We have all experienced that feeling that a day has flown by, and you are left wondering where time has gone. The opposite sentiment rings true other days, when the time seems to drag on and you wonder, will this day ever end? No matter the feeling you are left with on a given day, when all is said and done, most days we all have more, rather than less to be grateful for at the end of the day.
When I found out, in the most surprising, fun, thoughtful and considerate way, that the Science Center had won a grant award to be a part of the Operation Overnight event that Geonetric hosts, of course I was grateful that day. I was also excited and nervous too.
As we planned and prepped for the event, I was thrilled to meet with the team and tell them more about our wants, needs and hopes for the new site. We focused on details, lots of Q & A, and a long list of to do’s for everyone, it was another grateful day thinking how lucky we were to have such capable people working on our project. These really smart and talented folks were thinking about our organization and how our web site should be in many ways the best reflection we have on the great work we do as a nonprofit. Cool huh?
As the big day approached, I of course at some level internalized that the 24 hour event would be intense, exhausting, thrilling, and exciting all at once. But I had not given too much thought to what a difference that day (Operation Overnight day) would make to our organization. The development of a new site came at a great time for the Center, just having moved to a new location. We have lots of new things planned for the future of the Center, and we also plan to serve the community in new and different ways going forward. New is kind of a theme for us these days, so to have this incredible group of people comprised of Geonetric staff and volunteers take a fresh look at who we are, what we stand for, and what we want people to know about us, and deliver to us in just 24 hours a brand new web site, was truly an incredible gift for our organization.
Not only is it a cool looking web site, that functions well and translates lots of good information, well to me, the site is simply beautiful. Not just because of how it looks, but because of what is represents. What an incredible feat, and an amazing tribute to Geonetirc that a group of people, who don’t traditionally work together or even design web sites for a living (not every team member was a web designer!) can come together to produce such an amazing product in such a short amount of time. The event was about building a great web site, but it was also about managing a project and working together as a team. The collaboration and dynamics of our group were thankfully a great balance which allowed us to play up each other’s strengths, but also recognize skills and abilities and find the best ways to leverage everyone’s time and talents. If every day worked like that, in all those ways, for every organization, well—just think of the possibilities.
Since I had not given too much advance thought to what a difference this day would make for our organization, when we finished the site I was left kind of amazed and shocked, because I then was able to see what the magnitude of this new tool could really mean for us. Grateful does not even begin to describe it.
As we left the event I thought, oh yeah, now I can finally sleep. But I couldn’t, I was too excited about everything that has taken place in just a day. I just had to keep checking the site, making sure it was still there, reviewing at each page, and telling everyone I knew to go look at it too!
Some time has passed since the event, and I still feel the same way every day when I look at our site. I am reminded of so many great things not just about the event, but about how our site will help us as an organization move forward and meet our mission as we reinvent informal Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education in our community. I am grateful that our organization was given this tremendous opportunity and grateful to have personally participated in this event which was an amazing experience both personally and professionally. What a difference a day makes, Operation Overnight has really made me rethink my list of to do’s and given me that wonderful reminder that sometimes there really are enough hours in the day to get it all done!
