Cool,
krelnik, don't know what you used to do as a Director, but if you want, you could be on our staff for Skeptic stuff. Once I know how many staff slots we get, since we also run the Podcasting track, I am assuming it is the same as that.
But, you really have to stand back and use a 'corporate' mindset when working, or being involved in something as massive as Dragon*Con. It is a big, slow moving ship, more like an Aircraft Carrier, you can't really use normal 'logic' when thinking about how things SHOULD be, because almost everyone else on the staff or that helps also thinks of 100 different ways to fix the same problem, and your idea might annoy them just as much as the problem you are attempting to fix annoys you now. So, best thing is to play by the 'old' rules and make tiny adjustments where you get the leeway to do that, and make what you CAN control, the way you want it to be. I guess I think of it as "You can only make a change if you are on the inside.". It is a huge event, and quite a 'good boy' network, but, you can navigate around inside quite a bit. It took me and Dru and Rain almost 4 years to get to where we were last year. It has been a long term plan to get more and more of the Skeptic stuff into the con, and it took a while due to 'politics'.
Maybe I might be more apt to deal with it because my whole life has been steeped in this type of thing. My parents, still to this day, run HUGE events, they take around 100 - 400 or more people on massive vacations they setup and plan each year. And they do it to places internationally, which is a big head ache. Even when they weren't doing that, when we lived in Vegas they had about four 200+ person parities four or more times a year, and I always helped out with all of that. It made for amazing trips while I was a kid, but, it does come with a certain level of tolerance, or you end up hating everything to do with it.
It is funny when I was living back in Vegas after High School, in College, I ran MASSIVE LARP games, and ran a magazine, which ended up getting sold. At one point my best friend told me that he wanted to put: "RIP: Never Run A Big Group Of Smart Geeks And Nerds" on his tombstone.
But, I have always enjoyed it, might be due to a mental defect, or genetics. All the way back to my Great Grandparents, my family has always run large group type events and conference style meetings and parties.
Chalk it up to a defect I guess!
I used to be on staff at Dragon*Con, I quit when it got to be too much of a hassle. (I can tell you some horror stories about what goes on behind the scenes in an event that large). I created the "Daily Dragon" newsletter, and originated many other information-oriented things that are still standard at D*C, including the format of the pocket-sized program schedule book.
But if there's a full track of skeptic stuff going on, well, I guess I'm going to have to drag myself back into the fold.
TAM 6.25 it is!
(KIDDING! I kid.)
