[Deptheads] Orccon 2015

[Strategicon Department Heads]

One other thing I need to tag onto this message.
 
We have become an established group of people who run the Strategicon  
conventions. As such attendees know all of us by sight and know we are  
representatives of the convention. During and after Orccon I heard of a few  cases 
of "externalized anger" being exhibited in front of attendees, hotel  staff, 
etc. 
 
This is not acceptable. While the vast majority of us do not get paid for  
our contributions to the convention, we are all professionals at what we do 
at  the convention and need to conduct ourselves as such. I understand 
getting  mad/upset when things don't go right. We work as a unit and when someone 
fucks  up and does not do the job they were assigned it affects multiple 
people. All  I'm saying is keep it in check and don't externalize the anger.
 
In that light, I have noticed more and more tap dancing around problems  
people have with other people in this group. While we (as a whole) don't want 
to  hurt anyone's feelings or be the "bad guy," there is a festering wound 
that is  leading to the externalizing problem and others. If you have a 
problem with how  someone does their job and it affects you or the convention as 
a whole, address  it directly and without personalizing it. If you are 
involved in the problem  that is being brought up, don't take it personally. We 
all have very creative  minds....take the problem and work it.
 
As an example, I will start with the problem that I hear everyone whisper  
about constantly, has been brought up occasionally, and still not fixed. We 
have  the worst website of any convention in the country. It is hard to 
navigate,  looks like it's from the 90's, has too many failing links, 
supervisors can't  update information for their area of jurisdiction are just a few of 
the problems  I have heard about constantly, both before and after the 
updating we have been  doing. In this age, the website is THE face of the 
convention to the younger  people we are trying to get to start coming to the 
convention and it MUST be  attractive to them and make them say "I need to check 
this out." I was asked  during Orccon if I knew how to do a couple of 
things on the website and I didn't  even know you could. I couldn't find the 
links/dropdowns/etc. to do what I need  to do in the future.
 
This is not an attack on Eric, Tonya, or anyone else. No one doubts their  
work and dedication to trying to get this problem solved. It is a fact that  
what has been done hasn't worked and MUST be dealt with now. Go to  
gameconventioncentral.com and look at some of the other convention websites, see  
how they look and interact. 
 
Enough of the rant...the message is we need to stop letting these  
frustrations grow and address them professionally and purposefully. We CANNOT go  
into rages in public anymore...that needs to end NOW.
 
John
 
 
 
In a message dated 2/17/2015 8:18:15 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
deptheads at strategicon.net writes:

Message  From: Tim Keennon  tim at stugiii.com



I want to thank each of you for the contributions you made  that made 
Orccon 2015 a huge success.  In case you haven’t heard we hit  our mark of 2,000 
attendees.  We will have to wait for Eric to crunch the  numbers for the 
final total, but 2k has been a goal for a while and we have  made it. 
A few things did come up during the con that I would like  to remind 
everyone about. 
Bathing 
Convention staff, department heads and senior volunteers  are placed in 
rooms.  Those rooms have showers, please use them.  We  all know about “gamer 
funk” but the source shouldn’t be our  people. 
Water Stations 
Another no brainer.  No one should open the water  containers for any 
reason.  As it says in the con book, “Water coolers  are not to be opened. Please 
do not reach inside to get ice as this is a  health hazard. The hotel will 
prosecute anyone, regardless of age, to the  furthest extent of the law!”  
Plain and simple, don’t do it.   
Badges 
You do not need a badge to walk through the con.  You  do not need a badge 
to enter or buy from the vendors.  You do need a  badge to play a game or 
participate in events.  If you see people playing  games without a badge, 
politely ask to see their badge.  If they don’t  have one, politely  have them 
escorted to registration to purchase  one.  If they refuse, we will escort 
them from the convention.  Make  sure all your GMs know they can’t allow 
people to play without badges. A  number of  people said they were told that if 
they played in open gaming  they didn’t need a badge.  Obviously not correct, 
but the perception is  out there. 
Thanks again, for all the hard work that made our success  possible. 
Tim  



_______________________________________________
Deptheads  mailing  list
Deptheads at strategicon.net
https://strategicon.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/deptheads

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://strategicon.net/archives/deptheads/attachments/20150217/a2f155e5/attachment.html>