There was largley a positive reaction to the front-end editing features (woot woot!) The confusion and frustration largely came from the removal of the WYSIWYG editor from everywhere in Admin, including pages that do not yet have front-end editing.
We removed the Admin WYSIWYG as a step toward making editing across your site both more straight-forward and better on the technical side (competing WYSIWYG editors = a messy fight with you pounding your keyboard in the middle).
However, you all need to be able to edit stuff still and shouldn't have to learn HTML overnight! So we have reinstated the Admin WYSIWYG editor on all user pages. We know you want to make your lists, sponsored, and Tastemaker pages look snazzy, so the WYSIWYG will be there until we enable similar front-end editing.
We also added clarification to all Description areas in Admin where the WYSIWYG editor was removed. It lets you know that the field is for HTML only, so additional line breaks, font formatting, image insertion, etc. need to be in basic code. For some basics you may use more frequently, we created this quick guide.
The old WYSIWYG has also been removed from old ECPs. The options for your ECP partners to customize event descriptions are either HTML via Admin -or- front-end editing for the corresponding events on your site. Any formatted event descriptions on your site will carry over to the ECP. Check it out:
Lastly, we reinstated your Pages tab in Admin. Your Pages manager never went away! It simply was hiding for a bit.
Any additional thoughts on these changes, please let us know. We have really appreciated your feedback thus far - we're building and improving for you after all!
One of our major projects this past episode was to upgrade your ability to edit stuff on your site, especially event and page descriptions. With better tools, you can build a better experience checking out events and all that you have to offer for your fans. And you all can have a better experience in the process.
We are modelling the new functionality after Medium's WYSIWYG editor. The basic editing tools on the front-end are super streamlined and simple. AND you can still be hardcore and use HTML for more customization.
The days of editing an event in Admin and then holding your breath in suspense as you wait for the page to open on the front end and reveal whether or not 'you got what you saw' are OVER!
The details:
When signed in, simply click into the event description to begin editing! No need to open the event edit page to change the description details. There will no longer be an option to edit the event details from this section, which may take a bit of getting used to.
Use HTML to do more than basic customization, such as color text or image resizing.
When you copy/paste into the new editor, any formatting will be stripped - this should save many of you a lot of time cleaning up transferred text. For those of you who paste text into "notepad" before dropping into our old WYSIWYG, this takes care of that. You'll hopefully never have to be told you pasted in a bunch of bad code ever again!
The WYSIWYG in Admin is no more (RIP). Admin editing will be exclusively in HTML. This is a necessity because the two editors will compete with each other and break the formatting you've done on the front end.
Pages are editable in a similar way, and you can build new ones directly on the front end. This is a huge change that we're really excited about. It's our first step towards making it easier to produce editorial content that lives on your DoXXX. We'd love to see the pages you start building, so send 'em our way!
Note - you might run into issues with event descriptions and pages that were designed using the old editor. Proceed with caution the first time you are editing so that you can get a feel for where the discrepancies may be. You'll find it either makes most sense to edit solely in HTML or that it's easiest to strip out all of the code and start editing from scratch (copy+delete+paste back in to strip formatting).
All users with any level of permission on your site, including site Managers, Tastemakers and Event Editors, can use the new editing stuff.
Check it out:
*Sorry to disappoint, but the event in this video is not actually an event on Do512 occurring in Austin.
Like it? Love it? Let us know! This has been a huge push for us and something much requested, and we want your feedback to make it the best possible solution for your needs!
BONUS: We added a Ticket URL field to front-end event creation and editing so that your users and well as your team can input that information while navigating the site.
#DEV has been killing it lately! Before we send out some Episode 6 project updates, we wanted to let you know some of the smaller features we've added and fixes we've made.
Event Ads
Repeating events were missing from your Featured Venues widget, but we've fixed this so that they show!
Ongoing Featured Event ads were ending at the start date of the event run. We made it so that they are live through the full run of the event.
FB/Free Fixes
For the time being, we have removed the Facebook pop-up share modal when users logged in via Facebook "Add" an event. There are some tweaks you all noticed that we will need to make before attempting again, such as being pulled back to the top of the page after exiting the modal.
Voting on an event with the Free user or checking an event as Free now automatically busts the user cache so that the event displays on the list immediately.
We also removed the "Free" added to the topline info on the event page because you all take care of that the majority of the time AND can make it look better.
Page Not Found?
Your error pages used to have errors. The search wouldn't work and users would have to navigate back to get off the page. Now search works on error pages and we've added your Featured Stuff links to direct users to not only working pages but also your BEST pages :)
Other Stuff
Dates added to events in live search results
Events with vanity URLs and user/lists with vanity URLs can now be edited on the front-end!
Logging in on pages with vanity URLs will no longer lead to "page not found" errors but allow successful login.
Venue maps will be determined by address input on the venue profile rather than latitude and longitude - because it just makes more sense!
We added a cache bust for uploading a new Featured Event ad! One less time you have to use the cache busting button in your SASS editor.
There have been some exciting wins of note the past few weeks! We want to share all your awesomeness!
Do317's Lounge Makes Moves and News
Do317's Lounge is becoming a legit venue in a primo location! This is big news for Do317 and Indy, so big that the Indystar did a feature on it. Read all about it (network shout-out included)!
doNYC Launches SummerStage ECP
After much romancing, doNYC signed on and launched SummerStage as an ECP. SummerStage is part of the City Parks Foundation and features free shows throughout New York City's parks. Free + great performances + outside in the summer = huge attraction!
The day of launch alone, traffic reached 26,000 uniques and 90,000 pageviews. This visual representation summarizes what this means for doNYC:
#gamechanger
Do312 VS. Do314
Hockey competition inspired this Facebook challenge between Do312/the Blackhawks and Do314/Blues to social success and amusement.
Why can't you guys just fight more often!?
Do312 Stereotypes
Every city has its neighborhood cliques. Do312 shared an infographic breakdown of Chicago's that inspired some love, hate, and laughs (maybe some serious self-reflection on top of it all?). Whatever your reaction, 500+ likes and 200+ shares is irrefutable social success.
Share something similar in your city and see if you can beat those stats!
Cinco de Mayo on Do214
What are your plans to celebrate the Mexican holiday? After checking out Do214's Cinco de Mayo list, you'll likely wish you were going to Dallas. It is currently the second most popular page on their site. Have you built and promoted yours yet?
And speaking of traffic, theirs has been steadily stellar since their launch party last Sunday. A cohort of DoStuffers and Do512ers were in attendance to show love for our newbie.
Win to Share?
Tell us! Reply in a comment below. Send us a note. A carrier pigeon would be cool.
Today we are unveiling our revamped support center for all your DoStuff resources! We have organized our new LearnStuff site into Centers, such as Events and Editorial, where you can find holistic guidance from the what, why, where, to the how-to.
The homepage has an overview of all the various Centers with quick links that mirror the sidebar navigation.
The quick links cover a few but NOT all the various pages in each Center. For example, the Ads Center includes additional overview pages and step-by-step setup guidance.
Need a template for a proposal or a quick answer to a question? Our Reference Center makes it easy to find all documents and FAQ we have available.
To keep you up-to-date with all network happenings, we'll include a date/link whenever we post to the network feed.
Speaking of our network feed, isn't it looking snazzy!? Stuart gave it a makeover so we could be alllll fancy.
So please navigate around. Let us know what you think! Let us know if you have questions or suggestions!
Note: Content is not 100% complete as we are always building and adding to our guidance. Currently, there is nothing on LearnStuff that you did not have available on HelpDesk. And there's a whole lots more.
Spammy spam spam. Nobody likes it. Least of all you and your ECP partners.
Similar to on your sites, we will be adding a spam prevention question to all old ECPs this afternoon, 5/28. The spam question appears when users on the old ECP:
Register
Enter an RSVP
Enter a Giveaway
The question currently reads, "What is 5 + 5?" but can be changed in the Dashboard of the old ECP Admin.
Please give your partners a heads up and inform them a)now they won't get spam emails and b)they can easily have the question changed. Just be sure the answer is obvious because it has to be entered exactly for the real user to get through it.
At the beginning of May, we at Team DoStuff ceremoniously gathered in Austin to close out our 5th Episode in DoStuff posterity and plan our 6th. Our Episode process mirrors Asana's (yes, we love Asana that much!) as a means of prioritizing and accomplishing long-term building projects within a determined timeframe - in addition to the daily work of keeping this train humming along. At the start of E5, we let you all know our best of intentions. Now we want to share how we did as well as what's next.
Overall, E5 saw some stellar output on all fronts: significant product strides, more streamlined support, solid NBD developments, and a stronger DoStuff with additional peeps and funding. E6 will be a focused continuation of E5 during which we refine some of our bigger developments.
Episode 5: DoNE!
Product
Speed Optimization - WIN - This was one of our first complete projects of E5. Our Dev Master of the Do-niverse, Kirk, explained what exactly we did and why it was important here. The gist: we made sites on our new platform sooooo much faster. This caused some caching hangups, but we've largely resolved those so you don't have to remember to punch those eight busting buttons in hopes that one will make changes live on your site.
Lenses/Lists/New ECPS - WIN - Our Dev team pushed hard on this to have a new lense for SXSW, and we are now at the stage when we are about to test our first lense and rolling out the new ECP platform for your use (details to come)!
WYSIWYG Editor - WIN - Last week, we rolled out our new front-end editor to replace the old WYSIWYG that did not give you what you saw. Given your feedback, we made some subsequent changes by including HTML clarification in Admin and giving your old ECP platform the WYSIWYG editor back. This was a big effort and a longterm BIG improvement for your content management process.
(r)Admin Launch - E6 - It is launched! On the backend. You will have access to your pretty new content management system soon.
Guestlist App - loss-ish - We had a testable app but not a native one and not one up to the very important task of keeping your RSVP partners happy. As it's not of core importance to your needs right now, we are tabling and will revisit to build something better.
New Dev HIRE - We had been actively looking for a new Developer that was enough of a superstar to roll with our small but mighty team for quite some time. The diligent search was well worth it because we found Mike Doyle, who started last week!
We have our snazzy new email template. Some of you have started using it (subscribe to Do312's, Do416's, and Do214's newsletter!) and everyone will be by the end of E6 (for streamlining campaigns and because it's awesome)!
Instead of Local Sales calls with you all, we began Goals calls that will cover some sales strategies. Goals help set the direction for where you are going and motivate you to get there. This is something you all specifically requested and hugely important to growing smarter and faster (and together)!
We hired Aaron of Do314 to spearhead New Metro Sales and Graham to lead Brand Sales.
San Antonio is officially the newest metro to join our network & Las Vegas is oh so close. If all goes as planned they'll both be coming to ATX in June for Bootcamp.
We began Network Sales calls on the reg to discuss and sync on partnerships.
Closed $450K in network sales!
Brands with new or expanded deals: Goose Island, Nokia, Pabst, LoneStar, Deep Eddy, Zagat, and Taxi Magic!
Strong momentum: Healthcare.gov, Anheuser-Busch, and many more in the pipeline...
Operations
We have redone Middle Earth (between the Do512 Lounge and DoStuff office) with desks for our growing family, a meeting room, retro booth, ping pong table, and call closet. OH SWEET CALL CLOSET.
Need insurance terms and recommendations? We created those. Dry? Maybe. Useful? Most Definitely.
Episode 6: Rolling!
E6 is going to be shorter than previous episodes (ending the first week of July). We're testing this shorter timeframe to make it easier for us to provide guidance on what we're going to get done and when. We also tested out a new process for determining what we were going to work on.
We stole the idea from Pandora, because it's the best we've seen for making it clear that you can't do everything - but you can come to consensus on what's most important. The "buyers" of projects were Michael, Kristin and Scott + a representative crew of GMs. We'll continue to test how we do this, so let us know your thoughts.
Product
We're mostly focused on getting the tools that get used daily in better shape - so that Content Managers can get their routine jobs done better/faster, and have more time to work on the cool shit that makes you stand out: lists, unique events, quality audits, etc.
Don't worry though, there's some good love going into the most important of our customer facing pages: events. AND the dev guys each have a week or so for "lab" work - where they'll focus on something they're excited about, or we want to prototype, or we can make happen lickity-split.
The specific projects:
Radmin: Transition Event/Venue/User/Artist Management - Exactly as it sounds. All your page management will be in the not only visually but also functionally improved content management system.
Radmin: Queues - Your pending queue will be more comprehensive so that you have better control over automated events before they go live, including the band data associated with events.
Radmin: Ad Management and Reporting - We'll be fixing the functionality of weights and image uploads (no more work arounds, 0 weight setting, forgetting the second image upload...) as well as giving you new features, like the ability to export reports to Google Docs and generate a report of all ad units for time frames rather than by specific advertisers so you can get an overview of your total #s!
Lense Creation and Management - Our new lenses/ECPs are a great improvement with lots of possibilities for you all. We will be giving you full ability to create and manage them.
Enhanced Layout of Event Pages and Customization - These will include tags, related posts/lists/events/venues, and "Latest" news so that your site become a more integrated, targeted experience for your users and exposes them to the full breadth of awesomeness you have to offer!
Delivery
This episode Team Delivery is all about doing things better, faster, stronger. Here at HQ we're trying to do the work of dozens with a team of 14. You all are 1/4 of that size trying to do the work of 14. We're all a bunch of badasses as is, but we're ready to take it up a notch.
To get us to said higher notch, our projects this episode are heavily focused on ways to make all of our work more efficient and effective so that you have more time and more tools to grow your audience and operate your business.
The projects:
Support you in getting your #s up with Content/Editorial guidelines! This includes surfacing the most successful lists and types of content, reminding you when it's time to start cranking it out, giving our GMs more tools to help them understand and support the work their trusty CMs are doing, manually helping to improve the quality of event and artist pages on your sites (with your approval of course), and much more.
Plan for keeping LearnStuff timely so that you all have up-to-date information available in a single resource.
Bootcamp Reboot to prep for our new metros and so we get them setup for success and integrated into our DoFamily with a bang.
Improve our communication processes with you, including new feature roll-outs. We really do want you to know what feature changes are coming up and how it will impact you and your partners. We'll do our darndest to send more and better updates your way, but unfortunately it will still be up to you to read them. Reading is hard for the best of us when we're busy, so let us know if you have suggestions for us as to how we can make it easiest for you to get the info you need.
New ECP/Lense documentation so that you can once again take control of their creation and management without us in the middle.
Complete CSS Customization documentation so that it is easier for you to pretty up your content without knowing how to code. (And so we can force our hard working CSS Pimp Master Stuart to turn off his computer and go to bed.)
Overhaul KPI reporting to better collect and track your data as well as a system that allows us to respond to data so that we pick on areas of need and capture best practices. The completion of this project will mean a much simpler reporting process for you to complete and more actionable information that you can use to grow your audience.
NBD
We have a gained a ton of forward momentum on NBD these past few months. To make sure that momentum truly turns into big wins for you, our partners, and us at DoStuff, our focus will be putting foundational documentation and processes in place. That way we'll sync better to deliver better to grow better.
We will also focus on finding and connecting "whales" - brands that are a fit with our network's audience and are already spending a lot around music, culture and/or local. Brands like Samsung, American Apparel, Converse, etc...
An overview of the projects:
Revised template decks for both new metro and brand sales so that we have better resources for making deals happen!
Streamline process between NBD/sales and you all so that everyone is excited and best prepared to deliver awesome programs/campaigns.
Hire Sales/Marketing support!
Operations
Goal here is, as always, keeping the wheels on the bus. But we're also adamant that Ops become a piece of the company that adds value. Just like the others.
To that end, we have a number of processes we hope to develop and pass on to you guys so we're not all recreating the same wheel.
Some of the projects:
Real company stuff: company policies and an Intranet to improve our organization!
Credit card payment setup for DoStuff and for metros.
A streamlined Internship program - we need one! (Do you? Check out this recent guidance on developing your program.)
Each of our episodes is an improvement upon the last given what we learn both in planning and execution. This was certainly the case for E5, during which we got more done in a fast 4 months than we ever have in the past. E6 will be a quicker sprint to July and will likely see even greater efficiency. As we work to constantly improve our effectiveness, we do so with the aim of facilitating your growth as cultural institutions in your scenes. So thanks for sticking with us on this train! It's been an amazing ride so far and we are only just picking up steam!
Till then. Keep your dancing shoes on and keep reaching for the stars!
OTHER BIG NEWS
The DoFamily has grown: Josh Feingold, GM of DoLA, and his wife, Jennifer, welcomed their first baby into the world! Julian (boy=surprise!) was born yesterday. Big CONGRATS!
We realize that the BIG changes we made to editing on the front-end of your site and Admin may have caused some confusion and frustration. Our realest apologies for that.
There was largley a positive reaction to the front-end editing features (woot woot!) The confusion and frustration largely came from the removal of the WYSIWYG editor from everywhere in Admin, including pages that do not yet have front-end editing.
We removed the Admin WYSIWYG as a step toward making editing across your site both more straight-forward and better on the technical side (competing WYSIWYG editors = a messy fight with you pounding your keyboard in the middle).
However, you all need to be able to edit stuff still and shouldn't have to learn HTML overnight! So we have reinstated the Admin WYSIWYG editor on all user pages. We know you want to make your lists, sponsored, and Tastemaker pages look snazzy, so the WYSIWYG will be there until we enable similar front-end editing.
We also added clarification to all Description areas in Admin where the WYSIWYG editor was removed. It lets you know that the field is for HTML only, so additional line breaks, font formatting, image insertion, etc. need to be in basic code. For some basics you may use more frequently, we created this quick guide.
The old WYSIWYG has also been removed from old ECPs. The options for your ECP partners to customize event descriptions are either HTML via Admin -or- front-end editing for the corresponding events on your site. Any formatted event descriptions on your site will carry over to the ECP. Check it out:
Lastly, we reinstated your Pages tab in Admin. Your Pages manager never went away! It simply was hiding for a bit.
Any additional thoughts on these changes, please let us know. We have really appreciated your feedback thus far - we're building and improving for you after all!
One of our major projects this past episode was to upgrade your ability to edit stuff on your site, especially event and page descriptions. With better tools, you can build a better experience checking out events and all that you have to offer for your fans. And you all can have a better experience in the process.
We are modelling the new functionality after Medium's WYSIWYG editor. The basic editing tools on the front-end are super streamlined and simple. AND you can still be hardcore and use HTML for more customization.
The days of editing an event in Admin and then holding your breath in suspense as you wait for the page to open on the front end and reveal whether or not 'you got what you saw' are OVER!
The details:
When signed in, simply click into the event description to begin editing! No need to open the event edit page to change the description details. There will no longer be an option to edit the event details from this section, which may take a bit of getting used to.
Use HTML to do more than basic customization, such as color text or image resizing.
When you copy/paste into the new editor, any formatting will be stripped - this should save many of you a lot of time cleaning up transferred text. For those of you who paste text into "notepad" before dropping into our old WYSIWYG, this takes care of that. You'll hopefully never have to be told you pasted in a bunch of bad code ever again!
The WYSIWYG in Admin is no more (RIP). Admin editing will be exclusively in HTML. This is a necessity because the two editors will compete with each other and break the formatting you've done on the front end.
Pages are editable in a similar way, and you can build new ones directly on the front end. This is a huge change that we're really excited about. It's our first step towards making it easier to produce editorial content that lives on your DoXXX. We'd love to see the pages you start building, so send 'em our way!
Note - you might run into issues with event descriptions and pages that were designed using the old editor. Proceed with caution the first time you are editing so that you can get a feel for where the discrepancies may be. You'll find it either makes most sense to edit solely in HTML or that it's easiest to strip out all of the code and start editing from scratch (copy+delete+paste back in to strip formatting).
All users with any level of permission on your site, including site Managers, Tastemakers and Event Editors, can use the new editing stuff.
Check it out:
*Sorry to disappoint, but the event in this video is not actually an event on Do512 occurring in Austin.
Like it? Love it? Let us know! This has been a huge push for us and something much requested, and we want your feedback to make it the best possible solution for your needs!
BONUS: We added a Ticket URL field to front-end event creation and editing so that your users and well as your team can input that information while navigating the site.
#DEV has been killing it lately! Before we send out some Episode 6 project updates, we wanted to let you know some of the smaller features we've added and fixes we've made.
Event Ads
Repeating events were missing from your Featured Venues widget, but we've fixed this so that they show!
Ongoing Featured Event ads were ending at the start date of the event run. We made it so that they are live through the full run of the event.
FB/Free Fixes
For the time being, we have removed the Facebook pop-up share modal when users logged in via Facebook "Add" an event. There are some tweaks you all noticed that we will need to make before attempting again, such as being pulled back to the top of the page after exiting the modal.
Voting on an event with the Free user or checking an event as Free now automatically busts the user cache so that the event displays on the list immediately.
We also removed the "Free" added to the topline info on the event page because you all take care of that the majority of the time AND can make it look better.
Page Not Found?
Your error pages used to have errors. The search wouldn't work and users would have to navigate back to get off the page. Now search works on error pages and we've added your Featured Stuff links to direct users to not only working pages but also your BEST pages :)
Other Stuff
Dates added to events in live search results
Events with vanity URLs and user/lists with vanity URLs can now be edited on the front-end!
Logging in on pages with vanity URLs will no longer lead to "page not found" errors but allow successful login.
Venue maps will be determined by address input on the venue profile rather than latitude and longitude - because it just makes more sense!
We added a cache bust for uploading a new Featured Event ad! One less time you have to use the cache busting button in your SASS editor.
There have been some exciting wins of note the past few weeks! We want to share all your awesomeness!
Do317's Lounge Makes Moves and News
Do317's Lounge is becoming a legit venue in a primo location! This is big news for Do317 and Indy, so big that the Indystar did a feature on it. Read all about it (network shout-out included)!
doNYC Launches SummerStage ECP
After much romancing, doNYC signed on and launched SummerStage as an ECP. SummerStage is part of the City Parks Foundation and features free shows throughout New York City's parks. Free + great performances + outside in the summer = huge attraction!
The day of launch alone, traffic reached 26,000 uniques and 90,000 pageviews. This visual representation summarizes what this means for doNYC:
#gamechanger
Do312 VS. Do314
Hockey competition inspired this Facebook challenge between Do312/the Blackhawks and Do314/Blues to social success and amusement.
Why can't you guys just fight more often!?
Do312 Stereotypes
Every city has its neighborhood cliques. Do312 shared an infographic breakdown of Chicago's that inspired some love, hate, and laughs (maybe some serious self-reflection on top of it all?). Whatever your reaction, 500+ likes and 200+ shares is irrefutable social success.
Share something similar in your city and see if you can beat those stats!
Cinco de Mayo on Do214
What are your plans to celebrate the Mexican holiday? After checking out Do214's Cinco de Mayo list, you'll likely wish you were going to Dallas. It is currently the second most popular page on their site. Have you built and promoted yours yet?
And speaking of traffic, theirs has been steadily stellar since their launch party last Sunday. A cohort of DoStuffers and Do512ers were in attendance to show love for our newbie.
Win to Share?
Tell us! Reply in a comment below. Send us a note. A carrier pigeon would be cool.
Today we are unveiling our revamped support center for all your DoStuff resources! We have organized our new LearnStuff site into Centers, such as Events and Editorial, where you can find holistic guidance from the what, why, where, to the how-to.
The homepage has an overview of all the various Centers with quick links that mirror the sidebar navigation.
The quick links cover a few but NOT all the various pages in each Center. For example, the Ads Center includes additional overview pages and step-by-step setup guidance.
Need a template for a proposal or a quick answer to a question? Our Reference Center makes it easy to find all documents and FAQ we have available.
To keep you up-to-date with all network happenings, we'll include a date/link whenever we post to the network feed.
Speaking of our network feed, isn't it looking snazzy!? Stuart gave it a makeover so we could be alllll fancy.
So please navigate around. Let us know what you think! Let us know if you have questions or suggestions!
Note: Content is not 100% complete as we are always building and adding to our guidance. Currently, there is nothing on LearnStuff that you did not have available on HelpDesk. And there's a whole lots more.
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