Dailure-Global Business Forum 2011

I suppose this counts as a dailure, although it may just be a 1/2 year delight, as we've now completed the first panel discussion for the Global Business Forum, 2011. As the coordinator and co-moderator I can say it was a success, with a minor bump, because one of the panelists, the only PAID panelists, who we flew in from Boston, and put up in a very fancy hotel, was pretty awful. But the rest of the panel was great! I was expecting, maybe 10-20 people, max, to show up (my family being half that group) and there were 300. Imagine my surprise! And I even led the group in a rousing VTS discussion. It was pretty funny because the image, I chose, for the discussion, was Judith and Holfernes. Judith, in the image at the Lowe, is one which shows Judith's breast exposed, so when I posited the first question, 'What's going on here?" someone from the audience said, "she's about to have a mammogram". Seeing as how it was a conference on health it was pretty funny. I felt that the panel was made up of enough diverse backgrounds to make it really interesting: a dean of the medical school, co-founder of VTS, medical student, museum educator and chair/prof. of the physical therapy school, at UM. And I was correct. The mix of minds and different perspectives on education made it interesting. Not everyone was in agreement but that was good. I just wish that our guest panelist had had her act together. I learned a lot. I learned how important it is, whatever one is doing, to practice, a lot. And if you are trying to pull a group of people together it's important, no essential, for all of them to meet and converse BEFORE an event.