A wasted opportunity or just right?

Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin recently spoke at Wayne State University to advocate for Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC United).  More details of the event and what the organization stands for can be found here.

I only found out about it because a day before the event, my mother saw it mentioned on Facebook.  She mentioned it to me because she knows I work at Wayne State and teach Public Speaking.  I did a quick internet search and one of the Detroit newspapers had a brief article with the details of their appearance scheduled for the next day.  The article did not indicate who was hosting the event, only that it was for ROC United.  No tickets or advanced reservations were necessary.  I sent an email to my students that evening and invited them to attend if their schedules allowed, even offering them credit for an assignment if they attended and wrote a short reaction paper.    

I scoured the Wayne State websites and couldn't find anything about it.   I learned later that the Wayne State Young Democrats promoted it at a student organization festival the day before the event.

I say all this because, since attending the event, I have heard countless people tell me how disappointed they were to not know about the event.  They were sorry they missed it and would have liked to opportunity to attend.  I'm sure some people even thought that Wayne State missed an opportunity to capitalize on the presence of these two public figures on their campus.

At this time, I do not know for sure why this was.  But I can piece some of it together and can understand how this happened.  It probably was NOT a case of botched public relations efforts or faulty communication on the part of Wayne State.

Tomlin was in town to attend Detroit Homecoming festivities.  Crain's Detroit Business Mary Kramer had been courting Tomlin to return to Detroit for several months, even meeting her in California to talk up the initiative.  It seems that Fonda and Tomlin were surprised to learn only recently that they would both be in Michigan at the same time since Fonda would be here as part of ROC United events.  Scheduling serendipity allowed them both to appear together, which clearly led to more buzz had either one of them made the appearance alone.

Pulling out all the stops on promoting the event once it was known that both women would appear would have resulted in a much larger crowd.  But that would have necessitated a larger venue, security, parking, and probably other accommodations as well.

The larger of the General Lectures Building auditoriums was booked for Wayne State classes.  The smaller one that they did use was occupied by a Wayne State class until just minutes prior to the start of the event.  As the long line of gathered attendees filed in eagerly at 12:50, the professor was still meeting with students after class and the class PowerPoint slides were still on the screen.  THIS was a University at work teaching students. 

I think the event served its purpose.  Every chair was occupied and the back was crowded with those standing.  There was a nice mix of Wayne State students and community members who appeared to be middle-aged and older.  I took the time to ask those seated around me why they were there and how they heard about the event.  It was clear that the star power of Tomlin and Fonda brought them out but they were also sympathetic to the causes advocated by ROC United.

Tomlin, Fonda and ROC United's co-founder Saru Jayaraman were speaking to the choir, as the saying goes  There didn't appear to be anyone in the audience who were in opposition to their views.  Wider promotion of the event may have resulted in that.  And so they did what was appropriate for that type of audience:  they collected their contact information and asked them to indicate which next steps they would take to support the cause of One Fair Wage.  Those in the audience have a high likelihood of following through.  They took time out of their schedules to be in attendance and they had their views reinforced by the energizing and inspiring Tomlin, Fonda and Jayaraman.  This event was NOT to persuade those who opposed a concept like One Fair Wage.  There are other, more effective ways to reach those individuals.

Serendipity.  It brought a crowd together to hear from three remarkable women who are outstanding presenters.  Hearing them live and in person was exponentially more effective than reading about it in the paper or seeing a post about it on social media.  I'll have a couple more blog posts about this event in the days to come.