It’s officially giving and gifting season! For our fellow facilitators, we wanted to put together & share a few of our favorite technology/software things. These are awesome items or subscriptions to gift a fellow facilitator (or hey, add them to your wishlist!).
We kept this list to only feature things we actually use and love. We’re also rounding up any Black Friday deals & discounts on these products over on our Twitter, so check the thread to see what you can save on!
So without further ado, let’s get into it.
A Few of Our Favorite Things
STREAMDECK ($149.99)
I simply won’t facilitate another virtual workshop without it! Stream Deck makes it possible to easily switch & manage things in OBS (no more screen-shares!), queue up all the text I want to send in the chat, and manage multiple timers.
If you’re interested in seeing it in action you can watch a demo of Streamdeck and a full walk through of how to set it up for your facilitations on our YouTube channel.
And if the $149.99 price tag is a high entry point (which we agree, it is) you can use StreamDeck mobile to turn your phone into a StreamDeck. 30-day free trial and then $4 a month after that. We used it for a few months to see if we liked it before shelling out for the hardware ourselves.
EPOCCAM ($7.99)
Turns your iPhone into a webcam! Instantly use one of the best cameras in your house as a webcam. Our favorite use for it? Have it above your desk and point it down for the perfect desk overhead shot – without having to buy a separate camera.
We used it to film the top-down angle of our stream deck in this video and we often use it when we’re doing overhead shots for Facilitator Cards.
AHASLIDES (Plans range from Free to $15.95)
Our favorite way to get responses from large groups of people and share them back in live time. It’s live polling software that is so fast and easy to use you can make slides mid-facilitation which allows for incredible flexibility!
If you use this link you’ll get a free one-time small event (up to 30 people) and we’ll get $5 when you make it happen. You can also use Ahaslides free for any event less than 7 people forever, which is neat and a great way to get to know the features.
We did a whole Brain Jam on AhaSlides and have been using it in most of our trainings ever since!
OBS (Free!)
The best free software! Give yourself the gift of a free tool that will change every session you run. Never screen share again! Keep people engaged with your face and information while you switch between multiple camera views with ease.
We have done multiple events on OBS and you can watch a demo of it here, how to set it up, the full Brain Jam, and the encore all on our YouTube channel.
CONVERTKIT (Plans range from Free to $25.00)
Makes it quick & easy to draft and send an email (much faster than Mail Chimp!) while also providing beautiful ways to automate sequences of emails and create excellent landing pages for specific events, products, or resources.
LU.MA (Plans range from Free to $39.00)
An elegant & easy platform to use for event registration. Our favorite feature? Lu.ma will tell participants what time the event is in their local time on the event page. Free for free events, paid for paid events. And hey, they’ve even got a tip jar feature!
MOSSY EARTH ($12.50/month)
If you travel, shop online, or use electricity you create a carbon footprint. Mossy Earth is our favorite partner to do eco-restoration and plant native trees around the world to help lower our carbon impact. Also makes an excellent gift for anyone who travels frequently, even if they’re not a facilitator!
If you sign up for Mossy Earth via this link they’ll plant 4 extra trees for you and 4 extra trees for us! More trees might be the best affiliate program in our book.
AIRTABLE (Plans range from Free to $24.00)
An incredible way to make databases of participants, automate data entry, and a more professional, flexible (and beautiful) replacement for any Google Form. Really cool interactive features and limitless creativity. And the free version is boss!
(*Affiliate link provided, if you use our link to sign-up it’s totally free for you & Airtable sends us $10…which we then use to pay our Airtable bill. It’s a big silly cycle but we’re about it.)
We hope you’ve gotten some ideas or items and we can’t wait to see how you put them to use. Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday season and until our paths cross again, happy facilitating!
Meg & the Facilitator Cards Team