Monday 10 March 2003
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So, recap time hits us all again like a train hits its regular stops on the way of life. Thursday night we had our floors waxed at work, so we had to clear the sales, cartography, and cafe floors for the cleaning crew after work. When George was telling us what he wanted each of us to do the next morning, he was taken aback when I said I wasn’t going to be there. He didn’t believe me that he had scheduled it so, so he went and checked the schedule. He and Jeff both acted like it was all new to them, when it was Jeff who needed the Monday off which caused my weekend to shift to Friday/Sunday this week.
The two of them approached me on this four weeks ago when it was time to schedule this week. How could they forget? Jeff was all concerned, as apparently he has since asked to leave at noon on Friday to start his long weekend early. Then why did he suggest Friday four weeks ago? I made plans then to hang with my friends which have Fridays off regularly right after I got that day off. Luckily, George decided not to ask me to work Friday after all.
Lucky for me, but not for Brett. I guess he complained about the lack of staff to our sales vp on Friday. Oops! I guess he’s blaming George for the whole mess. George just needs some actual management training. They never gave him any when they made him management. And they haven’t bothered to give him any employee reviews since the promotion either. *sigh* Hopefully, this will iron itself out.
So Friday we got together to play a day of Shadowfist. We thought to call Ken after we ordered pizza, but he wasn’t home. If only we had thought of it earlier. He was probably working though if he wasn’t home. Anyway, I tried some of my new untried decks and some of my original decks I haven’t used in a long time. My Jammer/Vehicles deck worked out awesome. One game with it Monte had brought out his Dragon/Jammer/Vehicles deck to stomp it and it did its job beautifully. I had my Smart Missile out early and kept him from ever using his deck to its potential, meanwhile my Car Wash and Motor Pool kept my Outlaw Bikers on the warpath. It was all loads of fun before everyone else got off work and we played Jackson’s D&D camapign. But, as I have to work tomorrow the rest of the recap will have to wait. Just as I’m having to tape SG-1 right now. Night!
Comments (2)
Hey Paul!
Finally got to read the reply about CopperCon and how you ended up being the Program Director. Good for you for deciding to do things your way (even though your were unfairly coerced into the position to begin with).
I remember last year at the comment session (last day of con), me and a couple other people mentioned that many of the complaints that were being repeated over and over could help be solved by approaching things in a much better way, rather than the low-budget home-grown-Con way. I also remember that we all left that meeting feeling like we’d been thoroughly blown off and told that we didn’t know what we were talking about.
Case in point: The whole way the con was “publicized” last year was absolutely ridiculous. That being the Star Trek Uber-Geek commercial that was made (nothing against Star Trek or even many of it’s fans… but that commercial was absolutely awful). I’m not sure how much money was spent in production of the ad or the air-time cost for running it, but I can guarantee you that radio spots – on most major stations in the valley – backed up by flyers posted at places like WalMart, grocery stores, libraries, etc, would have been FAR more effective and would have helped boost the attendance numbers very positively. I used to work at an Advertising agency up in Salt Lake, so I saw the costs and the effectiveness of the different approaches first hand. I mean, think about it, how many people listen to the radio ALL DAY? Car in the morning, while at work, car coming home from work, car while out running errands… yep. So, it’s at least one thing to consider.
Oy, sorry ’bout that. I didn’t mean to run off on such a huge tangent. Anyway, feel free to e-mail me if you’d like to talk about that kind of stuff. Like I said, I’ll definitely help you out where I can.
^.^
You’ll find that the useless local con commercials which are run on the SciFi channel have been produced by members of United Federation of Phoenix, hense the large Star Trek influence in the lame and misplaced advertising. That said, the Convention Chair for CopperCon XXIII is Lee Whiteside, a prominant member of UPF if ever there was one. I don’t currently know who he has tapped for Publicity for this con, but publicity has long been a problem. I attended a ConRunners seminar last year on one of my rare Saturdays off of work in which Publicity was discussed. Some small progress was made in helping the old guard think from a marketing perspective by the gentleman who I’m replacing, but I have yet to see any action taken on those issues.
I would love to see someone with actual marketing experience get into the Publicity Director’s possition, and would definately throw whatever weight I could to see that happen. Ten expensive airings of an unappealing television commercial and fliers in game, comic, and book stores is not enough. Most especially frustrating is the lack of weekly updating on the convention Web sites. If the sites look stale, no one generates enthusiasm. But once again, it boils down to an all volunteer effort for a non-profit organization. The reason we have what we have is because that’s what was volunteered. If something better was volunteered, I know it would be used. VelaVision has proven that fact.
One unexcusable thing is that the local cons pick their con chairs a few years in advance. Why don’t they advertise several years in advance through their Web sites? Why keep it secret until a year out (or sometimes less)? If people could see monthly updates several years out and weekly updates in the final year, imagine the power linked advertising from fliers and mass media outlets would be?
Imagine being able to keep in touch with your attendee base via E-mails and scheduled Live Chats? Imagine actual progress! Imagine….