Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Now don't move ...

A common question I get is how I can think of something to write about every day. Even after 25 years in association management, it's still one big continuous unique experience. Such as ....

Before a meeting with one of our U.S Senators in DC today, a photographer asked that we line up for a picture, so when the Senator arrived she'd walk right into the picture with us. This was about 10 minutes before our appointment to meet with her. A couple of her staff were early too, and one asked if we'd like an update on one of the bills before the meeting; we said sure since just posing. But what was funny to me is we were standing/sitting there, a group posing for a picture, trying not to move, but discussing technical aspects of a housing tax bill ... and we did this for 5 minutes.

So I had to move to take a picture of it. Note empty seat in front row.

Story ends with Senator arriving on time directly into her spot in our photographic line up, took the picture, then all returned to various places around the room to do our issues for the next hour.

I had no idea any group could stand still waiting for a picture for 5 minutes (including mine). Could yours? But the approach definitely maximizes the use of time if want a group picture but also don't want to remotely cut into time for issues discussions.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The real action here, though, is waiting for the political leader.

I attended a meeting for a new city task force and had to wait one hour for the Mayor to show up. The local Alderman tried to keep us alert during the wait.

It was clear the task force was formed to support a mayoral initiative, and we all lined up dutifully behind the mayor when he read his statement for the cameras.