Tech Tuesday: Trello

Hello! Yes I know it's not tuesday and i'm a couple days late but its be a hectic week! I'm going to save my excuses and get straight to it.

Today i'm going to talk about a online project management program i found while running Creative Championships. I needed a management software that everyone could see tasks and deadlines. Most of all it had to be free. I almost gave up but my fantastic research skills finally came across Trello! 

Trello is a free web-based (which is fantastic no clogging up space on your operating system!) project management tool made by a fog creek software.  If your a person that loves your lists or find it difficult to do think about more than one thing at a time, this tool will support you. Whether it's your doing a shopping list, planning a wedding, planning a holiday I assure you ever detail will be documented, most of all fill you with ease. 

 Here's what the user interface looks like. Trello is set up as boards. You can name the board i.e Reception Dinner and then underneath the main heading you would add the tasks onto 'mini cards'. i.e Caterers, you then would click onto that name and put more detail. On the mini cards you can create checklist, deadline dates, add pictures, videos, a voting system,word documents and many more. You can drag and drop the mini cards on any board you like.

If this is a group endeavour you can assign people for different tasks. Once any activity has been made on the card that a person is assigned to, they would instantly be sent an email. You can also add comments and have a discussion. You can colour co-ordinate the task will the label option too. You can have as many boards and mini cards as you like and also projects.

You will be pleased to now you can access Trello through your smartphone. There's no restrictions either like some apps where access is only web based.

Things I would like to see implemented:

1. At this moment in time when you add a label to differeniate tasks with colour it only put a slither of colour on the bottom of the mini card. I would like the whole board changed to that particular colour. Being dyslexic I find it easier when colour is used on the background, my mind seems to see structure better.  
2. Also I would like there to be an option where you can print your project as either single boards or all boards together. 
3. Video calling or instant chat option.
4. Reminders to members or yourself that a deadline is approaching.
5. There's an option where u can do a voting approach, maybe once the voting has finished it creates a mini pie chart that either you can present or print out.

I hope you've found this helpful! Happy projecting managing! 

Who am i?

Alisha Forrester. T: @maverick2design

It's been a long time I've been signed up since March 2011, i'm not a big blogger but I've decided to try and start. If it's not work, life, love or trying to gain a degree its having a cocktail in my right hand and a interesting book in my left that stops from getting started on my blog. So let's by having a little background on the one and only shall we.....

Born in the late 80's surrounded by noise from 3 older siblings and nephew, the constant pirate radio station playing the latest reggae and calypso tunes and a mother whos trusted best friend was her cake making machine and sewing machine.  Ever since i can remember,  i was always the type of person that liked plan my life out, i decided i wanted to be a computer programmer. Not knowing what that involved i was adamant that was my job role plus a ranger rover parked outside my house that was the size of buckingham palace.

Fast forward to the days when Britney spears was toxic and 50 cent was 'in da club'  still my job role was to become a computer programmer so I took information Technology as a GCSE which wasn't the greatest.
    College, I studied a btec national diploma in ICT, each module covered every aspect of ICT and that's where as if a light shone bright above my head, I decided I wanted to become a Website designer.  Why? because i enjoyed making something astehically pleasing to the eye.

In 2007, I enrolled at the University of Salford onto a course that unfortunately was all geek and no design. I stumbled onto the course I graduated in called Design Futures, which was right up my street. From being on this course i came to the conclusion that there is more to design then designing something and that there is more behind the scenes and more roles to produce art work or a product.

With all the projects we were given, it gave me the chance to 'play' different roles in an organisation and that eureka struct! Marketing strategies, business development and idea generation are my passion and even before i graduated i started building up my portfolio with a 3 month internship at Photolink Creative Group. Working with another intern, on then a new venture which has sky rocketed, Little Black Dress, we worked together coming up with ideas and Stephanie writing fantastic content.

From there on i did a few more paid work for them and got myself a mentor, who happened to be the founder of NorthernSoho. Time went by and my positivity and enthusiasm slowly was fading as every headline in the paper was 'Students coming out of university will have a hard time finding a job'. The economy was taking a nose dive and getting any type of job was hard. That was then(graduated 2011). That is still now, the end of 2012 and all i've managed to secure is a one day a week job. Keeping myself occupied in the mean time i have been doing some freelance jobs, writing a marketing strategy for a jazz band, Yasmin and the Wild Things.


My entrepreneurship has never left my side. I tried to set up a networking organisation, Creative Championships,which had great feedback on the idea however the team all found jobs and couldn't commit which i fully understood.

So thats me really, you're are now fully up to date with my 23 years of existence. If you want to know how it came about me travelling aboard in a few weeks to try and impress important to maybe land a job just read my next post!


p.s Apologies on the aesthetic at the moment, i'm a newbie!