In the city Kyiv in Ukraine there is a local arts mini festival called the Kyiv Mini Maker Faire that brings together over 50 exhibitors and 2000 guests to showcase a variety of artistic talents and hobbies. People from all over the city and surrounding cities join together to make crafts, demo robotics and toys they’ve made, lead lectures, and have fun getting to know each other. The faire is for families and anyone in the community that’s interested in engaging in arts and crafts, origami, science experiments, green technology, and even underwater robots. Yuri Vlasyuk brought his two sons to the faire and was amazed by the creativity and unity within the community. He later got involved in helping to organize the faire and has been using Daylite as his tool to keep track of everything and everyone involved.
Yuri Vlasyuk is an Apple Product Professional and works for iLand in Ukraine. He works with entrepreneurs and small to medium sized businesses to help them plan and develop usage scenarios for Apple technology and software such as CRM. Yuri has been using Daylite for seven years within his iLand team, so when he got involved in the Kyiv Mini Maker Faire, it seemed like the natural choice of software to use. We interviewed Yuri to learn how he’s leverages Daylite to help him plan and organize tasks, vendors, and marketing for the Kyiv Mini Maker Faire.
What do you use Daylite for?
Yuri: We have a project in Daylite for each year of the faire. We connect all attendees, sponsors, volunteers, suppliers, media, etc. and assign a role to each person within the project. We also use Keywords to tag contacts. For example we use the Keyword “aKMF15” meaning this person attended the Kyiv Mini Maker Faire in 2015. This helps us keep track of attendees for each year. When we see a contact we know right away how many years they have attended.
We use Daylite for marketing automation and to help delegate tasks within our team. We have Activity Sets in Daylite for a series of steps when working with a partner or sponsor for the faire. From the first call, to document signing, to planning the place and event, lectures, right through the thank you letter the week after the event. It’s all set in Daylite. We also have a few external volunteers so we use Trello to manage their tasks.
We map out the full project in Merlin. We plan the tasks, resources, and milestones. After the full plan is set we meet with our internal team to discuss the plan. After everything is confirmed I organize the tasks for my team in Daylite.
How does Daylite help your team?
Yuri: Daylite helps us to plan meetings, time with partners and makers, and keep on top of our deadlines. Daylite also helps me to balance my time and the time of my employees by sharing tasks. Some employees have more tasks than others and the last two weeks before the event is always the hardest. By viewing all my team’s tasks, I can move tasks around to different people and help balance the work load.
How does Daylite’s integration with Apple Mail help you?
Yuri: Every email sent to a partner, guest, or maker is attached to our Project in Daylite through Daylite Mail Assistant. If someone has to finish a task that someone else didn’t have time to, they can quickly understand what’s going on and get in touch because the emails are linked to the project. They can review all the details in the email to complete the task they need to.
How does Daylite help you manage contacts?
Yuri: Each of my employees has to contact and manage 50 makers for the faire. For each maker, we do an interview with them so Make Magazine can showcase them on the website. We use Google Docs to keep track of al the answers to the questions and the photos each maker sends us for their spot on the website.
We have a Smart List in Daylite of all the faire attendees so we know who we need to contact and confirm if they will be taking part in the faire. We have an Activity Set for all the vendors so we are reminded to contact them and confirm what they will be showing, where we will place them, what they need for the show (for example electricity, an umbrella, etc.)
How has Daylite helped you automate processes?
Yuri: For each maker we use a custom field for what they do. This helps us quickly know what each maker does and let’s us know who we still need to contact and confirm what they will be making. We use Keywords for contacts and then filter contacts by those Keywords to create Smart Lists. We have a Smart List for makers, sponsors, and suppliers for the food court. If we need to email all of our sponsors we can just select a Smart List and use a Letter Template to email all of them.
We also use Smart Lists to manage tasks. We have a Smart List for All Tasks and a Smart List for tasks completed today. This helps us balance the tasks for everyone on my iLand team internally for business and separate from tasks for the Faire. Everyday I can view the Smart List and see everything accomplished that day by my entire team. This helps gives us the feeling that we’re progressing. When we see we still have a lot of work ahead of us, this gives us a feeling of accomplishment so we know we’re moving forward.
There’s a quote from the book The Maker Movement Manifesto that says “Every human wants to create something and see what they have done, in the material world and in the virtual world.” By using Smart Lists, I can see what I’ve accomplished in the virtual world and get a feeling of accomplishment. I can go home and understand that tomorrow I can finish something new.
What do you use Daylite on your iPhone and iPad for?
Yuri: We use Daylite on our iPhones and iPas to keep track of meetings with makers and sponsors and all the calls we have to make. I have a lot of outbound calls I have to make and normally 3-5 meetings a day. For me I use Daylite as a schedule and call assistant. I have a list of who I need to call. After a meeting I can create a follow up task from my iPhone and link it to the contact and if I need to, delegate it to someone on my team. This way they have the due date, all the details, and it’s connected to the project.
What is the biggest benefit you’ve gained from using Daylite?
Yuri: Daylite helps give us a feeling of confidence and calmness while we work. We see all our tasks so we can prioritize and adjust due dates as needed. We can ask for help and balance tasks within our team members. We have a better understanding of what we need to do so we feel happier and it’s easier to work. With Daylite we feel less stressed and more confident in our execution. When there’s a lot of tasks that need to be done at one time, I have a clear understanding in my mind of what needs to be done. I can go to a coffee shop, spend some time in Daylite, and figure out how to automate what I need to do. Daylite helps us automate routine tasks so we can build processes that make us faster.
Are there any plugins you use with Daylite?
Yuri: We want to start using the WuFoo plugin from iOSXpert on our next project. We’ll use the WuFoo connector for form integration and sync with Daylite. For initial questions about attendees, their email, address, etc. we will be able to import in Daylite.
How has your process changed overtime with Daylite?
Yuri: Each year we get better and better at automating things using Daylite. Daylite gives us different ways of trying things such as changing the stages of our Project Pipelines. We can always change and improve. With Daylite there are always 2 or 3 different ways that you can do something. You can choose whatever way is best for you. I can use Daylite as it suits my business logic and my team. I can also help teach my team new ways to use Daylite in ways that work better for them.
Why do you feel so passionate about the Kyiv Mini Maker Faire?
Yuri: The faire helps relieve negative thoughts about the future. It shows people there’s something good going on–something to be positive about, especially during a time of war here in Ukraine. It’s a celebration. I love the process of talking to people during and after the faire to understand how they feel. It’s all about brining people together who want to be a part of something creative and are looking for something interesting to be a part of. We’re all little pieces of something bigger.
What have you learned through your experience that you would advise other people organizing events to do?
Yuri: The biggest thing I learned from being involved in this event is to make more time for more frequent meetings with the team and vendors. We had such a short period of time to organize so we only have 4 meetings involving everyone. It’s not enough. Within my iLand team we meet frequently so we had that sense of teamwork. For everyone involved externally it wasn’t enough meetings so we didn’t have that same feeling of being a team. It’s good to have more personal interaction with people working together on a project. It gives more time to ask for help and clarification.
