[LM_NET] HIT (Summary)--Techhie Panic Attacks

[Mary Ann Bell <drmaryannbell@GMAIL.COM>]

I received such a flood of wonderful messages regarding my query last week
about Tech Panic Attacks that I am being so bold as to thank all of you who
responded collectively. When I posted, I really did wonder if anybody else
out there shared my panicky feelings when things went awry in front of an
audience. I know now that many of you do feel the same, and numbered among
these are people whose expertise far exceeds my own. This is reasurring and
did prompt me to write a column on the topic. It will appear in a fall
edition of Multimedia and Internet @ School, I think in the September issue.
Rather than post a very long hit of responses, I am making some general
observations and then ending with one post that had me laughing out loud. I
had some ideas in mind already when I posted, as to how to handle these
difficult moments, and here are some suggestions that were offered by a
number of people.
1. Take a deep breath...step back...reassess situation.
2. ALWAYS HAVE A PLAN B...AND C....and so on. Have alternatives in mind.
3. Accept help, including from students
4. Keep your sense of humor
5. Be very prepared ahead of time in every respect

One person pointed out that she reminds herself and other people she is a
technologist, and not a technician. Thus she does not always have the
solution to someone else's technical problem immediately in mind.

Here is a posting that is very humorous and also has another great
suggestion, that of taking on an "air of invisibility" when working on
equipment in front of people:


"Oh--what a deliciously rich topic!

My answer is oh yes, absolutely, I know the feeling well. I was a
theater techie as a lad and, prior to being a librarian, managed a
school/community theater and did lots of presentation support as a
district "audio-visual technician." I've been there! And I hate the
feeling!

I especially hate it when others do not properly prepare for
preparations and expect you to bail them out when things don't go as
they assumed things would.

The worst moment of tech-terror I can recall witnessing was probably an
incident where we were hosting a visiting dance company that had
supplied us with a reel-to-reel copy of their music. The kid doing sound
that day loaded the tape wrong and, when the house lights went down and
he pressed the button he thought was play, there was a moment of
hestitation, then a sudden backlash, and the tape spilled to the floor
in curled wads like Rapunzel's locks. It makes me need to pee just
thinking about it.

I've been through lots of bad mishaps since then, but I'm proud to say
that few of the snafus have been my own fault--I usually wind up bailing
someone else out of their mishaps. That's cause years of working in
television production, photography, theater and presentation support
have conditioned me to overprepare and build in redundancy. I prefer to
panic a bit before every presentation getting things right than panic a
lot during one trying to figure out what's going wrong.

I also learned working as a videographer/photographer that one can
affect an "invisible demeanor," and that it is a good psychological
skill to cultivate if you present or support presentations.

By "invisible demeanor" I mean this: Make the assumption that you are a
necessary mechanism in your presentation/show/event and that, as such,
you are as ignorable and invisible as any exposed mic cable, follow spot
or stage drape. Tell yourself 'I'm just a dude doing my job, and I know
what I'm doing. I'm not a performer and this show is not about me."
Learn to become oblivious to the fact that there is an audience present
at all, even though you may, in fact, be working in front of quite a lot
of people. Think of photographers at a White House press conference.
They presume their right to be there and that presumption helps make
them relatively unobtrusive. I learned a lot about this phenom by
shooting weddings and corporate events: if you slink around nervously
trying to get a decent shot from the farthest ranges of your longest
lens, you'll always attract attention to yourself and and annoy people.
On the other hand, if you confidently walk right up into the midst of
the focal point of the action, front and center, fluidly kneel and take
a high-impact shot, then matter-of-factly make your way to the next
vantage point, no one will bat an eye. You'll be virtually invisible.

To quote an old anti-perspirant ad, the secret may be in never letting
'em see you sweat."

Once again, my profuse thanks to everyone who shared your stories and
suggestions with me in response to my query. Thanks again, Mary Ann Bell

-- 
*********************************************
"Try curiosity!"--Dorothy Parker
*********************************************
Dr. Mary Ann Bell
Associate Professor, Library Science
Sam Houston State University
Huntsville, TX
drmaryannbell@gmail.com
lis_mah@shsu.edu

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