2017 has been a rollercoaster for many of us. However, hearing from teams around the world who are using MindMeister and MeisterTask to achieve inspiring things has been a high point for us here at MeisterLabs.
So, whether you’re counting down the days for this year to be over, or trying to squeeze every last drop out of 2017, we thought we’d share some highlights from the MeisterLabs community – you might even like to steal some of these workflows for yourself 😉
1. Helping Teachers in Iowa’s Schools with the Email to Task Zap
With emails flooding in from clients, colleagues, and stakeholders on a daily basis, your inbox can really take a hit. Aaron Roberts, the Innovation Coach for Mason City Schools, shared how this occurs in his work:
“My job as the Innovation Coach is similar to the work of a consultant. Teachers are my clients, so I have a great deal of teacher questions rolling into my inbox daily,”
To help Aaron manage these emails, he set up a Zap, from Zapier, that converts labeled Gmail messages into MeisterTask tasks. For example, by labeling an email as “Middle school teacher needs”, the email is added – automatically – as a task to the relevant section of Aaron’s teacher request project board. Without lifting a finger, Aaron’s important emails are turned into tasks, including:
- the email subject line forming the task name
- the body of the email forming the task description
- and the teacher’s email address included in the task description, for an efficient response.
“I can be an emailaholic,” Aaron shares. “Thankfully, MeisterTask keeps our team out of our email and focused on the bigger picture, while still managing the day-to-day client needs.”
2. Working Remotely to Provide Sustainable Housing Across Europe
The Building and Energy Conservation Bureau (ESEB) is an NGO working tirelessly to provide European citizens with long-lasting homes that are safe, warm, environmentally friendly and affordable.
However, with their headquarters in Riga, Latvia but their team spread throughout Europe, the team were facing a collaboration problem:
“The biggest issue we were facing was task management between remote team members,” ESEB’s Research Analyst, Mārtiņš Miezis, shared with us. “We needed a solution that would display and help to manage the tasks that each employee was working on.”
As a result, the team began using MindMeister to hold meetings across their locations, before converting the plans into actionable, assigned tasks in MeisterTask, via the integration.
Subsequently, everyone is clear on project progress, no matter their location. Plus, according to the team, they’ve been delivering their housing projects to deadline, and collaboratively, ever since.
3. Designing Extraordinary Events with Project Scope Mind Maps
Event Design Collective is an organization developing innovative ways to plan and implement impactful events. In order to help clients to design and execute these events, the team uses MindMeister to visually share their creative vision with clients.
“We use MindMeister to map out and research the event design projects, as well as begin the planning of the design,” Managing Partner and Co-Founder, Ruud Janssen shared. “We find MindMeister particularly useful for sorting out complex problems and getting a clear first picture of the scope, time and research required by new projects.”
The mind map, demonstrating project scope and vision, is shared with the client for feedback, ensuring all requirements are agreed upon, before going on to develop a collaborative project plan and roadmap.
Read Event Design Collective’s story here.
4. Using Task Checklists and Due Dates to Run the Perfect Wedding
Wedding days can be pretty high-pressure. Couples have likely planned their big day for months or even years beforehand, organizing every minute detail to a T. Being part of rolling out this special – and precise – vision is a big responsibility.
Wedding Photographer, Martina Lundborg, shared with us how she uses MeisterTask to help ensure the weddings are just as perfect as planned:
“One of the worst things that can happen at a wedding is that you forget something essential. To ensure this doesn’t happen, I have a task per client in MeisterTask, including a checklist of everything I need to remember,” Lundborg shared.
“Within the task, I can keep adding items to the checklist as they arise, such as a specific lens I might need for an outdoor wedding or a change of shoes for the 12+ hours of non-stop shooting. I then set the task due date to be a day or so before the wedding, to remind myself to pack all essential belongings!”
With this new workflow, Martina’s business is growing and partnerships with other wedding photographers are now on the cards:
“I’ve always worked alone as a wedding photographer but I’m starting to get involved with projects that involve cooperating more with other photographers in Sweden – projects that I would never have considered since the management would take too much time. However, since I’ve worked out a much better workflow with MeisterTask, although it sounds cliché, anything now feels possible!”
5. Building Beautiful Digital Marketing Solutions Transparently
Earlier this year, we heard from Dutch creative agency We Brand Creative about how they manage client liaison transparently, by creating a new MeisterTask project board for each new client they work with. The team then invites their client to collaborate in the project, providing a visual project roadmap and allowing their clients to track project progress transparently, via the Kanban workflow.
Each of their project boards includes the tasks agreed upon with the client and the stage that each task is at in the journey to completion. For example, the team has a section for ‘In Progress *Client Name*’, including all tasks that are in progress but currently with the client for feedback. This feedback can then be given via the inbuilt task commenting features, or within documents attached to the task.
“We’ve long been looking for a tool that allows us to work with our clients in an accessible way,” Wouter Zwarekant, Creative Director of We Brand Creative shared. “With MeisterTask we can simply provide clients with access to the relevant project, and because MeisterTask can be used via the web, mobile, and desktop apps, it’s a solution that every client can work with.”
Read We Brand Creative’s story here.
The process of using MeisterTask for client liaison will soon be even easier with roles & permissions – a new feature available on our upcoming MeisterTask Business plan. Keep your eyes peeled for our January announcement!
So there’s our round-up of five ways teams have used MindMeister and MeisterTask to achieve inspiring things in 2017 – and the workflows they used to do so!
Do you have a story you’d like to share on how you’re using MindMeister and/or MeisterTask to achieve great things? Get in touch!
In the meantime, wishing you all a great holiday period and a happy new year from the whole team at MeisterLabs!
