Schmoozin' and co-opin'

[gordonzola]

I realized that I never wrote about the panel discussion I was on at the Fancy Food Show. Hell, half the reason I did it was that I figured it would make a good anecdote.

Unfortunately, it didn’t. But I’ll write about it anyway.

I’ve never been to such an uneventful talk. It was actually a little historic. I’ve never seen worker, consumer, and agriculture coops represented on the same panel. That it happened at the country’s biggest orgy of snacking and schmoozing is odd, but history tends to be odd sometimes too.

While something can be a historical moment without anyone noticing, I don’t really feel like this will qualify. At the moment that the panel was supposed to start there was one person in the room. Our handler, because this is a big money event and we had a handler, had been apologizing for a half hour as we sat in our prep room drinking free coffee and eating free pastries. She was very nice and apologizing in that optimistic way that events people can. "It should be really productive because it will be an intimate crowd," she said while letting us know that only 8 people had registered our panel which was being held in a 100 person auditorium.

What I had forgotten when I promised to do this panel was that they charge for it. I had never attended any of the "educational" programs at the food show because there had never been a panel that interested me and wasn’t impaneled mostly with jerks. I actually don’t even know what it cost, they are very efficient over at NASFT and have already wiped the website clean. I could only find this remnantwhich simply names our topic: The Cooperative Way: Applying Co-op Principles to Your Business.

Of course I was joking when I referred to it earlier as "putting the co-op back into coopt" though I was wary of the panel, NASFT having no history of being anything but a business trade show with hard-hitting workshops with topics like , "My Job Tastes Good".. The person developing the educational program insisted that he wanted to involve co-ops so I agreed, for my workplace, to do the panel. I figured if they were gonna do it, we should be represented since it’s held in our city. I also knew that he had gotten a beer expert who I really respect, Lucy Saunders, to do a cheese and beer pairing so I figured he might actually be trying to make these events useful.

I learned a good lesson from all this though: ask for money. I mean, my workplace pays me for my time so I wasn’t out anything, but the other panelists got not only the free passes I got, but airfare and lodging. I didn’t get a chance to ask if they also got an honorarium. I was a hell of a bargain. Or sucker.

Of course, since no one showed up it might have been good I didn’t push it. It was actually such a relief to not be organizing the discussions on co-ops that I didn’t really care that no one was there. I’m used to being involved in the minutia of the conference or event where this would have been solely my fault so I could afford to be all "whatever" about it.

The crowd slowly swelled to eight people as we got started. I wondered how many were NASFT plants. I remember my friends who worked at Macy’s used to get called on to take off their nametags and attend events that were bombing to lessen the embarrassment of whatever celebrity was hawking a new line of clothes or perfume. And to protect the Macy’s reputation. I know there was one and I suspected two others. (have any of you, dear readers, been a plant at a company event?)

The other two panelists, one from Organic Valley and one from the Hanover Consumer Co-op, had power point presentations but I kept it real and represented my people by having scrawled handwritten notes. Or, I prepared for the event starting at 11 PM the night before my 8 AM panel after being out drinking with dairryiere. Whichever way you want to think about it.

Actually, it wasn’t really like that either since I was giving a pretty standard version of how my workplace operates, which is a talk I’ve been giving for about 9 years. My only new material was incorporating some info about the international worker co-op movement and giving a few "secrets" for our success in business language. Well, as much business language as I do which means throwing in a few words about worker turnover and workplace safety.

My only stressful moment was when they tried to get me to go up to the podium to speak. Because of the PC set up for the PowerPoint presentations, I had no place to put my notes where they wouldn’t slip away. After thirty seconds of speaking, grappling, catching, propping and stress, I said, "I’m gonna do this sitting down." I figured the eight people, probably only five who paid, wouldn’t care.

The event went quickly, there were basic questions, this being a basic panel. I didn’t even get to work in my "coopt" line because I couldn’t find a place for it. I felt bad for the people who paid to see us, but then again their companies probably wrote it off anyway. The hour and a half ended quickly and I went to go eat and schmooze.

Comments

[thearagorn.livejournal.com]

Call me a cynic but I tend to see the undewhelming response to the event being a bad sign (or is that good). Almost as if the 'coop movemement' isn't quite ready for the prime time of even being considered for cooption. Maybe next year...

Glad that you gave them your all, though. ;-)

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

well, the underwhelming response was also a result of the audience. Why would anyone think an audience of owners, managers and industry hacks would want to pay money to see me talk about worker ownership? I actually asked them that question beforehand. The answer was vague. so vague I now don't even remember what they said beyond the fact that they really wanted me to speak.