MBA1872 Lessons Learned After COVID Killed My Conference + Free Ride Friday

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All right? Covid killed my conference. Let's talk about what happened, a bit of context. Last year, Australia went into lockdown just like everybody else in around March, I believe that lasted about eight weeks. But around May, things started to open up and we were able to move freely and travel within the country. And since then, Sydney did not have a lockdown, so things were actually quite good. You can actually travel within the state, you can even travel to other states in Australia with no issues. Even in some point during last year, people didn't wear masks. It wasn't mandated because it was pretty much under control. We had very low case numbers. So Covid really was not stopping people and businesses in a big way. Come 2021 and the Delta strain, things totally changed. Now, I mention this because when we planned oscon, we were, you know, in the honeymoon phase and everything was okay, and nothing was locked down, nothing was closed. So we were thinking everything should be fine. Things were not going to get worse. They're going to get better. Right? Vaccines will get rolled out and people will get vaccinated. We'll have protection. We're going to be okay. And we were, until around mid June. Okay. Cases started to increase and Sydney went into lockdown towards the end of June. Now, Oscar was scheduled for the week of August 23rd. So normally we would go into a snap lockdown for maybe a week or two, maybe three, maybe four, and we'd be out of lockdown cases, numbers would drop and things would be fine. So when we went into lockdown, I wasn't worried. I was totally confident that, okay, everything should be fine. The event's going to go as is. Let's keep our reservations with the accommodation and food and restaurant and transportation and Lyft tickets and all that kind of stuff. It was quite an ordeal to organize these things because we wanted to make sure it was a very, very well organized event and a great experience for our group. But the lockdown would get extended two weeks and then another four weeks. And then we started to see that the cases were not going down. Delt was a different situation totally because the virus was spreading despite the lockdown. It became clear to us that we're going to be in lockdown for a good time. And the conference OSCON was just not going to happen. We even had a video call with all the attendees of OSCON a month before we were scheduled to do the conference because we were still hopeful things were going to move forward. But about a week later after the call, they extended lockdown and it became clear that it will be in lockdown past the conference dates. So at this point the reality sunk in. Okay, this conference is not going to happen and it's not going to happen anytime soon because things are not getting better. And at this point it started to really become clear we're not going to get out of lockdown until we get to a certain vaccination rate, 70 to 80%. And that's just not going to happen overnight. That's going to take months. Maybe we'll into October, even into late November. So I had to regroup. We had to make some tough decisions about what are we going to do with this conference, what are we going to do with these dates, what are we going to do with all these reservations, what are we going to do with all the money that we have already put forward, all that kind of stuff. A couple of things. First thing that I thought really worked on our advantage is that we wanted to make OSCON small on purpose so that it's an intimate group. But that worked in our advantage. We didn't have that many people. The total amount of people is nine people. It's more of a retreat. So we thought nine people is super manageable and it's easy to communicate with nine people. The other thing that we wanted to make super clear to everybody is that we want to be as fair as possible to everybody. So if for any reason we need to make some changes and those changes don't work for you, we wanted to make sure that you were able to get a refund on your money. We would absorb the cost and then from there plan accordingly for the next time we do the conference. The other thing we wanted to establish that this conference is going to go ahead. We don't know when it's going to happen, where it's going to happen, all that kind of stuff, but we want to see this actually happen in the world and yes, this is a bump in the road, but that's okay. People have challenges. These things happen. We have to be able to roll with the punches. So the first lesson I learned is that don't use optimism as your guide. Meaning that we were super optimistic that we're going to still have a conference. When we went into lockdown, we didn't realize how long lockdown was going to. But it's always good to have a disaster plan. It's funny because I know this. In my software company, we always have these what if conversations and standard operating procedures. But we need to have the same in the conference. We need to think, hey, what if this didn't happen way before? It would give me more time to have options or to make some changes, provide some options to the attendees. But basically, when I found out we were three weeks out from the conference, so I had limited choices to what I can do. Second lesson I learned was I knew in that moment the best thing I can do is I need to communicate. I need to communicate with my people, the attendees. And I just needed to make sure that they're included in any decision and that I let them know what's going on so they don't feel like they're in the dark. I was very conscious of the fact that these people trusted me. They gave me their money. I wanted to make sure that they know that I got their back and that there are some options I'm looking at. We actually had a discussion on that call before the cancellation was confirmed because of the extension of lockdown of what are some options? What I was pleasantly surprised by is how open people were. They were like, hey, we totally get it. I understand. They're all entrepreneurs. They know how these things happen. And they presented some creative ideas. Some creative ideas I didn't think of as alternatives. Creative ideas in terms of different dates, different locations, because it became clear that this is not going to happen. This ozcon will not happen in the winter, at least this year, because the lockdown will extend past the winter season. So the idea of going skiing together is just not going to happen. So by having open communication, just putting your cards on the table, say, hey, guys, these are our options. This is what happened. This is where our money is deposited. This is what's going on. This is what's happening. It makes it super clear to people to understand, all right, these are our options. Let's work with that. So just being transparent and honest about the situation when problems arise, when things like this happen, is the best policy. Okay, third, communication Communication, communication. So we had a meeting, but we also had several emails back and forth, just again touching base, communicating with them, letting them know what's going on. This is what happened so far. This is what's happening next. We decided, hey, we're going to hold the reservation for the accommodations in the mountains for next oscon. We'll do it in the snow for 2022, hopefully if all goes well. Because I could not get a refund from the resort, their policy would not allow it. So we had to negotiate a change of date to make sure we secure that cash. So we'll use those rooms and accommodations for 2022. The next lesson I picked up is sometimes in these situations we feel like we need to take all the responsibility, we need to take all the risk. You don't, you can include people in this decision as long as they have a choice. So for example, people started to explore, hey, let's do it in February. By then vaccination rates will be up, we'll be able to travel within the state, hopefully things will be okay. This was an idea that was tossed around and one of the things I needed to explain to people or voice is, hey, in order for us to do that, we're gonna have to book a place. And sometimes when you book a place, it's non refundable. At a certain point this can happen again for some reason, a lockdown. And we all need to agree to absorb that cost because I'm able to do the first one, but the second one is just not gonna be able to be feasible. And by voicing that and saying, are you guys okay with taking on that risk even if it's a no, at least they're making a decision with the risk in mind and the cards are on the table. So this was super relieving. And actually got this advice from a friend of mine, Grant, which really relieved a lot of stress on my end. Next lesson is logistics. Logistics, logistics. As soon as I knew this event was not going to happen, I contacted all the parties in the logistics, meaning all my vendors, all the reservations for the restaurants. I had to make sure that they know that that's going to get canceled. Accommodations, we talked about lift tickets and transportation, make sure that those are canceled or refunded. All the types of things that you need to do to put this all together. You need to revisit your spreadsheet and say, hey, did I contact everybody to contact to either get a refund or cancel or reschedule. That took a good day, maybe even a day. And a half because some people didn't get back to us in time, but super important so you don't leave anything hanging. Now, one of the biggest lessons I learned is, you know, live events are hard no matter how small or big they are. It's really, really hard to pull off even without a pandemic. Okay? So when you throw in a pandemic, you throw in the possibility of cancellations and problems and people are not able to come or all that kind of stuff, it makes it super difficult. So you want to minimize your risk as much as possible, whether it's a smaller group, whether it's keeping it local, whether it's making sure that people sign a waiver so you're not responsible. We did this so that we made sure that we're covered just in case something happens, somebody gets sick, somebody gets ill, things like that. You have to understand that there are liabilities when you do anything in person. But it doesn't mean don't do it. Just means be aware of these things and cover yourself.

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To wrap up today's lesson. I learned a lot of tough lessons during the cancellation of my conference this past month, but the biggest lesson I really got out of it was I chose wisely. And what I mean by that is I chose my conference attendees wisely. These people are amazing. They are super flexible, they're super understanding. They really were supportive with everything we've done up to the point of cancellation and even after we cancelled it of coming up with creative ideas. So be careful about who you invite to your conference because it could be the difference between having a pleasant or a not so pleasant experience if things go wrong. Thanks so much for listening to the 100 NBA Show. Today is Free Ride Friday. So let's see who won this week's Free Ride. And the winner is Serge Clason. Serge says Easy Listening five stars. Omar's background in teaching sometimes can lead to over explaining, but boy does this podcast deliver food for thought, best practices and simple pointers to get better every day. Thanks Serge for that great, great review. Your mission is to email me at omar100.mba net you are our free Art Friday winner and you won a lifetime membership to EasyCourse over at EasyCourse co. If you're listening and you want to win a free ride, just go ahead and leave us an Apple Podcast rating and review and you enter our weekly random draw. And you're entered into the draw every week until you win. It's that simple. It's our way to say thanks for showing us love on Apple Podcasts. All right, before I go, I want to leave you with this. You might wonder, why did I start a small conference, an in person conference? Well, once a year I kind of like to evaluate where am I weakest as an entrepreneur? Where are the areas that I've been slacking a little bit? And one of those areas is networking. And a lot of that had to do with COVID I felt like we were not networking enough. I felt like I was not meeting or getting to know people at a deeper level in the entrepreneurial space. I thought instead of me, you know, just complaining about it, why don't I create a conference to force myself to get to know people on a deeper level, people that I've been wanting to get to know for some time. So it was kind of one of my goals and I'm not going to give up my goals. I really do want to see this happen. So I am hopeful that we will be able to pull this off at some point and continue to do it in the future. Thank you so much for listening to the $100 NBA show. Have a lovely weekend and I'll see you on Monday. Take care.