Making It Happen

I am supposed to be in Texas — right now.
I am supposed to be in Texas — celebrating participating in 3 great session conversations and the fun we had with the Cool Tool Duel.
I am supposed to be in Texas — talking with people I have admired a long time but never saw them F2F.

But I am not.  Due to Thunderstorms and timing, I didn’t get to go to the conference today.  And I was sad.

BUT — actually I did get to to to the conference, from the comfortableness of my own front room.  (smiles, I even twittered that I didn’t even need to wear socks!)

With the cooperation of Paul, John, Scott, & Dean — we pulled off Jen being able to join the conference via the “tools of tech.”

The tools we used to make this happen today:
Cellphones
iChat
AOLIM
GoogleDocs
Twitter
XMeeting
Skype (Video)
iTunes
GMail
PowerPoint
Poll Everywhere
Ning
uStream
Moodle
Elluminate
Google Earth
A Mac and A PC w/ the ability to switch cabling on the projector
And a very stubborn pair of speakers

With the use of each of those tools — working like a plan a, plan b, plan c, plan d, and almost a plan z — it all worked out.

But what I appreciated the most was — we never (none of us) ever lost our cool.  When something didn’t work, we thought of another idea.  Couple of times, we needed to step away and think of options…….but we came back and made it work.  And we all learned from each other and helped each other.

Do I still wish I was in Texas — OH YES!!!
But am I glad that we kind of proved that being “at a conference” does not mean you have to be sitting in the conference area!!
And I think Scott — and his gang — have now proven that with flexibility, patience, and perseverance — pretty much anyone who is willing can now present at any conference from anywhere.

Now all I have to do is figure out why my router won’t let xmeeting work.  (grins)

Jen

PS:  Oh, and I did get to see my pals F2F via video chat saying “hey” to me and me saying “hello” back.