Digital yearbook brought us together after 50 years
While preparing for the golden jubilee celebrations of our batch, we thought a 50-year separation could best be bridged by making a digital yearbook asking all our batch-mates to give details of their ‘journey through life’ and compiling these pages in the form of a diary complete with updated addresses and the latest phone numbers.
This was never going to be easy. When five of us were tasked to develop a digital yearbook, we were bewildered. What was a yearbook all about, not to mention a digital version? How were we to get started? One of the group members promptly opted out, claiming she wanted to ‘chill’ and not be burdened with work specially when out to celebrate a golden jubilee event! Another member enthusiastically posted a coffee table book circulated by an earlier batch. This really was the start point. Our group promptly decided to make a digital version similar to the coffee table book, only make it better to be ‘one-up’ on the previous batch.
Easier said than done. How were we to start, considering two of us were in the US, and the rest spread all over India? It was Google Meet every Wednesday to the rescue, though it took us two weeks to agree on a mutually convenient time across the geographies. Navigating through pitfalls, we eventually agreed on a time and had our first meeting. But 90% of the meeting was spent on figuring out when to have the next meeting? Which day of the week? How long and so on. As for a digital yearbook: What was that?
Several meetings later, with ‘gupshup’ about old friends and discussions on the good old ’70s, taking up 95% of the time, the digital yearbook got to be discussed for barely five minutes. But our Wednesday meetings became a habit. After all, wasn’t this just like doing a project, 50 years ago in college?
One member tried to be a visionary. He was looking for hosting a yearbook on the web in perpetuity, where any member of the group could wake up at any time in the future and fill up a page. This member, the proverbial techie, volunteered to complete the architecture but took weeks of rigorous prodding before coming up with a bare format and architecture. Many weeks later when his process was made available to the group, a simple ‘beta test’ showed the colleagues who volunteered to be ‘guinea pigs’ were unable to even grasp the basic essentials. This member left the group in a huff!
His departure actually accelerated the process with the others getting the leeway to fast forward and come out with a workable solution. A quick beta test confirmed this allowing us to go to the next step of actually collecting the necessary details for compilation.
Nothing beats a set of batch-mates getting together for any task 50 years after separation. We found ourselves behaving exactly as we would in our college days, playing to each other’s strengths, struggling through deadlines, putting up with each other’s idiosyncrasies and most important having fun.
Human nature allows us to adapt to any challenge, even getting together with a disparate set of batch-mates to churn out a digital yearbook.
Priyan R Naik
WE FOUND OURSELVES BEHAVING EXACTLY AS WE WOULD IN OUR COLLEGE DAYS, PLAYING TO EACH OTHER’S STRENGTHS, STRUGGLING THROUGH DEADLINES, PUTTING UP WITH EACH OTHER’S IDIOSYNCRASIES AND MOST IMPORTANT HAVING FUN