Crashes and Backup / I11

Conference environments are unusually demanding - rented equipment, improvised offices, people who have not worked together before, no familiar routines, ... Here are some of the more common causes of system failure:

Machine breakdown

Personnel breakdown: illness; overload; stress; incompetence; incompatibility; language and cultural issues.

Organisational breakdown: poor planning; insufficient staff; lack of support from conference organisers; unclarity on duties and roles; "holes" in responsibilities.

It is wise to expect some breakdowns; this means you will insure yourself with safeguards and backup functions to the extent you can. Ask "What if ... " questions to focus on alternatives that you could fall back on if the unexpected or unthinkable happened.

Another good general practice is to keep your system design as simple - and appropriate to the environment - as is possible.

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Written by Nadia McLaren, Union of International Associations, with revisions and HTML layout by Robert Pollard, Information Habitat: Where Information Lives.