Dashcon: A Convention Disaster or a PR Disaster?

The more I look into this Dashcon thing, the more it seems to be a simple matter of inexperienced conrunners making a cascading series of errors. I watched the video of their ballroom fundraiser. First, let me say, that I would gladly have paid $50 to be in that audience. The energy and enthusiasm of that audience is palpable and contagious through the video. Second, lets look at what happened. All of my discussion below is based on what I have been able to piece together from what is online, since Dashcon leadership has not gotten a formal response out (a massive failure I will discuss below).

Mistake #1: Overestimated Attendance

The inexperienced organizers expected 7 times as many people as they got. This means a few things:
-They did not have the pre-reg money that they expected
-They did not have the roomnights in the hotel that they expected

When you book a hotel for a con, they expect a small token deposit upfront and the rest of the bill at the start of the con. However, often, the organizers can negotiate with the hotel to pay part of the bill upfront and part after the con. This is quite common. Unfortunately, also quite common is that a lower level person at the hotel will agree to the bill being paid later only for the higher up to overrule them at the last second and demand all the money upfront. This happened to me when I ran the first Pi-Con. Fortunately, that amount was $3000, so I put it on my credit card.

So, at this point, they had two choices, close the con or start a fundraiser. They did the later, and I applaud them for it. I watched the video of the fundraising process, and I imagine that it was a very enjoyable experience for the people in the audience. Watch the videos: they are singing, cheering, hugging. The people there had the powerful emotional experience of people supporting a winning political candidate, all condensed down into an evening. However, while they were focused on being in that room, they forgot they were running a Tumblr con, meaning that in realtime, what was happening was going to be attacked by the snarkiest, nastiest group of people ever to put words to paper screen.

Mistake #2: Not Controlling Their Online Spin

But that's not the only thing that they neglected. While they were hyperfocused on the fundraiser, they forgot that they had a con to run. This is a mistake of inexperience. The most imminent disaster will take up your attention, but the experienced con-runner remembers that while some are needed in the fundraiser room to raise the funds, other are needed elsewhere in the con to reassure the guests, panelists, and other attendees that the show will go on and they won't be screwed.

Mistake #3: Neglecting the Guests

Since most or all of the Paypal donations were refunded, it appears clear that the revenues did come over the next two days and the con would have been able to pay their paid guests and cover their rooms. However, their big guests were probably left alone and in the dark, wondering what would happen. While the big rally was going on over there, these guests were watching social media blow up with the disaster they were at. Of course, it was not, in any real sense a disaster yet, but the blogosphere loves to make a disaster and point fingers at the failures of others to make themselves feel better. So, if you are a guest reading that crap, and every person from the con who could refute it is on stage raising money or in meetings with the hotel, you get more and more nervous until you decide its time to pack up and go.

So, now one crisis, which is successfully dealt with, cascades into a second crisis of losing the key guests.

I should point out that faced with the same situation, most of the conventions I work with might have made the same mistake. Unless a con has a dedicated person whose job is to work directly with those guests, it would be very easy to neglect to keep them informed until the first crisis was dealt with. The guests are out of sight and out of mind. They are off in their hotel room preparing for the weekend. They can only contact junior staff who has probably been told not to bother senior staff until the money is raised.

Once the key guests had departed, there was the final and most damaging crisis...

Mistake #4: Neglecting Social Media

If you run a stamp collectors convention and your screw up, some people might post on their personal Facebook pages and there might be some rumble. If you run a Tumblr convention, you should expect that everything you do, good or bad, is about to be under the microscope for all to see. Rather, kaleidoscope might be more appropriate. The Internet twists everything to make it "funny". Even things that are good get turned into insulting memes. When they were forced to go begging for the $17,000 they were probably blinded by the wave of support they got, to forget that there are trolls lurking in basements across America who have never contributed anything to the world who are ready to insult and malign anything they can.

The trolls made memes of certain facts of the event, and then people who are more receptive to negative news that positive, perpetuated those memes and ideas. Of course, since most people have never run a con, they listen to the trolls who say that the surprise bill is not plausible, and the word "scam" starts floating around


The plain and simple fact is that the people who run Dashcon are young and inexperienced. They made common mistakes and mistakes that much larger and stronger cons might face. In fact, I worked with a fantastic convention this weekend that had to be saved by crowd funding in their early years due to a surprise from their venue regarding the bill. Anyone remember saveconnecticon.com? Yes, it happened after the con, not during, but the concept is the same. Dashcon just made their mistakes in front of the great lens of Tumblr.

Don't be so quick to judge unless you've started a con yourself.

If They're Bored, Then You're Boring

June 3rd, 17 days before graduation, beautiful sunny day, an hour before the end of the school day.

Standing before a group of about 20 high school kids I have never met before.

Teaching them about sales technique and tactics.


From what I hear, many would think of that as a very difficult situation, but I held their attention without disruption for 40 minutes.

I am not a professional teacher of teenagers my any stretch of the imagination, but this was where I was this afternoon. I was in front of Ledyard High School's journalism class, which is the group that puts out their news magazine The Colonel. I will admit that this is an elective class I was in front of, making my job easier, but I found them to be completely respectful and quite interested.

Did I mention that my topic was sales? Would you sit attentively through a 40 minute talk on sales? I know I would, but apparently I'm abnormal.

The reason I was there was that I had read a few weeks ago in The Day that the powers that be in the town of Ledyard were cutting the entire school paper's budget as part of a sweeping half million dollar budget cut. The article suggested that without the funding, the paper could no longer be printed.

So, emailed the address I found for The Colonel and arranged a meeting. I met with the student editors as well as the faculty adviser, Mr. Bill Frisky. We discussed the possibility of using ad sales to replace the budget, and a plan came together.

About 20 students comprise the class that runs the publication, and a year round ad in all 8 of the issues is $300. If each of the 20 students sold one year-long slot, it would replace much of the lost funding. The only problem was that the students who had tried to sell ads met with great frustration, as any novice, untrained salesperson might. So, I agreed to come into the class and give a tutorial on the selling of ads.

Today was that day. I discussed the 7 steps of the sale, prospecting techniques, appointment setting, needs analysis and more. I also answered many questions. At the beginning of the class, many students cringed at the idea of trying to sell ads, and looked at me skeptically as most audiences, especially young ones, do with an unfamiliar speaker. At the end, I asked for a show of hands as to how many felt comfortable trying to sell ads now, and most of the hands went up.

I'm not going to suggest that I had their attention because I am such an engaging speaker or I know some secret of working with teens. The fact is that what I was teaching was relevant. I was able to show them how it applied directly to a problem they face now, how it would be valuable to them in the future, and how it could even be the basis of a backup career in the future.

Obviously, it was relatively easy for me to hold their attention because I was giving them the roadmap to save their paper. The relevance was obvious.

What about other subjects? Every subject that is taught in schools is there for a reason. It's not like there is some History Lobby that pushes for history to be taught for their own benefit. Every subject has value to the students, and if that value can be portrayed then their attention can be easily held.

English? Literature provides a window to gain understanding of how people operate, granting insight as to how to work with people to achieve one's goals. Writing is a vital skill in any field of endeavor.

History? It provides valuable insight and perspective on how people, societies and nations operate. It is amazing to read about Roman politicians, FDR's government, and the conduct of the local town government and realize that all three of them interact more or less similarly to the Come Again Player's leadership, ConnectiCon's leadership, and Pi-Con's leadership. People are people, and the lessons learned here are valuable there.

Math? I use math up through Algebra on a regular basis. Determining how to allocate ConCardia cards to print sheets uses it. I also use mathematical techniques when I program the simple applications I use in by business. Arithmetic is useful on a daily basis.

Science? Society is making decisions today regarding science that will have profound implications for generations to come. Without an understanding of these decisions, we are at the mercy of others. Furthermore, an understanding of basic scientific method will provide a basis for rational thought throughout a person's life.

Teachers spend a lot of energy thinking about classroom management, but very little time thinking about how they can sell what they are teaching to their students. It is assumed that teachers will push knowledge and students will resist. But what if teachers sell students on the value of what they teach? Students will clamor for the knowledge they offer.

Good Sex Appeal, Bad Sex Appeal

This blog tends to focus on matters of sales and marketing, so I thought I'd take a moment to discuss the Comic Con image I addressed in my last post from a marketing standpoint.

Not just smart. She's beautiful too!

After reading my open letter, my wife asked me, "If Comic Con's core market tends to be men, why would the want to market to men? Wouldn't they want to market to get more women?"

Excellent question. That's why I married such a smart woman.

There is a phenomenon is marketing, especially for events which I refer to as the Ladies' Night Effect. Women in general do not want to go to an event where there will be very few other women. They tend to feel uncomfortable and even unsafe. Men, also, all things being equal, prefer to be places where there are women. Thus, bars and nightclubs across the country advertise Ladies' Nights. Free drinks, reduced entry price, and other enticements to women encourage women to attend. More importantly, it signals to women that other women will be there. Likewise, it signals to men that many women will be there. It is effective marketing to both genders although it only targets one.

In a recent article on Medium.com entitled A Gentleman's Guide to Rape Culture, Zaron Burnett discusses the fact that most women in America are frequently concerned about their safety. Whatever your opinion on the actual statistics and prevalence of attacks is, the fact is that most women take safety into account when making plans. If you are an event planner, this means that a large portion of your audience is considering how safe they will be at your event when deciding if they want to attend or not.

I'm going to repeat that for anyone who plans and promotes events, especially men who do so: A large portion of your audience is considering how safe they will be at your event when deciding if they want to attend or not. So, looking at your marketing, does it lead them to feel more safe or less safe? And, if the latter, how much money are you losing because women are staying home because they perceive your event as unsafe?

This is not about feminism, morality, or equal rights (important as those issues are). This is about the fact that these factors have concrete, real world impacts on an event's bottom line.

This image was used on the WCCC 106.9
Facebook Page to promote Comic Con

There is a way to use images of women to attract other women to an event and a way to use similar images to repel them. Consider the image that I discussed in my last post. The women do not look like regular women, and the caption implies that their breasts are the only interesting traits they have (Twelve reasons, six women, in case you didn't get the inference). This marketing could be effective to bring some men to the event, but the men it would bring would be men who are inclined to be receptive to this advertising, a population with a higher than average tendency to objectify women.

To a woman, especially a woman who likes to cosplay at conventions, this signals that this is an event where they might be more likely to find themselves objectified and even possibly harassed. Whether it is true or not, the perception is there. This kind of promotion will attract, more or less, zero women, but consider how the women that Mr. Burnett refers to in his article would see this piece.

You might object that no one is going to look at a single advertising piece and say, "that image tells me that this event is disrespectful to women so I will not attend." You may be correct. However, businesses, especially events, live and die on the margin. A massive portion of potential attendees to an event decide in the last few days or even hours leading up to an event if they will attend. They are on the fence up to the last minute. A rain storm, light cold, or interesting show on TV could dissuade them. With those people, it takes very little to move them from the "maybe yes" side to the "maybe no" side.

Image for Jeff Mach Event's
Build a Better Ball Pit GoFundMe

Conversely, consider the promotion Jeff Mach Event's GoFundMe to build a bigger ballpit, and tangentially to promote their events. The image also uses an attractive woman, but does not objectify. If a man sees this image go by on their Facebook feed, they are more likely to click on it than if, say, it was me in the ball pit, attractive as I am. However the use of the image is not demeaning to the subject. Unlike the image above, she is portrayed as a person who happens to be female as opposed to a set of breasts that happen to be attached to a person.

Over 50% of the population of America are women, and they control a disproportionate amount of the public's spending power. To insult them, demean them, and objectify them for marketing purposes is not merely morally wrong, it is strategically wrong.

An Open Letter to Hartford Comic Con and 106.9

From the 106.9 Facebook page, posted May 31st, 2014
Do you think female cosplayers are nothing more than
breasts for men's amusement?

An open letter to 106.9 and Hartford Comic Con regarding a recent offensive promtion they posted to Facebook.

To Whom It May Concern,

Recently, on the WCCC 106.9 - Hartford’s Classic Rock Facebook page, an image was posted to promote Hartford Comic Con. The image was of 6 well endowed female cosplayers with the caption of "12 Reasons to Go to Comic Con".

Haha. Funny. No wait, not funny. I'm the last guy to object to using sex to sell. If the caption said "6 Reasons" then it would have been saying that seeing attractive women in costume was a good reason to attend. That's fair. Crass and low, but perhaps effective. But by saying "12" you are suggesting that their breasts are the only draw.

I have been attending fan run conventions since 1988. Fandom is about a place for people to be with others who share their interests. It is a place to feel safe and comfortable. It is a place where geeks get to be the cool kids.

It is also a place where the creative and talented can show off their costuming skills. Many cosplayers spend months designing and creating their costumes. They do so for attention and appreciation, most certainly, but appreciation of their skill and hard work, not appreciation of their boobs.

Let's consider what this light humor implies.

It implies that the craftsmanship that all cosplayers put into their costumes is meaningless next to the sexiness the cosplayer presents.

It implies that female cosplayers especially are nothing more than objects for male attendees to look at.

It implies that women in costume (or in street clothes) are nothing more than breasts with legs.

It perpetuates an entitlement culture which has been much discussed of late in light of the California shootings.

Most of all, it tells me that the publicity team for, and possibly, the management of Hartford Comic Con does not understand what it means to create a safe and comfortable place where people can be themselves. When you have to use crass sexuality to sell an event it can be a sign the event lacks depth and quality.

As an event planner myself, I respect anyone who takes the initiative to start and run a convention, but it might be wise to consider the message that certain forms of advertising send before unleashing them on the public.

Sincerely,
Michael Whitehouse 
Elder SMOF

What is Common Here May Be Innovative There

It is said that there is nothing new under the sun. Every storyline has been written. Every idea has been developed. All that remains in rearranging old ideas into new.

Well that's depressing.

Or is it? What if that means that to be creative you don't have to do something entirely new that has never been done before. It just means that you have to introduce something old to something new.

When I ran Phoenix Games, we did a series of movie showings. We would buy out the entire theater of 286 seats on opening night then resell those tickets to creative a private showing of movies like X-Men 2, Matrix Reloaded, and Return of the King. It was an awesome time, and a very unique experience for everyone involved.

It was also not my idea. A DJ named Todd Mayhew did it first, and I took over the idea from him when I started running my store. Flash forward to the present. I am working with a local cinema to get some excitement going for their establishment. I bring back the idea of special movie showings for opening nights of some geekier movies, working with local businesses to promote the special showings and adding to the geek cachet.

As I approached the local businesses, they were generally positive about the project, but found the idea entirely unfamiliar and new. Some of these people had been involved in the geek community for decades, yet had never done anything like this.

Sometimes, being an innovating genius is nothing more than taking a commonly known idea from one place to a new place.

Making the Most of Business After Hours Networking

They say that in business, it's not what you know, it's who you know. Some people use that axiom as an excuse for failure, but I simply see it as a fact of business. If who you know is very important, and you don't know the right people, what do you do about it? Meet the right people!

One of the best ways to start making connections is an open networking event. Most chambers of commerce run something similar. Some call it "Business After Hours" others call it "After 5". Whatever it is called, the structure is the same. A member organization looking to show off what they do hosts the event, which runs every month or so at different venues. There is generally food and drink provided, and a whole bunch of people show up and put on name tags.

The after hours networking event.
Valuable opportunity or terrifying
chore, depending on your
perspective.

This can be one of the most valuable and rewarding or terrifying and stultifying events you will encounter depending on how you approach it.

The first thing to do before you even show up is to prepare. Be sure that your look is the look that you want the business community to know you by. If you are a creative type who always wears jeans and a polo, and that's how you want people to know you, you can wear that. If you want to appeal to the professionals and bankers and lawyers, you'll want a suit, or at least a nice button down shirt. Whatever look you are going for, make sure it is neat. Tousled hair, 3 days beard growth, and ratty sneakers will not give anyone confidence in your business.

If you have business cards, make sure to bring them. If you don't, get them printed. They're cheap, and they are a very good way to start the conversation.

Finally, figure out what your goal is in attending the function. Are you looking for clients? Are you looking for networking partners who can help introduce you to clients? Are you looking for other people in your industry with whom you can share ideas? Are you looking to enjoy the company of other business people because it's a nice change from the office? Depending on what your goal is, you will want to adopt a different approach to the event.

If you are lucky, you have a friend to introduce you around. Most chambers have "ambassadors" who introduce new people around. If you have someone like that to guide you, then you are in good shape, assuming that your guide can introduce you to the people you are looking to meet.

If there is a specific individual you are looking to meet or someone from a specific company, ask a member of the host chamber if they could introduce you. It is much easier to get an introduction to a specific person than an introduction to some people.

The experience of a new person without a guide is often the same: you walk in, possibly knowing one or two people. Maybe knowing no one at all. Everyone seems to know each other. They are all standing in little knots of twos and threes and none of them seem particularly interested in talking to you. Some people, at this point, will start to think of the group as cliquish, and write it off as just a bunch of old buddies getting together, making it hard to meet anyone. Resist that temptation.

Of course, they are not particularly interested in talking to you. They don't know who you are, what you do, or what you have to offer. It's your job to create interest. (You didn't think it would be that easy, did you?) If you have someone to introduce you, the introduction can create the interest. If you are on your own, however, it's up to you. So, how do you meet people at an event where everyone seems to be engaged in conversation?

While the food is often phenomenal,
you came here to build your business,
not feed your face.

Everyone at a networking event is wearing a nametag, and most of them are there to network and meet new people. Most of them are also just as shy about walking up to new people as you are. The difference is that they know people there, so, where your alternative to meeting new people is holding up a wall, their alternative to meeting new people is talking to the ones they already know.

Now, that you understand that most of the people there actually are open to meeting you, let's meet some people. Find a clot of people who are of interest to you. Perhaps the business indicated on their nametag tells you that they would be someone good to meet. Perhaps they are the group standing closest to you. It doesn't matter, you will meet lots of people in the next two hours.

Approach the group, and observe their body language. Most people at these events are engaged in casual conversation, but some might be trying to conduct some sort of business or at least formally introduce themselves in preparing for future business relations. If that seems to be what is going on, then you might want to move on to the next group. You are less likely to make a good impression if you interrupt what was developing into a valuable opportunity for those you are interrupting.

A glass of wine might help you relax
and be more open to approaching
people, but remember you are here
for business. Stay sharp, not
shnokkered.

I discussed cliquishness earlier. That happens between people who have known each other a long time. If people know each other, they won't be talking serious business at their after hours event. They'll be chatting about golf and that thing that happened last year and kids and wives and cars. In other words, the clique standing around talking might be more open to being interrupted because they are more likely to be shooting the breeze, while the newer members, just meeting people and feeling out opportunities, may be harder to break into a conversation with.

So, let's say that you are approaching a group, and you find a break in the conversation. Often, a member of the group will notice you standing there, and draw you into the conversation. Since the only thing they really know about you is what's on your name tag, they will often start there. "So, Michael, what's Concardia?" I am often asked by way of introduction. Have your business card ready to hand to them as you explain what you do.

This is what the "elevator speech" is for. Be prepared to explain your business in 30 seconds or less. One or two sentences is better if you can do it, especially if they are crafted to elicit the response of "oh, really, that's interesting. Tell me more." You'll know you are doing it well if your business becomes the seed of the next conversation more often than not. After a polite amount of discussion of what you do and what you are looking for, turn it around and ask them what they do.

If no one starts the conversation, and if no obvious segue comes up to enter the conversation, wait for a lull in their talk and use the networking pick up line I described above. "So, Susan, what is Phillipson Associates?"  or "So, Robert, what do you do with Liberty Mutual?" There are few things wrapped up in this introduction. You are saying:

• "I am interested in you and what you do."
• "I am giving you the floor of this conversation for a moment to talk about yourself."
• "Please tell me what you are looking for so I can see if I can help you with it."
• "When you are done talking about you, I hope you will reciprocate with the opportunity to talk about me"

Your mission at these events is not to make sales. It is not even necessarily to make appointments to meet later. You have a very short 90-120 minutes to meet as many people as you can. During your time with each person you meet, your job is to arouse interest and get their card so that you can follow up and arrange an appointment to meet later. We'll talk about networking appointments in a future article.

If you approach an open networking event well prepared and equipped with a goal, you will come into a room seeing dozens of potential business contacts with whom you will have valuable, long lasting relationships. If you come in ill-prepared and unplanned, you will see a noisy, crowded room full of unfriendly strangers.

I attend the Eastern Connecticut Chamber of Commerce Business After Hours events regularly. If you are in Eastern Connecticut and would like some introductions, drop me a line. I'll be happy to help!

The Lesson I Learned from Fum and Gebra

The Internet is full of funny cat videos, but this particular montage of Fum (a cat) and Gebra (a barn owl) being friends well exemplifies a very interesting lesson.

As you may be aware, cats eat birds and anything else small enough for them to eat without having to worry about being eaten. Cats are also somewhat social, so once they learn that another animal is neither food nor foe, they can be friends. (In fact, I am writing this with a very friendly cat in my lap.)

For more Fum & Gebra,
you can visit them on
Facebook

While I was watching this video, I began to wonder why Fum did not try to eat Gebra in the first place. I realized that it was a matter of confidence. Gebra knew that he was not cat food, so he acted accordingly. Fum, seeing that Gebra did not act like food, began to treat him as an equal and eventually they became adorable friends.

I suspect that very few of my readers are owls looking to learn how to befriend a cat. However, I expect that many of my readers have situations in which they need to introduce themselves and establish relationships, possibly above their station.

Station? There's no "station" in America. We live in an egalitarian culture! No nobility! No aristocracy! No titles! And if you believe that, try to meet Warren Buffet.

But wait a minute. What if you wanted to meet Warren Buffet? Why couldn't you? In my life, I have met many impressive people. Writers, actors, politicians. When I went to UMass, I had a half hour sit down with the Chancellor of the 40,000 student institution.

If you tried to go meet Warren Buffet, you might find difficulty because you are not a sufficiently august personage to meet someone like that, but how does he know how august you are? This is America. It's not about your pedigree. It's not about who your family is or where you come from. So, how can someone know what your social position is? Easy, you tell them.

Maybe this is a nice guy who cares
about his customers, but you won't
stick around long enough to find out.

You tell people your social position every day, all the time. You tell them by how you dress, how you speak, how you act, how you carry yourself. Sales became a much easier challenge for me when I learned this. It can be difficult to get to a decision maker at a business if you act like and present yourself as a sales person. Who wants to talk time from their busy schedule to talk to a salesman selling something?

The best place to see this phenomenon is in the dating scene. People will often look at someone that they are interested in and figure that person is "out of their league." The secret is that no one knows what their own league is. They only know that they are out of your league because of the way you present yourself to them. If you can think of yourself as attractive and desirable and project that image (without being a cocky jerk, of course) then the game changes.

Think about this. The only objective way to know your own attractiveness (by which I mean a combination of physical and other traits) is by the quality of suitors who approach you. However, since most people underestimate their own attractiveness, they tend not to approach people they consider out of their league. If most people think that way, then the most attractive people would actually get less attention, except from people with an over inflated sense of themselves.

Knowing this, in any encounter where you are meeting someone for the first time, for business or personal reasons, why would you present yourself as anything less that highly desirable.

This does not mean that you should be cocky or arrogant. Those are not confidence. Those are warning flags for a lack of confidence. We all have strengths and weaknesses, and the key is to identify with your strength. If you want to meet with Warren Buffet because you believe that you have something of value to offer, don't think of yourself as a nobody trying to meet with a rich and powerful person. Think of yourself as a person with something of value to offer. Both are true, but only one is someone who might get that meeting.

This guy is a Problem Solver. The
beard is a key part of the look. Grow
a beard and don't look like a salesman.
He also has a perfect record of
convincing cats on the first meeting
that he is friend, not food.

Since nobody wants to talk to a salesman, I stopped being a salesman. I started being a problem solver. When I needed to speak to the general manager of a local movie theater recently, I walked up to the counter and said, "I need to speak to the general manager." A minute later, I was talking to her. When I got my job at Valenti Motors, I walked in the front door, went to the receptionist and said, "I'm here for a sales position." A minute later, I was sitting with the general manager.

People find out what you are from what you show them. If you have something to offer, then approach with confidence. If you believe that you are a great candidate for the job, then you are doing them a favor by allowing them the chance to hire you. If you are selling a good product that solves a problem, then you are doing them a favor by allowing them a chance to consider it. If you are not confident that you have something of value to offer, why are you wasting their time?

The world does not know if you are the kind of bird that they eat or the kind of bird they make friends with until you tell them. Why tell them that you are the kind of bird they eat?