Laura Mignott (right, above) and Sara Walker-Santana, co-founders of DigitalFlashNYC, recently staged a big networking event for Pepsico and SMAC (Social Media Advertising Consortium), on a boat in the Hudson River. As a way of showing how their work brains are, basically, conjoined, they offer their diary of that wave-rattled day, told in alternating voices:

 

Monday AM

Sara

8:00 Coffee & breakfast bar (not a buffet – a cereal bar!) — my normal breakfast.

8:15 Check emails, news, FB, Twitter.

9:00 Prepare event bag with all supplies needed for getting the boat ready for tonight’s cruise with over 200 people (badges, tape, scissors, pens, stapler, etc.). Realize, after 2 years of carrying said heavy bag, that I could use luggage with wheels instead of a tote. Light bulb moment! I grab a rolling bag out of the closet. Goodbye back problems!

Laura

9:15 Heading into Manhattan.

9:40 Get cash at ATM – we’ll need cash for something.

9:45 Go to Kmart (first time in 5 years), find plastic frames to hold mini signage.

Sara

10:00 Last minute client call about the party — that’s only natural. It’s a big event and they’ve got questions about the details, the guests, the boat and how it’s all going to unfold. It’s an important call, because you always want to make sure the client is happy.

Laura

10:15 Arrive at Grind.

10:15 Go down the street to McDonalds for breakfast – it’s going to be one of those days.

10:30 Start designing mini-signs for the frames. Answer 20 emails about the event, like, “Can we add people? Are we all set?” One guest even asks what the weather will be like. This last one makes me wonder, have you people ever used a computer before?

Sara

10:30 Off to the subway, from my home in Brooklyn to Manhattan, wheeling my bag. Amazingly easy!

11:00 Chinatown – need to buy baskets and tubs to dress the boat, which is 105 feet long and 39 feet wide. I know some stores around here that have that stuff for cheap, because I used to live in the hood. Everybody wants things on a budget, and we always have tricks up our sleeves

11:30 Don’t find everything. Have been wandering around the Lower East Side searching and sweating, because it’s strangely hot for a mid-September day. At this point I need to head to the Union Square area to pick up client signage. The clock is ticking.

Laura

11:45 Meet Derrick Hossain, our intern, at Starbucks across the street from the office, to give him money so he can go back to Kmart for more frames.

Sara

11:45 More searching for ice tubs. Hit three stores until I find what I need at the right price. Cab it up to Grind with two huge ice tubs, wheelie bag, and three bundles of signage and stickers. I need a driver… some day….

Monday PM

Sara

12:00 Meet Laura at Grind. Even though we’ve got the big event on the boat today, our other clients still need our attention. I hunker down to send emails and make phone calls. We are so happy that we have office space here now. It’s quadrupled our efficiency. Before this, we were nomads, working at coffee shops like Cosi, Starbucks, Birch, in the hotel bars of the Soho Grand, Ace, and the Carlton, anywhere we could find. This feels steady.

1:00 Grab lunch, finish last minute event details that require the Grind printer — badges, little signs, check-in lists (we are over-booked for tonight – a good thing we hope).

Laura

12:30 Work on details and track down two additional last-minute helpers who will meet us when the boat gets in to Manhattan.

1:30 Lunch – inhaled in seconds. And within seconds I’ve forgotten what it was.

2:00 Sara leaves with a mountain of event supplies – I wish I’d taken a picture, she looked like such a hobo!

Sara

2:00 I’m living the glamorous life — hanging on to event bag, signs, ice tubs and more while I hail a cab to the ferry terminal.

2:45 Arrive in NJ. Have to meet a delivery of the client’s product. You can never have enough client product at a party.

3:00 On the boat, meet & greet the boat staff. Start directing the team on how to decorate, hang signs, make the specialty cocktail of the night, and generally run the show. But wait — why is the boat rocking side to side like a bathtub toy? Food is flying, bottles tipping over. How are we ever going to set up? Thank God I don’t get seasick easily.

Laura

3:30 Kmart. Run into The World’s Laziest Cashier, who refuses to find the price of the stuff we need. Makes me wonder, do these people want to make any money? Inform cashier to find a manager so I can buy and leave.

3:45 Steal a cab — yes, I admit it — and race down to the NY Waterway dock to catch the ferry. On the ferry, I meet the awesome Pandora DJ we’ve hired for the event. Once I find our boat in New Jersey, I put bags and items down, and the boat starts rocking like it is the Titanic. The bar goes flying, plates are sliding everywhere – waiting for someone to say, “Iceberg ahead.” Turns out that every time the other ferries pass by, the waves literally rock the boat 45 degrees each way. The boat crew assures us that this will not happen when we get to NY. I choose to believe. (But isn’t this similar to what the crew on the Titanic said?)

Sara

4:30 Laura and Derrick arrive to help set everything up. The boat keeps rocking. We realize we don’t have the right supplies to hang the signs, which are really important because the clients need to see their names everywhere. The boat crew is amazing and somehow they figure out a way to make it work. Life as seaman, I suppose.

Laura

5:00 Boat set-up, some MacGyver magic to get the client signage up. There are going to be food and drinks on the boat ride, especially drinks, and lots of music — I hope they dance.

Sara

6:00 Sailing to NYC side to pick up guests. Change into my outfit, put on make-up. Get party-ready. The crew was right — the boat has quit rocking.

Laura

6:15 Change into my outfit, put on make-up. Guests are arriving in 30 minutes.

6:30 We arrive in port in Manhattan and set-up the check-in table. I open a box of nicely printed name badges and the wind promptly blows them into the Hudson. Didn’t I see this on an I Love Lucy rerun?

Sara

6:30 Get photographer to start documenting the event. We pose with Bonin Bough, Global Director of Social & Digital Media at Pepsico (above, center).

6:35 There’s a new check-in plan — get everybody on the boat as fast as possible, since we only have 30 minutes before we leave the dock

6:45 Make sure DJ fires up the music. Open bar begins. Hors d’oeuvres are served.

7:10 Everyone is on the boat, all 205 of them, and we’re under way. Everyone is having a great time!

Laura

8:15 Pass the Pepsi sign, and discover we have a mass Foursquare check in – 404. That’s more people than are on the boat.

9:15 Boat returns to NY and drops everyone off, but us. I realize we’re going to have to go back to NJ because we have a bunch of signs, bowls, etc., that can’t stay on the boat, and there’s no time to take them down before we leave the dock.

10:30 Get dropped off at the NJ ferry, next ferry isn’t till midnight.

Sara

10:30 Nick, my husband tries to get us a cab back to the NY. They won’t do it. Impossible, they say. We offer them $75 – now they will.

Laura

11:00 Head back to NY, we’re going to have a Dflash sleep over at Sara’s house because it’s way to late to try and get back to my house.

12:30 Arrive at Sara’s in Brooklyn. Time for some sleep- we’ve got a class to teach tomorrow!!