Skip to main content

What to do with a busted session?

Many of us who put on conferences and trade shows end up in the situation at one time or another. A speaker unavoidably gets sick, misses a flight, gets kidnapped, whatever. You have to scramble and make a key decision: Cancel the session or try to get a replacement. Most I have been to take the first choice. Sure, you have some disappointed people, but you give them a chance to go to a different session. If it is your keynote, or the only session going on in that time slot, I vote for the replacement. People usually understand and you didn't pull them away from another learning opportunity.

Unfortunately, my first session at BlogWorld this morning went the replacement route. It meant I missed another session I wanted to attend. I don't blame the replacement. She didn't have enough time to put something together. And you could tell she wasn't that comfortable standing in front of an audience. She had a few decent things to say, but it wasn't as valuable as I had hoped.

My 2 cents: cancel when appropriate.

PS - I met up with my boss who had the same thing at his session. Om Malik from Business2.0 and Michael Arrington from TechCrunch both were no shows, leaving one guy on the panel. You really can't have a panel with 1.

Comments

Jamie Notter said…
Yeah, I filled in for someone at the ASAE meeting in Boston. It was a topic that was close to my area of expertise, but there was no way I could meet the topic EXACTLY as it was described. I provided full disclosure to those in the room, and a bunch left immediately. Many stayed, though, and it was a fun session--evals were mixed, of course. Some were still disappointed that they didn't get what was originally promised. Others were happy. the key is telling them up front and letting them go to another session if they wish.
Matt Baehr said…
Good call Jamie. There was disclosure up front. But this conference made you sign up in advance. I guess I could have gone to one of their change areas, then found another session. But they didn't make it easy.
Hilary Marsh said…
The other choice is to use the time in a completely different way. For example, once another speaker and I were asked to fill in for a session at a Web content conference. Instead of a lecture-type session, we facilitated a discussion about how people felt about their content management systems. It was an incredible session, completely interactive, and we turned it into a white paper.

Popular posts from this blog

Apathy vs. Lack of Proper Training

I, like many, worked at a grocery store in high school. First a bagger, then a cashier, then the produce department. Each job required training on how to do it. I usually spent several shifts shadowing someone, then several on my own but with supervision. This method seemed to work just fine. I see it employed places other than the grocery store. Lately, I have been amazed at how poorly grocery bags are packed by store employees. I know that you have to adjust to the bag type, cloth or plastic these days, but I can't tell if the employees are lazy or just didn't get proper training. I even go as far as emptying my cart strategically to try to help - put all the cold stuff together, bread and eggs last so they can go on top, etc. But it doesn't seem to matter. I think there is a fine line between apathy and lack of training, at least trying to identify which situation it is. Anyone have any great ideas for identifing and then fixing either situation?

10 Thoughts on #ASAE10

Ok, so I could have spelled out the title, but chose the hashtag - #asae10. Supposedly there were over 8,000 tweets with the hashtag, but probably countless more direct messages of messages that left out the hashtag but were conference related. Two years ago, we were using twitter as a backchannel to talk about speakers. Now, over 800 people sent conference related tweets. If you aren't on Twitter, you are already late to the party. Anyway, on with the post... In no particular order, my thoughts on this years ASAE Annual Conference: 1. LA was a good venue. Lots to do. Hotels close by. Only downside was the rooms were a bit of a hike. 2. I missed Sunday because of family obligations. That really put me behind the 8 ball. Since I led a session, that meant I only got to go to 3 true sessions. Sorry, I don't count Joy Behar and the closing session. Although Marshall Goldsmith was good, I probably wouldn't have gone to see that speech as a Learning Lab. 3. Based on #

I have a new job

I am so very excited to announce that as of Oct. 13, I will be the new Executive Director of the Arlington Soccer Association . This is the perfect opportunity for my to combine my work experience and my education (I have a Masters in Sports Administration) with one of my true passions, soccer. I played in college and still play several times a week (which may change since I will most likely be a touch busier.) I still plan on writing this blog. My guess is that you will see the topics change slightly to focus less on membership and more on overall association management areas. Thank you to all who have helped me along the way. I don't want to list names for fear of leaving anyone out, because Lord knows there are a lot. Wish me luck!