Open Discussion

Last week, I suggested to my mentoring "family" that we all go spend some quality time together tonight and go watch the Hunger Games and grab dinner beforehand. Most everyone was interested and available to attend.
Then a couple of days ago I decided it would be time to finalize details, such as when we would meet, the movie time, dinner place and time, etc. I made a public facebook event and invited people in my mentoring family. And then that's when the madness began.

The thing about making it an event on Facebook is that it allows people to comment on the event wall, which can be both good and bad. Some people posted about how excited they were (like me) and others suggested other options. Some people asked to move it to another day, some people suggested eating dinner at one place and others suggested another place. Some one wanted to catch an earlier showing and then movie hop to another movie and then some people didn't even want to watch the Hunger Games.

And then since it was a public event, friends of invitees invited themselves to the event. And then people heard there was a group of people going to see the movie tonight and then personally asked me if they could tag along/invite other people who are not a part of the mentoring group. And although the initial point of the event was to spend quality time alone with my mentoring family, how could I say no to anyone else who wanted to come to dinner and a movie? There were both suggestions and complaints and it really was impossible to please everyone.

This situation is an example of a problem I see quite often when there are opportunities for open discussion in networks. You want everyone's opinions, but they don't necessarily agree and because of that sometime's its hard to get anything done. It's frustrating, really. But then again, it proves how there needs to be one person to  put there foot down and make executive decisions and in my situation, that person is me.