Participating in the 21st Annual Conference of the Japanese Association for Language Policy (JALP) Part2 - Behind the Scenes Episodes

We participated in the Japan Association for Language Policy (JALP) 21st Annual Conference held at Kwansei Gakuin University from June 8 (Sat.) to June 9 (Sun.), 2019.
In this issue, we would like to introduce some episodes behind the conference!
(If you haven't read Part 1, check here ⇒ JALP 21st Annual Conference Part 1)

First of all, I would like to look back on how we prepared for our participation in the conference.
The first thing I did before participating in the conference was to prepare a manuscript for the proceedings.
I had a lot of things I wanted to write and convey, but the number of pages I could publish was limited.
I worked on the manuscript many times to make sure it would fit in the book, and then corrected it!

Since this year's conference was to be a panel discussion, in other words, an exchange of opinions, we also held a mock discussion in the company to simulate the questions we might be asked and the answers to those questions.

～Employee A took the role of moderator
2. Employee B took the role of a professor from the University of Tsukuba, who was also on the panel, and asked a question
3. Employee C took the role of a professor from Reitaku University and asked a question
4. Employee D took the role of a Kobe City official and asked a question
⇒Employee D takes the role of Kobe City and asks a question!

In the actual simulation,
"We may receive such a question on the day!
When we actually simulated the event, we found that there were new discoveries such as:
"We may receive such a question on the day," and "Indeed, such an opinion is also possible.

It is true that some new things can be seen by changing one's point of view and position ( -ᴗ- ).

The preparations for the convention seemed to be going smoothly until this point, but then something unexpected happened....

The Friday two days before the convention, it was after 7:00 p.m., past the time for leaving work, and the town was filled with the joyous, fresh, and liberating atmosphere of a flower-gilded Friday.
An e-mail arrived from the convention organizer to a person in the company.
I think you have prepared a PowerPoint presentation on the day of the event. We will make sure to adjust the projector so that there will be no connection problems.
The content of this kind e-mail was, "PowerPoint....
PowerPoint..."
"PowerPoint? That means we have time to present our presentation...?
Yes, I thought we were only supposed to submit a preliminary draft and discuss it, but in fact there was also time for us to take the stage and give a PowerPoint presentation....

Of course, we had been informed in previous e-mails that there would be time for presentations....
No one involved in the company had checked and was unaware of it, which was an unexpected situation (tears)!

This is a big problem! Again, we only found out about it two nights before the convention.
On short notice, the speakers for the day of the conference will start working on their presentation materials on Saturday.
We then rehearsed on Saturday and Sunday morning, and somehow managed to get through the situation!
(Good job, speakers! ( -ᴗ- ) )

However....

This kind of mistake should never happen.
This time, we managed to get through just in time, but this kind of thing may happen at any time in our daily work.
I have to imagine various situations as I go about my work! As I write this, I am reminding myself of this.

Behind my participation in the convention I mentioned in my last blog, there was such a flurry of events. I am sure there was an episode like this behind my participation in the convention that I mentioned in my last blog.

(Editor's Postscript)
Oh no! What a harrowing episode.
I'm sure it was hard work for your boss who made preparations on Saturday and Sunday...thanks for your hard work!
The real heat has arrived!
Please make sure you all stay hydrated and take good care of yourselves.
See you in the next blog!