I thought I would focus this week on things that had
kept me busy related to church assignments. I mentioned getting really busy a
few months ago, but I didn't go into specifics. Two of the things keeping me
busy were related to events that have now passed.
The first was a family history fair that ended up
being called the Day of Discovery, but it took us a while to get there. My old
seminary teacher (and bishop and home teacher, and parent I babysat for,
depending on what life stage we focus on) was in charge and he requested that I
be on the committee.
My first contribution was saying that there was no
way I would be able to make 7 AM meetings. I was not the only one to
have this concern, but I think it was important for each of us to say that.
Sometimes that's the difference between one person being a spoilsport versus
collective wisdom.
Family history fairs often consist primarily of
speakers and workshops talking about what you can do and sharing inspiring
stories, but in this case Bishop Brennan's priority was going to be on
individual experiences. Attendees would get one on one time with family history
consultants. Whether they were just starting out or experienced but hitting
snags, they were going to get someone else to work on it with them.
The first thing that I noticed at the first meeting
was that everyone else had callings specific to family history. I did not,
though I have worked on it myself. I learned that my specific task was going to
be working out the flow of the day - connecting visitors with consultants and
keeping it going smoothly.
That seemed like an odd fit. I know people who have
studied crowd dynamics and organizational behavior, and barring someone who'd
studied that specifically, I would have thought maybe an engineer would be the
way to go. Well, engineers sometimes think weirdly and I give the impression of
organized. (That was the conclusion after some hinting around and finally
asking directly, because I really wasn't sure I was the best person for the job.)
The carefully thought out plans did not work. My
thoughts in terms of organization were that it would be better if visitors
worked with family history consultants in their ward, and if visitors at the
same level were in the same area.
We were going to have computer banks in three
locations. If you had all of the beginners in one place, and advanced in
another, it seemed reasonable that they could learn from each other, and we
could have the consultants with the widest, deepest knowledge in same spot,
collected with the toughest nuts. Then if a visitor is with a consultant from
their own ward, whom they see regularly, follow up should come very naturally.
There was nothing wrong with the philosophy of that;
but it was completely impracticable. To arrange that, you need to know who is
showing up at what time, and what level they are at. Some time slots were
filled out, but some visitors signed up in advance without it getting uploaded
into the master schedule, finding out what they needed in advance added too
much complication, and also an unexpected opportunity for leadership training
came up that day that pulled a lot of people away.
Another thought I had was that the consultant could
escort their visitor back to the spot they would be working at. That creates a
glut of people at the entrance, assumes consultants will be done with their
previous visitor at the start of the next hour (almost certainly not), and
there's too much movement.
There were things I had to give up. Sending visitors
on their own back to a specific area would not be good, but having escorts take
three visitors at a time, match them up with their consultants, and then come
back for more people worked well.
For matching people up, it did mainly go by
availability, but as people came in I would ask if they had specific issues. If
they did, I passed that on to the escort.
Starting with lofty goals and then adapting based on
reality works. The first fifteen minutes was pretty hectic, largely because of
people showing up early, but it worked out. People had good experiences. As we
started getting visitors to consultants smoothly, I started having more time so
I would visit with people as they were leaving. All of the visitors came away
happy.
The most common deep technical issues were people
having files in one format that they needed to get into another format; all of
those were solved. There were people who weren't sure where to go next in their
own research; they came away with ideas. Most of all, people who were
intimidated at getting started had a friendly person at their side while they
started, and it was confidence building.
That went for the consultants too. Some of them were
very experienced, but others were less so. Getting a chance to see that yes,
they do know what they are doing, and they know enough to help someone else,
was meaningful, plus there was that boost that comes with helping someone.
The only way to feel about the day overall was good.
Finally, I participated in a meeting about a week
later to go over what went well and what could be improved. At Intel we called
these post-mortems. There's probably a better name for that, but the function
of reviewing and learning from an experience while it is still fresh is
invaluable.
The Day of Discovery was a win.
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