Small wins and EPIC fails...such is the life of an entrepreneur.

Today was our big launch into the world! Bill started the day at noon ET with a show in the Strategy lane. From a programming perspective, he decided to schedule gaps on the calendar where the commercials would play. First commercial slot came and went with nothing playing.

As I sat looking at the gaps, I wondered what would trigger the commercials to play. A quick search in our broadcasting platform help files determined that we simply needed to put a check on the default playlist. Voila...commercials! Winning!

Next on the docket was my first live broadcast as a DJ on our new station. Geared up and ready to go, I watched the clock tick down. Two minutes until show time! As I glanced away from the broadcast clock my eye caught my computer time in the lower left hand corner of my computer screen. What? I was late for the start of my broadcast. The countdown timer was not in sync with real time somehow? I don’t know exactly, but it felt like I was doing the show blind. Not having a timeclock to know when to stop for automatic breaks is literally doing the show blind. I finally got my timeclock under control and enjoyed spending time on air. 

I finished my show and Bill was back in the hot seat. It seemed like a smooth transition until we started to hear another simultaneous broadcast under his live show. The true professional he is, Bill kept on doing the show as I sat in the background trying to figure out what was going on. DELETE, DELETE, DELETE! May Day, May Day...we’re going down.

Troubleshooting began. Was it the schedule I updated for the show? The default playlist? What was happening? Then I saw it. On the dashboard there is a section of queue recordings to play instead of a playlist. One by one they kept showing up and playing as Bill tried to deliver live content. One by one I cleared the queue but there was a lag time that overlapped in the broadcast. Finally Bill decided to take us off air so we could regroup. We are now running recordings of quality content from past recorded shows until this glitch is figured out. 

Epic fail.

The lesson? In any business, especially a launch of global proportions, there are bound to be glitches. Small hiccups and epic fails like the one that shut down our station today. That’s what we signed up for. It’s the risk we entrepreneurs take every day. An epic fail is only a failure when we don’t get up, brush ourselves off and get back in the ring. Talk to you again soon, live from igbr.network.

Join us and let's do the ups and downs together, Come Grow With Us.

Author

Donna Kunde
Marketing, Sales & Services Manager