Here's to finishing projects

This is a most unusual day: I have actually finished a project. Wiring's complete; drawings are done; everything works, and the relevant people understand how to use the equipment. Balloons haven't flooded down from the ceiling, but the day isn't over yet. There's still time.

An innocent soul might be puzzled: what's the big deal? Isn't that the way it's supposed to happen? Yes, but in most stations it never seems to turn out that way. Too many people assume that the equipment magically becomes operational an hour after the UPS truck pulls away; this especially applies to news departments. These are the same folks who try to sell upper management on new systems but never include such things as wiring, monitors, racks and such in the quote. So ordinarily I don't get more than halfway through a project before people start getting anxious about why it isn't done yet -- and three new projects get added to the stack, each one top priority. If you consider that I don't just work for the Syracuse station, but serve all of our Northeast group, it's a wonder that anything gets done.

I've been fighting this battle for the better part of 25 years, and have learned a few things that help:

1. Install the equipment that people see and touch (control panels, for instance) last. There's nothing like having the Chyron keyboard on the counter to make production folks come out of the woodwork.
2. Do the documentation first. Spend the extra time during the design / proposal stage to create the drawings and writeups that will become part of the final documentation package. You will never get the time to do this once the system is operational, and it actually makes installation easier -- especially if other people are involved in the work.
3. Do as much of the work away from the control room as possible. My best projects are racks that I have pre-assembled in the prop room, then moved on site and wired up. This gives me more room to work, better lighting, and fewer distractions. It can be very hard to neatly bundle cabling when you're banging elbows on adjacent equipment.
4. People don't read memos. If you need to convey information to people, bright-colored drawings work far better. My most successful "non-memos" look more like posters for coming movie attractions. I can do this pretty quickly with the same software I use for design work -- Visio.
5. Try to have several days where the new equipment is operational enough for people to play with it becore they have to use it. As it is, you are still going to get nailed:

"Nobody tells us about this new stuff."

"Did you read the memo I sent out last week?"

"I don't have time for that!"

"Okay, I'll show you."

"Never mind, I don't want to know."

Anyway, the project I just finished is a substantial upgrade to our 24-year-old audio console in the production control room. The console was designed for a station with one live truck and six videotape machines, back in the days when our audio operators thought mix-minus was a Betty Crocker reject. The upgrade automatically creates a dedicated mix-minus for every channel on the console, so the audio operator need only turn a knob to send the right feed for each of six IFB phone couplers. He no longer has to tie up submasters or echo-send buses, and scramble when we have multiple satellite remotes; it's made me very popular in Production, however temporarily. The truck operators like it, too: they dial in for the IFB feed and it automatically answers with a brief announcement that verifies which IFB channel they are using. And they don't have to face the wrath of reporters who did a live standup with their own delayed audio echoing in their ear. (If you ever wonder why field reporters flip their earpieces out with a disgusted grimace, that's why.)

On second thought, forget the balloons. Some Gannon's ice cream would work, though... just not coming out of the ceiling. Cleaning up the mess would be another project.

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Hillary in 2008? (HT: Justin Taylor)