Let's get this started!
Okay! So, I suppose if I find the time, I'll write more than one of these types of posts, expanding on my issues, over the next several days. The usual disclaimer applies: YES, I am a director of the CONvergence convention. NO, my statements below do not represent official CONvergence policy. YES, I recognize that this does not absolve me of making misstatements or troubling claims. But you must know that the following is not official. Not by a long shot. Yet.
CONVERGENCE IS DEAD. Long Live CONvergence!
So what killed CONvergence this year?
You because you've been coming since the beginning? You because you're new? You because you know what real conventions should have and this isn't it? Opinions about "what's wrong with CONvergence" are as varied as the stars. They grow out of expectations people have. Expectations about what other people are making for them.
You know what an expectation is? It's a resentment waiting to happen. We all get them, resentments. What's our way out of them? Make choices. Make a choice. I can take it if you choose to take your dollars elsewhere. I'll probably even listen to you when you make that threat. I can take it if you choose to join the convention committee and work to add the events, programming, parties, and hospitality elements that you feel the convention needs...
AND if in so doing you a) change what I like about the convention or even b) find a way to remove me from my position where I help set policies and make decisions about what kind of convention this is going to be ...I can take it. Know why I can take it? Because I'm a grown up. I'm also someone who volunteered, who stood for election, who paid his registration, and who considers himself a part of the community and is passionate about seeing it go in particular directions. And the people that I made commitments to in the last election, and in my daily supervision of eight departments, have shown a certain willingness to come along with me. We're over here making our convention and we invite you to join us again next year.
I can take your decisions because I grew the hell up! When you can say the same, then you can look me in the eye and tell me that you know definitively what the hell is wrong with my convention.
Until then, you are a part of the rest of the community, and your opinion is no more privileged than anyone else's. There's a lot of stuff we're going to fix this year in anticipation of next year. A LOT of it comes from the feedback we get from people, including many of the things on that list up there.
Because that list up there is not even a joke. There's probably three thousand more items that could go on it that someone felt was "too __________". Three thousand nine hundred and sixty six to be exact. Next year, I look forward to hearing about the forty three hundred straws that break the collective camel. The plain fact is, those things aren't even true. There wasn't too much or too little this or that, there was too much for some people and not enough for others. We work to improve constantly, and occasionally we're wrong and occasionally we're right. It's ambiguous victories, unpredictable successes.
If high unpredictability and ambiguities really truly will not work for you... honestly? This is probably not your convention.
But if you really think CONvergence is broken? If you so don't like something that it shatters for you any possibility of our con being a good con? Well giddyup and make a choice from at least these three options: Work to change it, examine your own expectations, or go somewhere else.
CONVERGENCE IS DEAD. Long Live CONvergence!
So what killed CONvergence this year?
- too many people
- too many events
- too few events
- too many days
- too many drunks
- too much sex
- too much money
- too corporate
- too young
- too old
- too many fatties
- too many skinny bimbos
- too many polys
- too many Klingons
- too many leather queens
- too much Bowie
- too many kids
- too many adult things
- too much rice
- too many m&ms
- too much Windy
- too little Jon O
- too few movies
- too many guests
- too little face time with Cinematic Titanic
- too much Brian Keene
- too much art
- too few dealers
- too many dealers
- too many corsets
- too many hotel charges
- too far away
- too little parking
- too few panels
- too many panels
- too little humor guests
- too many kissing girls
- too few conversations
- too little pool time
- too much ASL
- too little ASL
- too many decibels
- too many ravers
- too much non science
- too many skeptics
You because you've been coming since the beginning? You because you're new? You because you know what real conventions should have and this isn't it? Opinions about "what's wrong with CONvergence" are as varied as the stars. They grow out of expectations people have. Expectations about what other people are making for them.
You know what an expectation is? It's a resentment waiting to happen. We all get them, resentments. What's our way out of them? Make choices. Make a choice. I can take it if you choose to take your dollars elsewhere. I'll probably even listen to you when you make that threat. I can take it if you choose to join the convention committee and work to add the events, programming, parties, and hospitality elements that you feel the convention needs...
AND if in so doing you a) change what I like about the convention or even b) find a way to remove me from my position where I help set policies and make decisions about what kind of convention this is going to be ...I can take it. Know why I can take it? Because I'm a grown up. I'm also someone who volunteered, who stood for election, who paid his registration, and who considers himself a part of the community and is passionate about seeing it go in particular directions. And the people that I made commitments to in the last election, and in my daily supervision of eight departments, have shown a certain willingness to come along with me. We're over here making our convention and we invite you to join us again next year.
I can take your decisions because I grew the hell up! When you can say the same, then you can look me in the eye and tell me that you know definitively what the hell is wrong with my convention.
Until then, you are a part of the rest of the community, and your opinion is no more privileged than anyone else's. There's a lot of stuff we're going to fix this year in anticipation of next year. A LOT of it comes from the feedback we get from people, including many of the things on that list up there.
Because that list up there is not even a joke. There's probably three thousand more items that could go on it that someone felt was "too __________". Three thousand nine hundred and sixty six to be exact. Next year, I look forward to hearing about the forty three hundred straws that break the collective camel. The plain fact is, those things aren't even true. There wasn't too much or too little this or that, there was too much for some people and not enough for others. We work to improve constantly, and occasionally we're wrong and occasionally we're right. It's ambiguous victories, unpredictable successes.
If high unpredictability and ambiguities really truly will not work for you... honestly? This is probably not your convention.
But if you really think CONvergence is broken? If you so don't like something that it shatters for you any possibility of our con being a good con? Well giddyup and make a choice from at least these three options: Work to change it, examine your own expectations, or go somewhere else.