The first problem was the lighting : the controls baffled whoever was trying to use them, and at several times everyone in the auditorium found themselves (literally) in the dark, hoping the person next to them wasn't a closet pickpocket.
Lesson #1: learn how the lights work before an audience arrives.Next, a series of 15 easels were setup (to display the results of digitizing the paper maps created in a prior workshop). There wasn't much room near the stage front, so people ending up breathing down each others' necks instead.
Lesson #2: Think about crowd control when setting up, whether it be a sign-in table or any sort of display.Part of the presentation involved using a projector connected to a laptop computer (running PowerPoint) but the screen was one of those 4x4 foot portable ones that my parents used to display 35mm slideshows. In an auditorium that seats 300, it looked very amateurish.
Lesson #3: there are times when it's appropriate to spend a few quid, so you don't look like a Goober.At one point, a suggested redesign of problem intersections (called Five Points) was put onscreen, advocating a rotary (aka traffic circle, aka roundabout) to replace notoriously confusing intersections where five streets converge:
and 
When the rotary was suggested, an Old Fart™ next to me began spewing and gasping for air, saying
"Everybody Knows™ that traffic circles don't work anywhere on this continent ..."I was really tempted to raise my hand and say "... but I love rotaries" just to see if the gentleman would effect Spontaneous Human Combustion, but decided not to, due to his proximity (I might get singed).
Deep Thought #59: Is it February already already [sic]? I just got used to writing January on my checks!
Closing muse: I am pleased that Jill-Bob commenced to updating her blog, after a long hiatus. I wonder what spurred this burst of literacy? Hmmm.
Everybody Knows is a trademark of Fox "News"; Rush Limbaugh Productions; and the Christian Fascist Republican Party.
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