In the midst of Alpine Days fun, Jason and I were off on another PicSkip adventure: our second yearbook conference with Jostens. This time we were headed to Boise, Idaho.
The drive was five and a half hours. It was a long drive of NOTHINGNESS! It was amazing the stretches of land with nothing to see. We arrived around midnight and went straight to bed. As mentioned previously, our kids were staying with the Gruber gang back in Alpine. We were so thankful to them for taking our boys in.
Our hotel was just a cheap something or other, I can’t even remember the name, however, it did include a free continental breakfast. After a routine practice in the hotel room a few times we headed over to the Meridian Courtyard Marriott (the location of the yearbook conference).
We were told our session would begin at 11:00 and we would be given 15 minutes to set up. We arrived there at 10:30, ready and anxious. Although we had already done one yearbook conference, we knew each conference would be different, so we didn’t completely know what to expect. But we felt more confident knowing we had done this before and it had been well received.
Well, the session preceding us didn’t get out until 11:10. So we felt very rushed in our efforts to set up and a little insecure since we knew we were behind time AND the entire audience was already in there just watching us get ready. Luckily, they had some music going and people were chatting to help ease the tension for us. They were also doing some drawings for prizes that were fun, but were eating up some time.
The biggest source of anxiety, however, was the fact that we took a glance at their schedule flyer and they had our session advertised as Augmented Reality...which is basically our biggest competitor in this demographic. A large part of our presentation is spent explaining why Augmented Reality is not a good solution for yearbooks and that our Video Codes offer a better resolution and user experience. We have no idea how this confusion and mistake was made! So our whole presentation was starting off on an awkward foot as we had to explain that we were not in fact what they were expecting. We felt horrible! We were also struggling with the audio; it was only working in half of the room. Bummer.
The good news was that instead of being a breakout session, this time we were presenting to the entire conference, which was 150 people. That was exciting news! The students and teachers were very nice and welcoming. One student brought a particularly tough question concerning copyright that threw us off course for a bit and brought out some tougher comments by some teachers. We did the best we could and relied on each other to answer these concerns.
At 11:45 as we were about to open it up to Q&A, they told us we were over time and would need to end our presentation. Everyone was apparently anxious to get to lunch. We had been told we had 45 minutes (and we didn’t actually get to begin our presentation until about 11:20) so we assumed we were great on time, but there’s a testament to the importance of communication for you.
Overall, we definitely had some things counting against us this time around, but we definitely met some nice people and we were able to expand our exposure just a little bit further. We hoped we could be a good solution for some schools there in Idaho. We were especially grateful to Pocatello High School for giving us a nice note signed by all of their yearbook representatives. That was definitely a highlight.
We were told our session would begin at 11:00 and we would be given 15 minutes to set up. We arrived there at 10:30, ready and anxious. Although we had already done one yearbook conference, we knew each conference would be different, so we didn’t completely know what to expect. But we felt more confident knowing we had done this before and it had been well received.
Well, the session preceding us didn’t get out until 11:10. So we felt very rushed in our efforts to set up and a little insecure since we knew we were behind time AND the entire audience was already in there just watching us get ready. Luckily, they had some music going and people were chatting to help ease the tension for us. They were also doing some drawings for prizes that were fun, but were eating up some time.
The biggest source of anxiety, however, was the fact that we took a glance at their schedule flyer and they had our session advertised as Augmented Reality...which is basically our biggest competitor in this demographic. A large part of our presentation is spent explaining why Augmented Reality is not a good solution for yearbooks and that our Video Codes offer a better resolution and user experience. We have no idea how this confusion and mistake was made! So our whole presentation was starting off on an awkward foot as we had to explain that we were not in fact what they were expecting. We felt horrible! We were also struggling with the audio; it was only working in half of the room. Bummer.
The good news was that instead of being a breakout session, this time we were presenting to the entire conference, which was 150 people. That was exciting news! The students and teachers were very nice and welcoming. One student brought a particularly tough question concerning copyright that threw us off course for a bit and brought out some tougher comments by some teachers. We did the best we could and relied on each other to answer these concerns.
At 11:45 as we were about to open it up to Q&A, they told us we were over time and would need to end our presentation. Everyone was apparently anxious to get to lunch. We had been told we had 45 minutes (and we didn’t actually get to begin our presentation until about 11:20) so we assumed we were great on time, but there’s a testament to the importance of communication for you.
Overall, we definitely had some things counting against us this time around, but we definitely met some nice people and we were able to expand our exposure just a little bit further. We hoped we could be a good solution for some schools there in Idaho. We were especially grateful to Pocatello High School for giving us a nice note signed by all of their yearbook representatives. That was definitely a highlight.
We went to Cheesecake Factory for lunch for some much needed stress relief. We even had a gift card, which is always so nice. It was great to unwind at one of our favorite restaurants before beginning the drive home.
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