The Boy Scouts Do It – You Should Too

What do they do? They arrive at a situation prepared. Nothing is more true than when you are relying on your technology – be prepared for it to fail. I know, sad statement, but it’s true.

Last night I was convincing our Toastmasters club to to start using the new website and our Facebook Page. You should have felt the apprehension in the room. Thoughts were swirling around:

Ah, another user name and password to remember.

What am I going to get out of this but more work?

What was wrong with the old system?

These are all great questions and pretty common whenever a new system is introduced to an organization. I was prepared to answer them all. After all, I had been using the new system for a month or so and I had the same questions when I started. However, because I took the time to learn it, set it up, test it, tweak it, and finally get to use it – now it is a piece of cake (or at least easy as pie).

To do this, I needed the group to have clear instructions as to what was expected of them and show them how cool the new tools are. The problem, I wasn’t sure if the Internet connection was going to be available and even if it was, was it going to work. My preparation consisted of creating a handout with the important screen shots and step-by-step what they would need to do and in what order when they got home. I also took some screen shots of the pages and pasted them into a PowerPoint presentation, just in case I couldn’t connect to the Internet. I was ready.

Show time! When I arrived at the City Hall where we meet I noted that we were not meeting in our usual room. The screen that I was relying on to be there was locked away and unavailable. The room was full of angles with sconces on every straight part of the walls. The wallpaper was light grey and there wasn’t a white wall to be had. Luckily for me, this was a small board room and I was able to find just enough wall to show the presentation. Remember, they also had the key screen shots in their handouts. And because the room was so small, I took advantage of having a member that was going to be in charge of large sections of the website take the keyboard as we walked through the program. If she can do, everyone can do it.

The group asked good questions as we went through the new site. Enthusiasm was rising. They could see how it was going to save them time and improve communications. BTW, the Internet connection worked just great. The only problem we had was while I was showing the Facebook Page, I had a couple people trying to send me an Instant message. Closed that down quickly. Problem is, I don’t know what they were trying to say to me. Lesson learned, when showing a live Facebook Page, remember to shut down the chats, but that’s a post for another time.