Mindy HillMoment Number 05
Dreams do come true, and that’s just what happened August 5-7th “When the Press Link Up,” at the University of the District of Columbia Student Center for a three day social media conference with the top leaders in the industry. And I wouldn’t have it any other way than to be the most memorable moment.
The concept for “When the Press Link Up” social media conference derived in Indonesia while in McDonald’s enjoying my bottle soda, having a conversation with my business partner Tina Soesianto about how to leverage social media, along with having workshops to better understand the medium and how this tool can be most effective. Four years later, back in Washington DC, at the learning institution which I graduated, I would be gearing up for a three-day media conference in August. I’ve had prior experience with marches, conference’s, concerts, but it’s very different when you are putting own your own production.
I started planning 150 days prior to the conference, and I wanted this to be a major deal. Major deals, with limited funds is sort of like expecting a miracle to fall from the sky, and believe it or not, that is just what happened. I kid you not! After months of planning and booking workshop teachers and guest speakers and the US Copyright office, the day to pay for the venue had arrived, and I didn’t have all of the money. PR WIZ, LLC had reached out to Industrial Bank to sponsor our event and would you believe the day I had to pay the university, the bank told me they had exhausted the funds for the Greater Washington Urban League. After learning about this disappointment, all that could be done in that moment was pull my car over to the side of the road, and cry. After a few tears, I had to gather myself and figure out how will this conference continue. Then I made a phone call to a great friend and explained my situation to him, and he then gave me a resource that could possibly help me. Then another dilemma set in, because the company usually sponsors non-profit organizations, and we are not non-profit. They asked if I had cancelled the event, and I told them no. However, I had already invested a substantial amount in the preparations for the conference. So they agreed to meet me at the university.
While talking for an hour with the sponsors, I later found out that they were a black credit union which worked out great. During the time of reaching out to different organizations to see what type of assistance they can provide, production assistance for our event was very necessary and what better agency to contact than the OCTFME. Although they received our email, and spoke with a representative, they saw fit to borrow our model and implement 202Creates, so hopefully next year we can have a seat at their table for helping them out.
Along with all the borrowing, and asking for assistance for this conference, our ultimate goal was to provide a scholarship to a deserving Arts & Humanities student attending the university, along with aiding Teach for Madagascar, a non-profit educational organization. So in the end our dream didn’t turn into a nightmare, it was a great start to continue our mission of helping students achieve greatness.
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