Editing The Pen Addict 732/transcript (section)

== Pelican Hubs ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right, Myke. You ready to move forward? Because we got to, like, turn this bus around 180 degrees right from the jump.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Okay. Myke, have you heard of Pelican Hubs?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yes. I mean, I know them. We talk about them all the time.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, boy. If you're in the stationary world and you have not heard of Pelican Hubs before the past week, I imagine that you've heard of them now.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Even, Brad, I was aware of this.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I won't say it's broken contain. It's still, like, a very stationary-focused issue. But it just, it definitely propagated, I would say, through the stationary sphere pretty heavily. And for good reason. As it has become known now, this is officially being called the 2026 Pelican Flubs. Because they really did not do a good job this year. So, a little bit of background on what a hub is, what a Pelican Hub is, if you're just joining the podcast for the first time or not familiar. The short version is, I guess, for the last, I don't know, maybe eight to ten years, I didn't look at the total amount. I think it might be since 2016. So, probably coming up on ten years, nine years. Pelican, the stationary brand, the company, has supported a day throughout the calendar, a one day where they support communities all around the world in a get-together. Right? Like, they will have someone running the event. Like, this is all volunteer-based, no charge. Volunteer-based community event to celebrate. You know, Pelican is a corporation. They're putting it on. So, obviously, it's focused. They're meetups, right? They're, like, stationary meetups, essentially. Stationary meetup.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But under the Pelican banner.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. But it's really a community event for any stationary, right? But Pelican is running this. And it's a great thing. It's, like, everyone really enjoys the hubs because there's a lot of times maybe you'll get a hub in a town that doesn't have a pen show or doesn't have a stationary shop but has a big enough community to get ten people at a house. And then Pelican would support that by sending each hub and the attendees, like, a small gift package. In the past, it has been, like, entire full bottles of ink. You know, as the numbers have grown, I think that became a little bit more of a challenge, you know, just by the volume. And that's what ended up coming into play this time. So, that's kind of the baseline of it. You know, it's a Pelican-supported community meetup. All free. All volunteer run. Pelican doesn't charge for this. There's no charge. The only time, like, a host might charge is if, like, the hub master might have to rent out a space, like, say, in a restaurant. And they might want $5 or $10 for attendees. Like, that's not Pelican-driven. That could just be maybe you're in a larger community that needs a big space. And I think people would be open to that. So, anyway, what happened this year is they hit the magic number of sign-ups, except that magic number, being 10,000 people, was not publicly.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Is it? Is it? It might be more than that, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, in that, like, there had been some leadership change as well?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, yeah. Well, we're good. Yeah. We'll definitely talk about that. Because, honestly, I think that's where the issue arose. Okay. So, what happened was sign-ups happen. Let's say it was, like, it was later this year. It was, like, maybe in May for the September event. That's why this came up now, because the event usually happens, like, on a Friday in late September. So, unbeknownst to anyone signing up, Pelican had a 10,000-person limit. And the way they described the limit is for the gift bags, essentially. Okay? Pelican's donating all of this.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because it's like a bottle of ink, right? Yeah. It's a pretty significant thing that they give for free to people, I think.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. Yes. The issue, in retrospect, as we go through this, is no one was aware of this number before. Or, it was not, when you signed up, it didn't say first 10,000 people kind of thing, right? Or limited to 10,000 people. So, keep that in the back of your mind as we go through this. That wasn't in there. So, what happened, like, I think it was last Friday? Last Thursday or Friday, emails started showing up to everyone who signed up. Well, not everyone who signed up. To people who signed up. And when you sign up, you can choose to be an attendee. Or you can choose to be a hub master. So, there's essentially two different categories, okay? You can say, hey, I'm going to go, you know, Brad, I'm going to go be an attendee to the Atlanta Pelican Hub, okay? And then someone has said, hey, I'm going to be the hub master for the Atlanta Hub. And those are two different categories. So, what happened is this magic number was hit. And Pelican, how they did this is still unknown. And they're, we'll get to it later, but they're saying it was, like, a data error. They started sending out emails disinviting people to the events. Like, saying essentially, not that, oh, yeah, you didn't get in, which that's already a problem. But they were saying you're actively, actively been removed from the event. And this included hub masters, too.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, reminder, this is a free event. Like, there is no such thing as denying people the opportunity to go. So, they didn't do a good job of saying everyone's still invited, but we only have X number of gift bags for your location. Yeah. Which is where they, that was, like, the first miss.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think that was what they were actually trying to say, right? It's like, you're not invited, but we all know a big reason that you're coming is for the gift and you're not going to get it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And the email that they sent was, like, very aggressive. Like, I'd have to pull it up. I have so many texts and things. But it was, in short, it was, like, you are disinvited. It didn't say disinvited, but I forget the exact terminology. But it was, like, you are no longer attending this event. And that included hub masters, too. On top of that, they start, they removed a bunch of cities from the opportunity to host an event because of just, like, data. In the end, it was data areas. So, like, Myke, I don't know if you know this, but, like, in the U.S., and I'm sure in other parts of the world, sometimes a city named Columbia can be in Maryland while also being in South Carolina.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm not sure if you're aware of that. Because Pelican didn't seem to be. So, people in Maryland might have gotten their Columbia hub canceled, but also then invited to the one in South Carolina. Let's just, this is all to say it was a huge mess. And everyone was upset.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This, to me, seems pretty clear that their excuse of it was a data processing issue is obvious based upon things like this. Right? Like, the fact that people were getting the, you can't come, that is, like, an automated trigger. The fact that there were some places, like, there was clearly a data issue. Like, clearly a data issue. I found the wording, by the way. It says, because of the limit, the 10,000 participant limit, we're deeply sorry to inform you that we cannot honor your registration for this edition.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. So, it's basically, like, denied. Yeah. Denied. So, to your point, and this is, this goes, this is a universal thing, not a Pelican hubs thing. It's not the problem that you caused. It's how you handle it. Right? So, they clearly screwed up. There was clearly an issue. There was clearly a mistake. And they just didn't say anything. Like, they sent out all, all of these emails and didn't say boo to anyone on what's happening, why this is happening. Oh, ignore this. This was a huge error. They just let it fester for, like, four days. So, it was, like, everyone was, like, obviously upset. Right? Because.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Look, you know me, right? Mm-hmm. Myke Hurley, Defender of the Corporation, which I think is what I take on this show so often. Yes. Four days is not that long if you're trying to work out what has happened.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, you, I just, I just disagree. Because the first email is, hey, something happened. Please ignore that. We're going to try to fix whatever this issue is. Well, but that's assuming that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' How long did it take me to realize that there was a problem? Like, there are a lot.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think pretty quickly.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay.