Ruse successful
I’m planning this mini-conference at work about course management system use on campus. I’ve never planned a conference before, and even though this is just a little weiner one, I’m a little stressed out about it. I was in a meeting with the planning committee, and they suggested that I this particular person, the head of product development at the company that provides our course management software, to take part in a panel discussion.
My first thought was, “OK, Molly (aka big fancy boss), why don’t you call him and invite him?” However, it was decided by committee that I should be the one to invite him, since I’m the one planning the conference. I was sure I’m not famous and powerful enough to make this relatively famous and powerful guy want to come to my shindig.
However, he responded enthusiastically. Either he has a low tolerance for getting excited about things or he fell for my charade of being large and in charge. It certainly can’t be that he was clamoring for a trip to Iowa in February. Yuck. Although it can’t be worse than Canada, where he’s from.
He’s a vendor, right? He’s got $$ in his eyes. February, at UofI… just about time to start ear-marking end-of-year money. Oracle does the same with us, “Oh, sure we can come give you a hand, you want us to talk up our project to managers with budgets? Sure thing.”
Nah, he has nothing to gain from us. We’ve already bought his product.
I’ve been doing a lot of product development at work these days…he’s probably sick of sitting around anticipating everyone’s need for everything and wants to hang out with people. 😀
I’m with Gary. In my business, we call this a “stewardship visit.”