Thursday, May 22, 2008

conference post game show

Yesterday was the big honkin' conference that we've all been sweatin' over since November.
All the hustling and late nights and arguments culminated into... one big hustley late night argument.

The power went out for the first two hours of it, and you can imagine what that did to everyone's attitude.

We had multiple speakers coming in just in the nick of time (stress!). One speaker who did not have a message that pertained to our goal, talked forever, while the other speakers who had really great messages, got cut short (Sherwood, I wish you could have talked all day!). By the end of it, less than half of the attendees were still there.

But! I heard more than a few people tell staff how much they liked it. So, who knows. The jury's still out on the success.

My role was to "graphically facilitate" each speaker's message. Graphic facilitation is a fancy word for "note taking with big fat markers on stage."
The biggest challenge to it is lack of time.
When the guy's done talking, he's done, and I'm done.
No touch ups or re-do's.


Deliberating.


Oh look! Jon's assistant "Mary" is making things happen by magic, and keeping my kids happy too!


Where there is coffee, there is happiness in the AM hours.
No lack of smiles here.


Dan Kimball sneaking through the doors, with 15 minutes to spare.
Yay for Dan, I wish he could have spoken longer too.
He was the first speaker I marker-ed for.
(First speaker that spoke once the power came back on.)


After each session I hung (per Trina's instruction) the giant notes up on that balcony (we used Church on the Hill to hold the conference, instead of Westgate).
There's one missing from the photo, btw.
I imagine they're nestled in a little recycling bin right now.

2 comments:

won tong said...

Heard they shut off the power for that fire goin on we remember when we were at your wedding driving 17 what a road and we noticed it would be bad in the event of a fire. I hope the horses will be rescued.

Unknown said...

I'm glad for you that it's over. I'm so proud that you are a fancy marker-graphic-facilitator. I'm sure it went well. You are your worst critic.