I was so sure everything was going to work as perfectly as I had pictured it in my mind. It’s not that I hadn’t put in the correct measures—I had even done a pretrial. My only problem was that I trusted technology too much and relied on too many new systems at once.
I had spearheaded the registration process for the organization’s conferences several times, and now it was time for digital migration. I put together a team of sharp minds from JKUAT. I have not sought their consent to mention them in this article, but let them feel tagged. 😊 The project was moving at the right pace, and the most amazing part was the chemistry and hard work of the committee members.
Can you imagine? By 2017, I wanted the delegates—most of them university students—to create portals, manage their registration data, receive notifications, and use QR codes for major services such as meals.
In one of the conference conveners’ briefing meetings, I assured the members that we were ready for a paperless registration process. They asked me to have a backup plan, but I was too confident (also known as proud) to use what I considered retrogressive systems.
The registration day arrived, and everything was set. But things started going south the evening prior to the registration day. We couldn’t configure the newly acquired printer, which was supposed to print all the delegates’ details, including the QR code for dining services, on one side of the name tag. The internet service provider didn’t show up until the following day at around 10 a.m., by which time delegates had already arrived. Even then, the internet never worked as expected.
Let me tell you—delegates began getting impatient. We devised some mechanisms, and the registration system was working, though at a speed ten times slower than expected. At that point, things were getting tense—but not tense enough to melt the vision I had.
Then, at the peak of the chaos, we had a blackout. I have never appreciated a power outage as much as I did that day. It eased the pressure, and at least I had something to blame for the bigger part of the mess.
We did not abandon the system. We worked through it alongside other mechanisms, but we were registering delegates until the last day of the conference.
Did I fail? That depends on your perspective. I could have managed my overconfidence better and provided a backup plan in case the technology failed. In other words, I could have considered the opinions of those who doubted our great plan.
Afterward, we continued developing the system, and in 2021, at the height of COVID-19, we held our first-ever virtual conference. I remembered 2017. That year had prepared us for what was to come four years later. We had a seamless registration process for delegates we never met in person.
I never regretted having put the 2017 delegates through that struggle. However, I am sorry for the inconvenience I caused them. I am also grateful for their patience—their endurance bore greater results. Conference registration is no longer a problem at FOCUS Kenya, but there were people who bore the pain. I am glad to have been among them.