When we launched this Design Blog, I said that designing Learning 2011 was much like organizing a Wedding. Except, for 2,000 people :)
And, with 36 hours to go, I feel like the Father (and Mother) of the Bride (and the Groom). Why? Because, just like a wedding, there are always small changes at the last minute:
- One of our workshop speakers has a sinus infection, so they can't fly across the country. (We will cancel that one - there are 239 others to choose from - and we can always get a video from him later).
- One of our facilitators has to fly back to Washington DC for a few hours on Monday, to be with a Cabinet member and then return to Orlando for his workshop. (OK, we will punt and breathe deep).
- One of our General Session Speakers, Antonia Galindo, was pulled away at the last minute, so we have done a fun redesign for the iPad award segment - turning it into a "Learning Apps" visualizer.
- We added several additional elements to our event layout, to better accomodate our crew.
- And, I saw a great idea used yesterday by the previous conference in this space - where they had directional signs stuck on the carpet - in the shape of "ears" - so we asked Disney to do some for us at the last minute and they are being applied later this afternoon.
Rigging is going up for the screens and we are loading in the stage in about an hour. I have several last minute details with staff for President Clinton and Dean Kamen - and then I will finalize my keynote flow for Sunday night.
All part of the Design Process and like a wedding - these details allow people to concentrate on the reason for being there - in our case, to learn with two thousand other learning colleagues at Learning 2011 in just 36 hours.