Sound n' Sight

It's a projection, pricing, staffing calculator! It's Super Planner!

Howard Givner's Super Planner iPhone App has received some pretty positive reviews since it was approved by Apple on August 3.

Eventprofs founder and blogger Lara McCulloch calls it a "virtual encyclopedia of (events) industry calculators,"  that may just be "one of the most used tools in your event planning aresenal."

Events industry blogger Liene Stevens says it is "hands down the most comprehensive business app currently available for event planners." 

Even my impatient, skeptical husband, an AV geek to his core, had some postive things to say after watching the Super Planner Demo on Vimeo. 

What's got everybody talking? Well there's the catering calculator, the staffing calculator, the projection calculator, the staging calculator and the dance floor calculator, to begin with. The Super Planner features quite a few other little helpers as well.

Howard Givner says he drew on his 20 plus years of experience in the events industry as an events business owner and consultant when developing the Super Planner for iPhone. He recently agreed to answer a few questions about his app for Sound n' Sight.

Jenise: Your Super Planner app for iPhone has received some very positive press in the events community. Can you please tell us a little bit about it and why you think it's being so well received?

Howard: People are going to think I’m paying you to throw me such a nice question like that! To be honest, I think it’s a very good value. It has lots of calculators and utilities that the typical planner uses. I’ve been planning events and running an event company for over 20 years, and tapped that experience in putting the app together.

Jenise: What has been the app's most popular feature?

Howard: I’ve heard people talking the most about the Pricing Converter (which goes from Plus Plus to Inclusive and vice versa), the Capacity Calculator, and believe it or not the Place Setting feature. Personally, I have the most use of the staging diagram, as I always forget which side is stage left and which side is stage right.

Jenise: Has there ever been a tool like this for event planners and if so, how is Super Planner similar/different?

Howard: I don’t believe so. I’m sure some of the calculators are available on an individual basis out there, but there’s surprisingly little available in app format. And as for the capacity calculators, the one in Super Planner has all my own formulas, which change slightly as the size of rooms increase. I just found the standard calculators out there were not that realistic.

Jenise: What gave you the idea to develop it? And how long has it been in the making?

Howard: Since the iphone started having third party apps available for it, I always thought it would be cool for us to have one for our industry. Event planners are on the road a lot, meeting with clients, venues, vendors, etc. and there are lots of times we need to quickly reference something. This was built with that mindset.

I started working on it in December 2009, and the content and formulas took me a couple of months. The rest of the process was dealing with the programming development, going from one developer (who went bankrupt) to another one, and then through the submission process with Apple.

Jenise: Do you know how many times it's been downloaded since it was made available?

Howard: As of August 19th it’s been purchased around 150 times. I need to sell 627 of them to break even, so do spread the good word!

Jenise: What has been the biggest lesson you've learned from the experience of developing and marketing this app?

Howard:
1) Be careful whom you hire to do the development. The first company I hired to do the programming (I came up with all the content, formulas etc. but I don’t write programming code), took my deposit, did some work, then went bankrupt. It’s like the Wild West out there, with tons of new programmers popping up to cash in; some are good, others are not.

2) That it takes twice as long and costs twice as much as you’d think. But I really should have known that, as it applies to almost anything.
 

Jenise: Do you have any other projects on the horizon?

Howard: Working on Droid and Blackberry versions of Super Planner, as well as version 2 of the app, which will have lots more stuff. Also gearing up for the fall launch of the Event Leadership Institute, an online education venture in partnership with BizBash, which is very exciting.

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