a lesson on professional planning

[Adam Blatner]

Howdy, all,
    Yesterday we received a flyer from the American Art Therapy Association, nicely done, interesting graphics, about their forthcoming conference. It noted when to attend, and invited people to mail in for further information, and send their email addresses. 
                 But...
      The flyer failed to mention anywhere... WHEN  dates... or WHERE  location of this forthcoming conference. We checked and double checked and these essential facts were not there!    This is then a lesson for those who plan things: It's easy to lose the forest for the trees. I have no doubt that this was double checked and still it was missed. 

     (I suspect that this project may have been delegated to professional graphic designers. Lesson 2. I no longer assume that professionals are competent. Nor consultants. Things need to be triple checked with the aid of check-lists.)

          I've also not infrequently received announcements of psychodrama and drama therapy events and again the When or Where is not stated. If an address is given, the State or Country is not noted, and while that may be okay for a local network of friends operating within a small region, it's disorienting for a national or international listserve. 

          or, fourth, essential information is placed in the middle or at the end of the send-out.

    Back to the mailing that was sent out by the AATA ... nor did it have mentioned a website or email address. In these days of Google (and other web browsers) that's not such a big deal, impenetrability-wise, but still... 

         So this speaks to the role components of marketing and I'm sharing it not so much in a grumpy or indignant way as simply worthy of a rueful smile and a willingness to recognize our tendencies to error. 

         (e.g., though proofreading my latest anthology a couple of times, a number of typos still got through that we didn't pick up, to my chagrin.) 

                           Warmly, 


Adam Blatner, M.D.
   website: www.blatner.com/adam/   
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