Alright, so Padra, my lovely Director of Marketing has been on me for several months to start blogging here about what exactly “working on JordanCon” means. I’ve given her a variety of excuses, ranging from DragonCon, book release parties, Sanderson’s book tour, the flu, being “really tired”, “I saw a weird rock”, “nothing good on TV” and “the internet broke”. But I’m going to suck it up tonight and actually post some of the thoughts in my head.

If you don’t know me, I’m Jennifer Liang and I chair JordanCon. I will be 30 in a matter of days, I live in Roswell, GA. I teach middle school. I blog about food occasionally. I’m married to Jimmy, who most of you have seen running around, looking adorable. Most people, when they get “kinda bored” eat a snack. I start a convention. I am not Asian.

A convention is traditionally organized by a “convention comittee” also known as a “concom”. The committee has a chair. So that’s where the title comes from. How do you get this job? By being strong and brave and not in the room at the time. Honestly, I don’t know. I can actually think of several people who I think could chair something like JordanCon. But I think I’m the best at it. Or I just got there first.

What do I do? I supervise the Senior Directors, who head up Operations, Programming and Finance. And for a small con like this, when we suddenly discover at three in the morning two weeks before show time that no one has made a program, I get to do that too. My job is to make sure the Senior Directors are on top of their jobs, that they communicate with the Directors under them and that none of them have gone homicidal yet. I also fill in the gaps when needed. I also select the guests for each year and set the tone and theme for the convention. I work directly with the hotel, the publisher and various members of Team Jordan and Team Sanderson to make sure JordanCon runs smoothly and on budget.

There is no “One True Way” to organize a convention. I borrow heavily from Dragon*Con, because I’m familiar with it. I am also indebted to ConRunner.net, which is an amazing resource for planning a convention of any size. I tend to snatch up my Directors in odd places. Some are friends I’ve had for years. Some are people I know through fandom. At least one got her job because she was calm and reliable when I needed someone to be. I found out her name and asked her to be a Director for 2010.

Next time I blog, I will answer the most frequently asked question I get regarding JordanCon.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 10:13 PM and is filed under JordanCon Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.