Matt Arnold's Law

Any sufficiently advanced program book creator is indistinguishable from Conchair.

Now granted, I have never yet witnessed this level of advancement-- to my knowledge, it has never taken place. But I became head of programming of Penguicon for no other reason than to solve problems I had when making the program book. Then the program book person couldn't really do it that year. I tried becoming Minister of Communication for 2008 so that I could take charge of the entire chain. But the conchair won't back me up in asking the whole chain to answer to me, and I lack the power to make effective change. So I volunteered to be Conchair of Penguicon 7 in 2009 to be in charge of the entire chain, and in this way I'm going to avoid duplicating a lot of work.*

In order to become a sufficiently advanced program book creator, one has to become indistinguishable from Conchair.

The degree to which you know who is responsible to provide content, and the degree to which you are aware of which facts need to be communicated to attendees, is the degree to which you may as well be providing that information to attendees yourself. Otherwise a person far more ignorant than you is going to have to duplicate your knowledge-gathering work before they communicate it for you. The degree to which they don't start off knowing what you know is the degree of disappointment and failure you should naturally expect.

Program books are a natural failure point because of the clash of two realities:

A. The reality of the physics of time and space:

1. It takes a week to lay out, assuming you can spend every evening on it, which you can't.

2. It takes a week for a team of volunteers to properly proofread a COMPLETED collection of content. If it's incomplete, version control starts to increase your work geometrically.

3. It takes a week to print and bind it.

B. The psychological reality of content contributors:

1. They are ignorant of the above limitations of time and space. They honestly think you can dash off a 48-page book in an hour, the printer can print it the day before the convention, and it won't suck.**
2. They don't know that when you add one sentence, it can re-flow the entire book, creating massive additional work, meaning massive additional time.
3. They do not really get excited about the convention until two or three weeks out, so they will not even notice your deadline.

I could act like the R.I.A.A. and try to force reality to fit the traditional model, or I can adapt fandom's traditions to fit the clash of realities. Going forward, Penguicon will have two books: a schedule with map, and a "souvenir book" (for lack of a better term) containing everything else. Conchair report, GoH bios, policies, restaurants, LUG list, Ops, Volunteers, ConSuite, hotel info, Dealers hours, small version of the map, etc. We will begin laying out the souvenir book this week. I have already begun riding people to get first drafts of all non-schedule content by the end of January. I already know 90% of the content because I'm wading up to my armpits in everything that's going on. This book will be out of beta-testing and have a viable release candidate before we even start the alpha version of the schedule book.

*Some people think the Conchair should be for hotel selection, guest of honor selection, and budget. I've delegated those tasks among the pre-planning core dedicated team. I have not distanced myself from those tasks and vanished from supporting them! I'm still available to them and attend all their meetings. But I made sure there were people in charge of those things who care about them more than I do and are far better at them than I am.

**Brendan's ConFusion conchair report actually contains the statement "It's the moment of truth. The time has come to put the program book together, and everything is still being worked on. What's a Chair to do? Do Not Panic. I've got my towel. What else could I need? Oh yeah, a program book." No, the time has not come, the time has passed, a month ago.

Comments

brendand on Jan. 6, 2008 5:09 PM

I still think it will not suck. And, I did ask you a month ago what the deadline was to get all of the content to you. I know we were asking someone else at that point.

I don't know why, but I only *JUST* received the first draft of the first half.

Anonymous on Jan. 6, 2008 5:24 PM

Yeah you did, and I appreciate that. I then gave you the deadline, which was ignored by pretty much everybody. The problem is, your ConChair report says you're putting together the program book as an afterthought. It does not reflect the fact that you got it started earlier.

elizilla on Jan. 6, 2008 7:48 PM

The only times I have ever seen the program book not turn into this type of last minute drama, were the years when the person doing the program book provided a draft at every meeting, starting six or eight months out from the convention. I really think this is the only way to do it, but getting a program book creator on board with the idea of building so many drafts, is pretty difficult.

The early drafts can (and should) be really rough, with great gaping holes in them. The first draft can just be last year's book, with everything unique to last year redacted. Show these drafts to the concom and tell them that if they miss their deadlines, this is what you're going to say about their areas, they have been warned.

Too late to do this for ConFusion now, but Matt, you might want to try this for Penguicon. It really does work well.

Anonymous on Jan. 6, 2008 8:06 PM

Absolutely. I couldn't agree more! Too late for the January meeting, but I'm going to put this in place for the February meeting.

elizilla on Jan. 6, 2008 8:36 PM

Make the drafts look kinda like a real program book, it helps in focusing people's attention. Sort of a psychological hack. :)

tlatoani on Jan. 6, 2008 9:34 PM

In my experience, that can make people think of it as "finished" and be a lot more reluctant to provide changes. I used to use that deliberately back when I was a technical writer and we were running too close to deadline for client nitpicking. So use it when that reaction is what you want, I guess.

thatguychuck on Jan. 7, 2008 1:41 AM

One year while I was running ConSuite and Krysta was running Programming (and in charge of the program book), she sent me a blurb about the ConSuite.

The blurb was AWFUL. It didn't say much more than, "There is food. It is free. It will be in the ConSuite. There are two of them."

I was told that if I wanted something different I had to get it to her within two days. I succeeded. Just as she knew I would.

thatguychuck on Jan. 7, 2008 1:46 AM

"In order to become a sufficiently advanced program book creator, one has to become indistinguishable from Conchair."

You may want to wait on making such a statement until you actually have served a full term as a ConChair. Former ConChairs may see that as a slight.

"In order to become a sufficiently advanced program book creator, one has to become indistinguishable from Conchair."

...or, perhaps it could be done differently than you believe.

I sincerely wish you good luck, and may the time up to the convention (and including it) be stress-free.

matt-arnold on Jan. 7, 2008 2:16 AM

I'm frustrated with the process, not with a person.

thatguychuck on Jan. 7, 2008 4:22 AM

Noted. I never took it as you were frustrated at any person.

May the position be one that a) you never take again unless you choose after deliberation, and b) may the position cause you no further stress until the convention. :)

Anonymous on Jan. 7, 2008 2:41 PM — Two books merged?

Would it be possible to treat the two books separately in the layout and proofreading stages, and then combine them right before the printing and binding stage? So do the souvenir book first, get it laid out and proofread. Then do the schedule book. Finally stick them next to each other in one book, so people don't have to carry around two books. I don't know how much work it would be to make the page numbers and table of contents happen right, but it seems like it might not be too much work.

Anonymous on Jan. 7, 2008 3:22 PM — Re: Two books merged?

Who are you?