One of my projects at work has been to assist with the Black Male Summit – an annual event/conference for African American young men, high school and college age. In prior years, this was limited to helping with the website and handling the e-commerce registration. Easy enough.
The Summit was canceled last year since the pandemic was just ramping up and since it’s not over, this year the BMS was moved online.
And since it was free, I figured my task would just be the website. Again, easy enough.
But the platform they picked for the virtual event was not as straight-forward as they thought and they needed a “technical person” to help out. I have no experience with the platform or doing video conferencing, but I’m “technical” and continued to help with the set-up of the system and learning how it all worked.
As we got closer to the event, I realized that the committee was looking to me not just as the technical help – but to run the event on the day of the Summit.
I was a little taken aback – this was outside my wheel-house, expertise, and comfort level. But, by this point, I was the most qualified. Dammit.
In the days leading up to the Summit, I compiled all my notes and did multiple tests and dry runs. I had stage notes of each task and each minute accounted for. I helped the rest of the committee train the presenters and kept up with the website and the changes in the platform. All the while, my anxiety kept ramping up. This past weekend I put in another 6 hours in prep time – on top of evenings and lots of time through the work days.
Last night, I was making myself sick with worry. What if I screwed this up? I’d be letting down the committee, the presenters, and the 1000 attendees – not to mention the reputation of the University. My mind raced – running through countless scenarios. Up to and including losing the network due to a nuclear attack and subsequent EMP. (I didn’t really have a plan for that one, but I considered it.)
Finally, I sat myself down and worked this out. Time, of course, was the key.
- I had been racing from one event to the next in my dry run – forgetting that I would have time while the events were happening to prep for the next.
- Time would keep moving forward and it was only about 6 hours total. I can keep anything going for 6 hours.
So, this morning – The Black Male Summit. I had my laptop running Firefox with the live event and the Teams chat with my colleagues – and a headset connected the. On my two screen desktop I had chrome in two tabs, plus the powerpoint of info slides and all the youtube videos queued up. Plus my stage note and agenda – and another set up of headphones since there was a 10-12 second delay between the backstage and Live.
The first video I played, I forgot the checkbox to share audio. Once I realized that I started it again and we didn’t lose any time. Our first presenter couldn’t get on the Stage and when he did – there was an echo since he had the live version going. We skipped that, moved to the panel discussions and kept on going. The videos and slides worked out, then it was time for the keynote speaker – Dr. Cornel West.
We were trying to get him connected with his iPad and it wasn’t working. I checked in with support and – SURPRISE! – the platform won’t work with presenting from an iPad or phone AT ALL. And Dr. West…only had an iPad.
The clock ticking, I got on a call with our coordinator, Dr. West, and his crew. Our coordinator suggested we move everyone to a Zoom call – but I was concerned since we would lose people (zoom could only to 500 people) and it would be difficult to get them back for the breakout sessions. About 20 seconds away from abandoning our platform and switching gears, I came up with a Plan B. I tossed a note in the live chat to stand by on the main Stage – then we go to work with me firing off each step that everyone needed to in the right order. Technical…
The coordinator set up a quick two person Zoom call, invited Dr. West, then logged into the backstage of the platform with a muted mic and video – then shared their screen. I activated the broadcast and the duct-taped solution worked – Dr. West was now on the main stage and live.
He gave an impassioned speech and the attendees responded excitedly in the live chat. When the Q&A was done, I dropped them from the stage and sent everyone over to the afternoon sessions.
And, suddenly, I was omnipresent. Sharing videos and powerpoint slides, dropped notes into the backstage chat to organize the presenters and keep things moving, dropped in on all 6 sessions to make sure they had their moderators, Teams chats and calls to direct people to the stage.
Somewhere in there I realized that, based on my role in the event, I was basically Kermit the Frog. We didn’t have any explosions, throwing fish, or hecklers – but I related to the harried stage manager frog. Not easy being green and all that.
After the sessions was the conference evaluation. Unfortunately, my colleague that was supposed to do that couldn’t get to the backstage. So, she sent her slide to me and I shared it – then fired up my own mic and gave a quick overview on the fly. When I was done we had our last presenter, then I took us through the closing videos and ended with a slide and a note thanking everyone for attending.
And then we were done and I closed down the event – and went home.
While it was still light out, I took myself for a walk to the bank and post office – then to the store to pick up some sushi for dinner. The walk settled down my head – as it usually does – and I decompressed.
Most of my work is behind the scenes and my wheelhouse is “quietly awesome”. Today, though, I was right in the thick of things and I kept everything right on track. Down to the minute.
I think we made a difference today and really helped people connect.
And, I’m really tired.