Any comments are welcome. This is a “big picture” conversation, please. Example, I lost my bottled water vs We ran out of bottled water.
The idea of this topic is to say what worked so we will repeat that and for what did not work to look for better choices next time.
I.E. Worked - We had 350 guests.
Worked - We had a room full of pinball machines, music with a DJ, and great lighting.
Did not work. We did not serve food or have food trucks.
The goal is the create a document as a guide for future events.
I enjoyed the Grand Opening, and thank you to everyone who helped with it. As always, I saw lots of fantastic work, and I’m deeply impressed with the skills and generosity of DMS membership.
I’ve been to a lot of grand openings for various companies, and it’s helpful to me to see what usually goes into these things. They usually consist of food, exhibits and tours of the new facility. I think everyone was impressed who toured the DMS facility. We had some fantastic exhibits, and I’m impressed with some of the things people have made.
The presentations were a good idea, and they worked OK, but they could use work. I think it would have been good if we had video recorded and live webcast the presentations. I think we should mount a camera next to the projector in the Lecture Hall. I would also like to have seen a sign on the doors of the rooms listing the presentation that was in session.
It would have been good if each committee had materials ready to hand out that explained their committee, including contact information.
More food would have been nice, though I appreciate what a lot of trouble that could be. We had some nice snacks. I was expecting more food. Maybe next time.
I wasn’t able to attend the Open House during the scheduled hours (10am to 6pm) due to a prior
commitment,but I do have a few suggestions from what I saw/heard when I was able to drop by
later Saturday evening.
Scheduling:
I would strongly recommend that we move the Open House back to the fall time period that it was
held in prior years, due to both weather, and holiday scheduling issues. I would say late
September/early October would be optimal, IMO. I would also suggest having the schedule run later,
until at least 8pm if not 10pm. It doesn’t have to be a packed schedule, but listing a panel or two, as
well as the DJ/pinball party as running until later in the evening would encourage people to come who
had a full schedule during the day.
Food:
We had potluck food donations of main courses ( I brought lasagne the previous two Open Houses
back at Ladybird ) side dishes, and desserts in previous years. We also had the gas grill running
out back with fresh batches of burgers and hot dogs every hour or two. I would suggest we do the
same in the future. The budget outlay is fairly minimal, and the return is worth the expense.
PR:
One opportunity we really missed was participating in the most recent Social Science night at the
Perot Museum. It was held on Friday with a sold out attendance, and would have been an excellent
opportunity for us to both present ourselves to that audience, and also be able to have flyers at our
tables to advertise the Open House the very next day.
Won’t be able to make it in person tomorrow night, so wanted to share thoughts & observations:
most of the visitors I bumped into were very impressed, no matter which area, especially when makers were actively making something or talking about what they made…
many visitors really appreciated the chance to try something themselves - for example one person was extremely grateful to throw some pottery
I’m interested to hear how many joined, and the best and worst of anecdotal visitor feedback…
as somebody who only joined in November, I am personally grateful to those who showed off their creations. I found this as a great way to meet and learn about more established members, and I hope to return the favor with something to show in the next big open house…
I noticed several of the heavy lifting contributors getting totally burned out by 3 or 4pm. They were doing a fantastic job! - but really needed relief - whether willing to admit that or not After several years of trade show booth duty ‘hard labor’, I’d suggest pre-arranged written rosters to divy up the load, and to let people decompress and wander around. In my experience that was better both for booth staff and the organization being represented
I like the food truck idea, and the makerspace grill idea - a lot. Especially considering expected 2015 growth and the size of the kitchen. Even as a member it would’ve made it easier to hang out all day. Surely a track record of 350 is enough to pull in a truck or two, maybe even in a way compatible with a makerspace grill…
Frank Lima and I were talking last night about making a gizmo with parts from as many committees as possible.
Either a puzzle or a thing, I like the idea of a robot shape. Contributions from 3D, LED light up head from electronics, router table part from wood shop, laser cut piece from Laser, plasma cut part from metal shop, Haas cut part, paint from Creative Arts, Foundry- cast part or ceramic piece, etc. Each committee can talk about how that part was made.
The goal would be to have people on tour do a small aspect of “the device” so they get a sense of “making”.
My concern is in making the parts, both member’s time and material costs. As well as making a tour a 3 hour ordeal. If this became the “default” tour, how much of our time now become used my making gizmo parts. It would be a great experience though.
I had one further thought. Have this become a new member’s introduction to the space.
It becomes a 3 hour introduction to all the committees.
Each committee could be recorded so depending on availability, each part could be live or recorded.
Lecture hall started at 10am and Open House started at 10am. They had an
empty room.
Not sure what the idea was with the lectures, but seemed hard to have a
tour at 10am and people actually being able to check out the lectures.
Tours seemed to take some time.
I got to the Lecture at 11:05, running late for the Holography lecture. It hadn’t started, yet, and the Electric Cars lecture was going strong. Did they start late?
I’d say most of them. We had ten people in Holography, which wasn’t too much smaller than the previous crowd, but I did hear someone from the previous crowd ask the electric car presenter if he planned to repeat the class some time.
After several years of trade show booth duty ‘hard labor’, I’d suggest pre-arranged written rosters to divy up the load, and to let people decompress and wander around. In my experience that was better both for booth staff and the organization being represented