Dan Levy, organizer of Social Media Day Toronto, responds to criticism from Kole McRae on Techvibes
Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Dan Levy, a Toronto blogger. This post is in response to Kole McRae's recap of Social Media Day Toronto last week. Dan was the organizer of the event and did not agree with Kole's review. Techvibes granted Dan the opportunity to issue a formal response.
My name is Dan Levy, @TheDanLevy on Twitter, and I was one of the co-organizers of Socal Media Day Toronto 2011. I read an article here on Techvibes last week called “A quick recap of Social Media Day Toronto” by Kole McRae where he gave what I called a "scathing" review of a massively successful event in a blog post of my own.
Why did I call it scathing? Mr. McRae starts off his article with this quote: “The venue you pick for an event is incredibly important. It can mean the difference between a glorious success and a insurmountable failure.”
That is why I termed his review to be scathing. Because, as the Oxford Dictionaries define the term, scathing means “witheringly scornful; severely critical,” which is something I felt was quite an apt description for how Mr. McRae described our event. He slams the event as a failure which is insurmountable, a word which means "too great to be overcome." So no matter what he said afterward in the article he already called the event a failure.
However, it wasn't even so much his comments on the event that annoyed me but rather it was his armchair quarterback attitude to the whole thing. What do I mean by that? Well, in a reply blog post on my own personal blog, mentioned above, I make clear that I have absolutely no problem with criticism in of itself. What I do have a problem with is the criticism in a vacuum where you write a critical article about an event and then don't even have the courtesy to contact the people you are criticizing with a note as to where they can find your opinion on their event. Doing this will help to contribute to a better event next year, because if issues are not brought to the attention of the organizers, how can we be reasonably expected to make necessary changes for next year or for any future events? The answer is, we can't.
I was asked by an editor of this blog to give an account of the day and the event from my own perspective, so here it goes. The day was a hectic one for me, getting last minute things ready to go for the evening ahead and working my butt off for the benefit of the entire social media community of Toronto—all as a volunteer. Together with my co-organizer, Michael Nus, another volunteer, I ran around the city picking up various odds and ends to make the event everything it turned out to be. I was down at Tattoo Rock Parlour—the event space which was graciously sponsored by the folks over at INK Entertainment—for 6pm to set up the venue for the event, which began at 7.
For me, most of the night from then on passed like a blur. In a reply to my blog post where I call Kole McRae out for being an armchair quarterback he wrote that he has “no idea who [I am]. [He’s] never met [me] at any of the other events [he’s] covered and therefore could not tell [me] during the event, because again, [he doesn’t] know [me] and would not recognize [me].” That works out well until you consider the fact that:
1. My picture (albeit a small one) and name are on the Meetup.com page for the event where I am listed as the organizer/planner of the event and where there is a link to the Facebook event which also lists me as the organizer. The Meetup.com page also has a link to my Facebook profile and my Twitter page right next to my name and picture where I am listed as the organizer at the top of the list of attendees. This is relevant because Kole McRae clicked the "attending" button on this page so he clearly was on it and had every opportunity during and after the event to find out who was the organizer of the event.
2. I got up on stage along with Michael Nus numerous times throughout the event as we co-emceed the event and we even identified ourselves as such on stage in front of everybody. He could have come up to me in person and spoken to me (which he apparently did, but I will address that shortly).
3. We have already established that Mr. McRae knew about the Meetup.com page for the event—even if he didn’t know who I was at the event itself—he could have posted a link to his recap, or even just asked the organizer(s) to get in touch with him.
4. A number of people came over to me that night that I have never met before and asked me if I am Dan Levy, the organizer of the event. Although, I don’t know if Kole asked around or not, I get the feeling that if he had asked around who the organizers of the event were while at the event he would have been pointed in the right diection.
Kole also replied to my blog post that, “[i]n fact I’m pretty sure I asked you if you were one of the speakers during the night.” If he did ask me that—and I don’t remember to say one way or the other—I would have responded the negative but made clear I was the organizer. Someone, who I don’t think was Kole, came over to me and asked me if I knew where the speakers were because they wanted to interview them and I replied that I did not know but would be glad to help by giving them an interview as I was one of the organizers.
Kole’s response to my blog post also included this little tidbit: “I’m not trying to insult you, simply stating the fact that I was ignorant of who the organizers were.” Well, as a journalist, isn’t it your job to find out the answers to all these questions? The fact that the answers to the questions are readily available on a website you have clearly already visited just further makes it appalling that you are attempting to use “I didn’t know,” as an excuse.
From my perspective, the night was quite a huge success. We had the fifth largest event in the world for Social Media Day and were one of the only cities that were able to get recognition of our local government. We had amazing speakers and sponsors and, yes, people were talking throughout the speakers but there was not very much that we could do about that aside from moving the event into a conference center or renting chairs which we would then have to clean up during the networking portion. Both of those options, while they sound reasonable at the outset, are not reasonable when you consider that we are volunteers and had a very small budget.
I don’t know Kole at all so I don’t know how many social media events he has been to, but the social media folks are very social people. Often that is a huge boon because it makes for a very welcoming environment to people who are otherwise outsiders. Sometimes, at events such as Social Media Day 2011, when you have over 350 social people standing around things can get a little loud. But, you know what, Kole was more than welcome to tell people to be quiet—anyone in the crowd was welcome to tell their neighbour to be quiet.
Barring that, as it is somewhat confrontational, he could have walked to the front and centre right in front of the stage where anyone could hear just fine. How do I know this? Because during the speeches I was walking around the venue for a large majority of the time asking people to be quiet and listen to the speakers. As well, the other thing that I was occupying my time with during the speaker’s portion of the event was listening to the speakers from all different areas of the venue. In fact, at one point I sat down on the floor front and center and listened to the speech going on at the time (if I recall correctly, it was Michael O’Connor Clarke’s speech).
From all other feedback I have gotten about the event it was enjoyed by everyone. Sure there were things about the event that different people liked and disliked but all in all the feedback has been positive. However, as I said on my own personal blog, I have no problem with criticism and, in fact, encourage and appreciate it.
What I do have a problem with is complaining about an event, especially a free event run by volunteers from the community, in a non-constructive manner.
