The Pitch.......

Just for the record, I’m very behind on my blog….. but hey, atleast I’m honest.

So a few weeks ago we had “the pitch.”

In attendance:

Peter Blume: director of the museum (somewhat friendly, but business-like)

Carl Shafer: associate director of the museum (friendlier and also business-like)

Tania Said: curator of education for the museum (always a pleasure to work with)

Joe Trimmer: Director of Virginia Ball Center (an absolute hoot, will talk your ear off, brilliant man)

Valerie [insert last name]: Not exactly sure what her title is, but she is a talented graphic artist (she always leaves us with new things to think about, which I LOVE)

Laura [insert last name]: media director for the VBC (keeper of all things holy at the VBC including cameras, computers and necessary programs, very friendly)

And of course our entire class was there along with our lovely professor.

We all dressed up for this pitch. We wanted to be treated like professionals rather than students. We even offered them water. It was great.

Our guests were given binders with all the information in it. (This was good for them, but there was mass confusion with our guests throughout the presentation because the formatting was not consistent. It was more of a last-minute packet because we were too busy to do more with it).

Beth (our professor aka the queen) was the first to talk then each section presented their section of the site. I presented the audio tour and THANK GOD they had no real criticisms of our section. Other groups had bigger problems, however. Peter was a bit critical of our site, which I do not think is a bad thing. Several students felt like they were under attack but I thought it was nice to be treated like a professional. A few individuals got defensive. My classmate Katie Pourcho really stepped up to the plate and delicately defended certain portions of the site. Kudos to her on that. To be honest, it was not just Katie that did an amazing job with the pitch. Our entire class really kept it together and acted like professionals. Going into this pitch I was worried that this would end up like several of our staff meetings where tempers get out of hand and voices are raised.

This was a great experience for me because last year I went into a “pitch” where the client hated our project and attacked us on the spot about things we could not change. After hearing Peter and Carl’s feedback, we can now make the appropriate changes and our site will be even stronger!

Overall, I feel like a grown up after having been in this situation!