• I’m envisioning a streamlined, automated “Event Stream”—where as new proposals for programs come in and are approved, I send them to both Dara, our graphics person, and to Kelly, our programs setup person who is  creating the registration process, posting the event pages on the Alliance and on FB— and also copying Jeremy who will be doing the engineering for some of the events,  so he can see what’s coming down the pipeline and see if he will be available to engineer on that date.
• Dara will have to do her part first. Once she gets that proposal, she will let me and Kelly know what her projected timeline for completing the graphic for the new event will be so we can both plan ahead. Once the graphic is done, she will send it to Kelly directly (and copy me) and he’ll then take up the baton to get the postings done. As we are asking people to make the proposal at least 4-6 weeks before the event starts, we have a week or so to get the events set up and still be able to market them.

Given that, and given the very limited time both Dara and Kelly can currently contribute, here’s what I suggest for prioritizing—and it’s simple: Paid events take priority over free events, not only because they portend money coming in, but also because we will need the MAXIMUM amount of lead time to market and promote them because people have to pay.

I’m hoping as the process becomes more habitual for them, we’ll create templates and processes where they can both address each event very quickly and simply in a short period of time. I also want to remind everyone that, while we are going to be paying them both where we can, we need to use their time wisely—so if you end up offering an event or program that utilizes their services, it might be helpful to adopt a “good enough” process where we take what we get, and don’t insist on big changes once the event enters the Event Stream. Making minimal changes to a word here or there is always an option, of course—but I’m imagining they will be able to just do their work and post without any of us having to see it in advance and approve it (though I probably will anyway). 

On that note, after some feedback from the Ops Council, I am moving forward with the idea of a 50/50 split with presenters (with a cap that still needs to be determined)—except for board members, whom I think could warrant 80/20 as long as you are willing and able to promote heavily to your own networks as well. We will also wants rights, or to share rights at least, for content so that we can eventually resell some recorded programs.

Let me know if you have feedback or questions on any of this, and we can discuss more in the Board Meeting on Friday if needed.