How Not To...

Don't you wish more things came with an 'oops' button?

The final session for the ISTAT 13th European Conference in Monaco is now over. It went quite well with only a few glitches. The biggest glitch would have to be this new management company that ISTAT hired to organize and run these events. Not one to mince words, I'll say they sucked. The 3 women onsite were rude, condescending and, as far as I'm concerned, unprofessional (one of my biggest pet peeves and almost unforgivable).

It's not just me who has this problem. Many if not all of the members who talked to me in some fashion or another had a complaint about this new company. I'm glad to hear it's not just me being stubborn about change.

Here are some things that went wrong for them that gives me a good evil giggle:

They stranded 9 members at the golf course during the golf tournament by not doing a head count before the buses left to come back to the hotel...(heh heh)

They had the tour buses parked at the wrong entrance to the hotel to pick up the spouses for their afternoon tour of Monaco...police gave the buses tickets...(heh heh)

They ordered 60 extra meals for the first day of lunches - and at 150Euros (over $200) per plate that's a big oversite...(heh heh)

The meal they thought they ordered at that lunch was supposed to be chicken...what was served was rump steak. (heh heh)

The list goes on but I think I'm the only getting satisfaction out of their mistakes. So, on to other things.



I was, once again, in charge of the audio / visual aspects of this conference. Briefly: I work with an audio visual company to design and set up the stage that the speakers will present on. The design also includes lighting, sound, projectors, screens, and computers - all of which are used for presentations.

At the last minute, due to a language / communication error, I ended up having to actually run the presentations myself off of my computer and one other. Ok, I can deal with that...it just meant that I also had to stay awake for the whole session...and that is haaaaaard work.

If you ever decide to be a speaker for a conference, here are some "not to do's":

-don't lean on the 'go' button, unless you want your presentation to go by really fast.
-don't turn your face away from the microphone (and the audience) and talk to your slides.
-don't rub your face on the microphone (and if you do, don't enjoy it...)
-when handed a wireless mic , speak into it, do not gesture and point with it while you speak.
-don't wait for the video start playing when you didn't give me a video to play.
-don't walk away from the microphone to point at the screen.
-don't fall off the back of the stage while trying to get to the screen to point at it.

and yes, all of these things happened.

Alas, the general sessions are over. The final invoices are signed. All that's left for me to do is sign off. I'm hoping for amazing weather tomorrow as I made a mistake when booking my flight home and have to stay in Monaco a day with no work to do. Mea culpa, yes? (heh heh)

-v