Lowering the entry barrier into officiating

 Like many sports, Swimming - no, like most sports there continues to be a decline in the availability of officials for competition. 2020 and 2021 were tough years, losing so many sporting events a good number of existing officials simply stepped away from the activity for one reason or another. Three years later, I've seen a small increase in swimming - across both state, WIAA swimming & diving officials as well as Wisconsin Swimming (LSC) for clubs across the state. 

This increase is no where near what we need. I enjoy working 12-15 high school girl and 10-12 high school boy meets along with 8-10 club meets a year. But there is a constant ask for coverage - someone is sick, working, or another personal reason causes them to have to backout. Unfortunately it's really hard to get another official to help.

Enough on that challenge of availability - one of the reasons I hear about from parents and other officials is the effort it takes to get trained, certified and recertified. In the past it was a 2-3 hour meeting in some location that you had to drive to. Covid changed this - those meetings became virtual meaning now you just sit down at your home or local coffee shop and jump on zoom and listen. 

Both of these were awkward to most folks. They didn't know the people hosting the training. They lacked experience and felt uncomfortable talking, let alone turning on their camera. These meetings usually dragged on with someone talking endlessly. Topics were not always spot on the training material and sometimes didn't provide enough content to make the person feel more confident. Worse is training from one state to another would be taught differently so you may learn things differently or not learn at all in some situations. 

This made the entry for new officials very challenging to overcome. I personally saw the difference between Florida and Wisconsin. It wasn't night and day - but there were very obvious differences that I had to accept and at times tactfully try to influence change in. More on this later. 

Enter 2024 and the new online training videos from USA Swimming. It's a welcome change from those in person and virtual meetings. You do have to create a free account but after that you can access the online videos, for Foundations of Swimming, Concussion Protocol, Athlete Protection and the meet of the trainings, Stroke & Turn, Starter, Referee, Administrative Official. These videos now provide a clear, consistent standard for all officials across the entirety of USA Swimming. I applaud USA Swimming for this monumental shift it is something that other organizations have done for years and will now set the state LSC on a common path to not force different trainings or requirements on individuals. 

USA Swimming Officials Training Dashboard

My hope is that parents, guardians and young adults will jump in and watch the videos for two reasons. The first, to understand the role of the officials and to better understand how rules are enforced and how to help talk with their children when they are disqualified from an event. Second, I'm hoping it gives these folks the desire to step up and complete their deck apprenticeships and complete the open book test. This could drastically increase the number of officials available. Reducing the burden on myself and other long term officials from having to officiate most weekends and many evenings during high schools easons.

I also hope that it changes the mindset of the LSC leadership. These boards are designed to take the rules, policies and direction of the USA Swimming board and apply them at the state level. But lessening the possibility of setting their own variations of the rules and interpretations of the same rules. It'll also give our swimmers a more fair "playing field" when the officials at any level and any location are trained to the same standards.

To get deeper into the discussion of declining officials numbers and the differences I have personally seen between two different state LSCs follow me on my podcast, feel free to comment here or on X or on my podcast. 

https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/betweenthelanelines

See you on pool deck. 

Getting Back to the Basics

Finally getting some time to do real development work. NewRelic and Azure Monitoring. Followed by Azure DevOps Certification later this year.

Priority is Shopify Plus integration with GTM not playing nicely. Look for some updates on getting Single Page App triggers working and cross domain tracking based on good documentation from GTM experts.

Oh and check out this deal...$500 for Jimmy Johns, now that's awesome.

https://www.quikly.com/jimmyjohns/s/jJMVOwvW?utm_content=blogger

Todays Online Convservation Challenges and Success Stories

In light of today's stay at home, work from home, quarantine mind sets has given rise to more than just text and email communications now to full video chats and group meetings. We have always been a people who thrive off face to face discussions given the growth of apps and other technologies. There is so much more we express through our body language and facial expressions. Not to mention the loss of social iteration when we just talk over a voice based system.

As many of us have jumped on the bandwagon of using Zoom, WebEx, Teams and dozens more of video conferencing systems we have moved to an unstructured method of interacting. And most importantly have not paid attention to the risks and challenges that come with these tools. They are not necessarily a dangerous technology, however our lack of understanding how to deploy and use them is what can be dangerous.

How do you find the right tool for your audience? Do you need just audio. Do you need group or individual chat? Do you need to share file? Do you need "broadcast" video for a single person to a group? Do you need full group discussion for 5, 10 or 500 people? And do you mind if the information becomes publicly available through Google, Yahoo or Facebook?

Some services may take your meeting discussion, notes, documents and make them publicly available. Your meeting may be publicly available by default for others to join. Read about the story this week from California this week where several schools were #zoombombing interrupted the education experience with profane and disgusting content.

Be smart. Talk to your IT expert. Take time to read through all of the "Settings" in the application. If you don't know what something means like "Chime on Entry" then ask on Twitter or another platform or to other users. Do a dry run of the meeting between your phone & computer or someone else and see the experience from a "host" and a "participant". Learn what it means to use a password with your meeting or a waiting room?

If you are going to hand over the meeting to another host then practice that so you know what to expect in terms of delay on the screen and experience on the screen. Be cautious when you start using a new technology, especially when it comes to work.

Reaching the Audience at the Right Time through the Right Channel

My endeavor this year is not much different than most marketers. Find a marketing automation tool that will improve my overall campaign effectiveness, be easy to use and finally complete the mapping of the customers' journey, through that elusive term Omnichannel Marketing. Easy, right?

Well the market place is full. Check out anyone's Marketing Automation Landscape infographic and you'll become dizzy with the enormous number of toolsets available. And that's not the complete list, there are dozens more that didn't make the landscape graphic...maybe we start building it in a panoramic view.

The challenges I face are similar if not exactly the same as everyone else. And the market has too many tools that are nice, look good but can they do the job. That's the problem. I read case studies, watch Vimeo and YouTube videos showing a specific use case for a specific vertical. Of course it's not a one-stop shop, you plug it in, turn it on, and campaigns start flowing. There's integration, workflows and strategies to build & monitor. But, we all have the same underlying needs. Be able to easily build our own templates, drag & drop the features and modules, segment the universe and send to tens of thousands at once.

What we need is to find the partner, that understands the in's & out's of the marketing automation landscape and determine who can satisfy our specific quarks and meet our goals & requirements. The sales talks are all the same, products do basically the same, or have easy enough integrations. What I need is that partner who will bring to forefront the toolset & vendor that will do it and do it to my liking & grow with me as my business changes.

What about you? How are you working to complete the omnichannel? Do you have a data plan? Do you have a content marketing plan? Do you know what channels are important to your customers?

Where have all of the volunteer leaders gone?

Volunteer groups like the Boy Scouts of America function and exist because there are adult leaders. At its core they are the reason the boys keep coming back, especially in cubs scouts. The adults brainstorm and commit program activities like camping, community service, fundraising and education to name a few. Without them the boys would be unable to function.

Sitting at a recent district commissioner meeting I was singled out as one of those 'young' parents, though I don't consider that true as I'm nearly 40. But looking around the room everyone was 50, 60, 65 years old or older. I was the young guy. But wait, my sons are in third & fifth grade. Where are the new Tiger parents, those young 30ish adults??? Aren't they also planning and running cub events? Why am I the sole adult in their 30's taking part in planning the years program for our 800+ scouts?


I read recently the young parents are now called the Connected generation. They thrive on Instagram and Facebook. Opting for a text rather than a call. They don't do paper newsletters, phone trees and old fashion calendars. But something else is happening, they are not driving the planning and execution of the bigger events. Are they intimidated or scared to step up? I will be honest, I only have 5 years of Scouting knowledge, not 40 or 50 years like some of my peers. And I was quiet and reserved my first few months as a commissioner. But I was learning, who the thought leaders were, who was the performer and who posed a challenge to work with...let's not forget these adults have decades of experience so they tend to push their agenda.

Out of 30 active cub units I have one or two adults in this age bracket who help. That is help with a project or event. Not at the strategy and planning level with the district. Why?

Over the next four months I M going to try something different at Roundtable. I'm going to challenge the cub adults who attend to take on chairman ship of an event like pinewood derby or On Target or Friends Of Scouting. Not as a direct assignment. But more as a challenge to keep scouting fun and make it fun and interesting for the young adults. This includes opening up our private Facebook page to encourage them to post events and videos, not just photos and training reminders. Utilize snapchap and Instagram to drive home the reason why we are here. To make the program safe and fun.

Home Away from Home

It is interesting to hear what families do when they go on a vacation. Being in the heart of tourist central...Orlando we have done the parks. Not in the typical 4 day flash where most families are pressed to get into and experience each and every ride and experience. Leaving the fourth evening excited and exhausted. But rather quick and targeted trips, visiting the critical rides. If we find one is too busy or shut down we know we can hit it the next trip.

In my experience I'm taking a step back. In my childhood we did those items but we also did something else. We got out away from it all. Experiencing the "Real Florida" TM. This  year we have already experienced five trips. Two were not your run of the mill woods adventures. They were a night on the outfield for the Daytona Tortugas (Reds minor league) field. Scout day as it's known has become a tradition. Hot, long games, popcorn & movie and a experience under the stars. This year it got exciting at 3AM when the sprinklers kicked on for about 5 minutes. The other was a traditional camp out at Daytona International Speedway for Scout Days during the Roar Before the 24. Hundreds of scouts and families from all over the area converge on the infield for a three day camp out. There's something awesome about hearing the roar of the engines as cars test and prepare for the endurance race in late January. And seeing hundreds of boys learning skills, taking part in adventures and making new friends.

Now I see that Vantage Hotels is doing a promotion to get families out and help with road trips. I'm getting ready to do one of these later this month as the family drives north to Maryland. For a 5 day experience of seeing the DC area museums, baseball and hiking trails. Let's see maybe I can help some extra spending money...

Go ahead and enter, maybe you can too #homeawayfromhome http://virl.io/vokDRaTr

Cub Scout Year Round Recruitment

What is a leader to do when they are asked to focus on year round recruitment? We have heard the news, overall declining numbers of new youth joining Scouting. Why? In my opinion it's due to our ever changing loves. Sports, academics, friends, parental jobs, I am sure you can provide me with at least five more.

Well as the round table commissioner for Three Rivers District in Central Florida I'm dealing with the same challenge as everyone else. My own pack has had dwindling enrollment, we lose scouts throughout the year. But how do we keep going?

Year round activities, including Summer Time activities. Well I have two ideas, one is to provide an incentive to scouts for bringing friends to scouting. And a second is to promote inter pack activities.

The first is simple, tell your scouts, if you bring in at least one friend who joins you automatically earn the Recruitment patch, but you also get to enjoy a pizza or ice cream party with your fellow scouts. Bring in at least three friends and you get free admission to a special scouting event. In my district its the On Target for Scouting event, a full day of all shooting and action events. Bring five or more friends into scouting and earn a free camping weekend at our local scout ranch.

The district net members and other pack leaders like the idea, I just need to get it approved at the council.


The other activity is one of my wood badge tickets, setup a inter pack sports event. Just one time, have the boys get together and earn a loop, have fun, get to know each other and enjoy friendship. In my case I've expanded it to include all packs. But instead of managing it all push the leaders to talk with other leaders and setup their own events. Nothing like this is happening today.

If you are doing either of these at your local district or council let me know. I want to help not only my own pack but also my district expand its reach into the community and provide a great program to the youth.

To Ooma or not Ooma

I have been thinking about dropping my home VoIP service with BrightHouse. There have only been a few times over the last 6 years where the services was less than desirable. But the main factor is the damn price. VoIP is VoIP why like other service providers do the continue to charge so much?

I have looked at spinning up my own Asterisk server, yea its all pretty straight forward but I really don't want to rely on just my skills and time. Products like Ooma on the other hand are so tempting.

I just checked the Amazon reviews and they have a huge majority of 5 star ratings. And my gmail had an offer from Ooma (direct marketing at its best) for 50% off! Now that's a bargain. If I pay $99 for the product I can port my local number for about $32. And then pay a mere $4 per month in Uncle Sam taxes.

After a few months I would have basically cut even when compared to BH. and then its just extra money in the family budget there after.

Now what about 911 and Internet outages?? Well my home security has built in cell backup. So with or without it will still call. If all cell coverage is down then we are all out of luck. And there are hot buttons on my security panel that will let the family call directly to EMS, fire and police. So I am not overly concerned.

Regular cell service is sketchy at best inside the house with both Sprint 3G and Verizon 4G. So that's just a crap shoot. Oh and there is the occasional Fax...yea still need that for work.


I really think I might go for Ooma, try their pre selected number or maybe port my Google Voice and try it for 30 days. If it sucks then I'll return it. Otherwise its bye-bye BrightHouse.

Wowza and Haivision Streaming

Producing live audio broadcasts for 3000 to 5000 listeners can be a big challenge. Shoutcast or Nicecast were good for mp3 streams with about 900 listeners. Enter Amazon, Akamai and other CDNs and you have an infrastructure to reach a larger listener ship. My challenge was limited budget and a relatively diverse environment of encoders and listening devices. With no set standard to reach all. Enter Haivision and now Wowza. It used to be Amazon and Akamai cloud encoders were leaders. But the cost was too prohibited. Haivision and Wowza now use a common engine and its simple to setup and use. Produce just a single RTMP stream and their applications have user interfaces where you type in a few URLs and click start. Within 30 seconds you can hear the stream and see the crystal clear video. The biggest challenge is multibit rate needs, multiple protocols and last mile connectivity. It appears that Akamai has this handled with additional edge servers to help 3G/4G coverage. I'm sure Level3, MirrorImage and other CDNs are following suite. 2014 brings a renewed challenge. Delivering a single RTMP stream but output it through a single transcoder. And deliver it with multibit rate support. And venue coverage of WiFi and 3G/4G will also be enhanced, so I suspect to see a few thousand more listeners each day! What challenges has live streaming brought to you?

A little Wood Badge

I wrote earlier this years out my latest experiences with Scouting. Well I took the plunge and signed up for Wood Badge. It is touted as the best training available if you want to be a superior Scouter. Well it is much more than that. I have been blessed over my career to have taken several training and leadership courses. Several we're really thought provoking, educational and overall well led. Wood Badge is much more. Here in Central Florida the leadership is built strong from the top down. So much so that two courses are offered each year! And they always have a large group of attendees. In S4-83-13-2 it was no different. From the scoutmaster to the SPL Michael, and all of the ASM staff, quartermasters and group guides it was really well done. If you work in a corporate environment or are a Scout leader looking for more then WB might be for you. 6 days of training, camping, team work, and self reflection. Oh and you still need to work, have a family and find time for anything else. But as a Scouter you learn to adapt. Now it's all about putting the skills to work, evoking excitement with the team and attaining your goals. I don't want to say WB is not for everyone. Just the opposite, it is here when you are ready to take the next big step. And when you do decide to take the plunge please make sure you have fun. Yes it's important training but it is also about building friendship, teamwork and enjoying life. I was a Bobwhite S4-83-13-2 I am going to work my ticket if I can...

Indian Call Center Scammers

Well it's happening again. Around 11:45 pm and the phone rings. Awaken from my slumber and I hear the voice..."your computer is going to crash can I help you", asks the voice. Huh, I respond. And this time I slam the phone down. Just what is going on? Seriously, Google Indian hone center scammers and you will find a lot of similar stories. I didn't believe it myself the first time. These guys will call and pretend they work for Microsoft or that they are simply with 'tech support'. All they want you to do is give up access to your computer, from which they will likely install software to steal your identity. It's been a number of months since they have last called. Beware, don't let your guard down. And if they call either give them hell. Or play along and work them good. I did that the time before and it really got them pissed.

New challenges, new adventures, Do Your Best!

My third year as a scout leader is now getting underway. Seems like just yesterday Matt was putting on his tiger uniform and I was stepping up to be his den leader. This past year was much more challenging, starting a new pack, becoming committee chair and then district round table chairman. And to top Italy off, Cub Scout leader of the year. What a whirlwind adventure. It's true scouting is a full time job. Always getting asked to help, or should I say voluntold. Then balancing unit needs, district needs, family and of course work. You can't take it for granted, scouting is so much more than that. I am there for the boys; mine, my friends and those that may not the support of their family. My next challenge has already begun, Wood Badge. It's the embodiment of Scouting. The ultimate leadership training that helps to make you a well rounded person. Over the next three weeks I'll be writing my 10 ticket ideas. Then I get to spend two weekends with my peers working toward five SMART goals. With their support I will work these five items for the next 18 months. All to become a better leader, supporter, father and person.

Sitecore RichText Commands Custom Media Library

My last post discussed a unique setup where we needed to point the Sitecore Media Library (Insert Sitecore Item) to a different root folder based on the website. We have a multi-site implementation. All have their own distinct Media (Images, Video, Audio & Documents). If we didn't there would be nearly 180,000 items in these folders. To get 6.3.0 to work the following changes need to be made. in sitecore\shell\Controls\Rich Text Editor\RichText Commands.js add the following to the RadEditorCommandList["InsertSitecoreMedia"] = function(commandName, editor, tool):

var editedItemId = ''; if ((document.location) && (document.location.search)) { var qStr = top.location.search.substring(1); var keyValList = qStr.split("&"); for (var i=0; i 1) { if (splitPair[0] == "id") { //Value was already escaped, no need to unescape and re-escape editedItemId = splitPair[1]; } } } } } And then I had to add to the query string variables of editor.ShowDialog: + (editedItemId ? "&editedItemId=" + editedItemId : "")

This will allow Sitecore to check for an existing item and go directly to it in the Content Tree. Otherwise it will default to the current sites Media folder. Really simply to implement and makes managing 300,000 items of content much easier.

Sitecore RadEditor and Multisite Media Library

Currently working through an upgrade from 6.0.1 to 6.4.1 yea we are a little behind but we need to catch up and start using some of the features. We have 18 sites in a single Sitecore instance. And about 250,000 items in that tree. During the upgrade process our problem and so far only one we have run into is our custom Media Library. Each site has its own Media folder with a separate Images, Videos, and Audio folders. This makes ownership and maintenance a little easier. How did we do this? There is an override of the InsertImageForm (picture coming soon) that calls a sitecore query: similar to this.

targetPath = "query:ancestor::*[@@templateId='{18F42371-1B85-4EE1-AF6B-20F5AF81BD5D}']/Media";

This uses a technique very simliar to Alex Shyba's example on how to remember the last section when working with Media. Once we deployed 6.3 we ran into an issue where this no longer works. The query appears to be failing and we end up with the default Media Library being displayed. This means that all of our sites no longer have access to their unique media content. My mission this week is to use .NET Reflector and see what's changed in the Sitecore.Kernel.dll and how this override of InsertImageForm needs to be altered. Any suggestions?

Telerik MVC Gymnastics

Just upgraded our MVC2 to MVC3 and took advantage of the OpenSource Telerik MVC controls once again. Thanks!!

I've got a AJAX Edit Grid displaying a mixture of text boxes, combobox and dropdown list. The final product will use the Batch Editing option

.Editable(editing => editing.Mode(GridEditMode.InCell))

but I'm not quite ready for that yet.

On the latest build I added some ClientEvents to the onEdit action. If I'm inserting a new record then I disable one combobox and set it's default value.

But if I'm editing an existing row then I disable a dropdown box.

Confusing I know. But it should make managing our race information easier than the page full of dropdown boxes we're dealing with now. The page load on that is between 2-15 mintues, all depending the number of records. Yes, you read that right. But some of the dropdowns are set to have about 13,000 entries. Yes that's awful!

The new setup using the Telerik control is calling back with AJAX and bring over just a handful of records. Much cleaner code and much happier users.

Adobe Summit 2011

It was a whirlwind week in Salt Lake City for my first Summit. I have to admit the coming changes to Sitecatalyst version 15 are well need. It'll save hours of report building and data mining. The biggest surprise was their announcement of a social analytics tool. Now we can see real-time over 40+ social networks what's happening with our brands and our marketing projects.

I myself found the Tech Tracks very interesting. Though they were weaker than I would have liked. I know it's their first dive into the topics, hopefully next year they can put more time and effort into more geeky code samples and more hands on labs. I know it would make my life much easier.

One of the best features of the break out sessions is the inclusion of actual customers and partners. It's nice to see how they are succeeding or failing in the social/media space. Makes me feel a little better that we're not alone.

I will be posting some additional information as we start to implement some of the items I learned about. And I'll let you know what the experience was like.

Speediatrics Finishes Strong

I had the unfortunately chance at spending four days and nights at the hospital. Well, let's not confuse the situation. My wife spent the entire time at the hospital while I drove to home each night for four days to feed the dog and exchange clothing for her and our daughter.

There, now that that is out of the way, why were we there? The exact cause to Liz's sickness has not been found. But for six days she would not eat more than a few crackers and sip just an ounce or two of liquid. Oh and she was having some extreme diarrhea. When I say extreme let's say my fraternity brothers and their antics couldn't hold a stick to my 15 month old girl.

We ended up being frequent visitors to our pediatrician. Way more than I wanted. And our GI doctor couldn't figure out what was wrong either. Everyone said she had some redness in her throat but everything else was fine. So the GI ordered some blood work and there started the trek.

We made two trips to our local Labcorp only to spend 3.5 hours waiting and trying to draw blood. No luck! So I took her to another location the next day and after another two hours of waiting and trying still nothing. So what did I do...I went to another Labcorp. Only to find we still couldn't draw anything except screams and cries from Liz.

So I made the trek back to the pediatrician. After the fifth visit he said he would admit her to the hospital for fluids and an attempt to draw blood. From that afternoon we had an IV flowing adn several more attempts at drawing but no luck still.

We finally had the pediatric intensive care surgeon draw from her femoral artery in her thigh. That worked! Poor girls has more needle marks and bruises than I can count. If anyone were to see her arms or legs they would immediately call the Child and Family services and have us taken away. But after four long, grueling days we got four IV's into her and were told to go home.

Akamai - Sitecore and CCU Web Services

I just wrapped up work to integrate the Akamai Content Control Utility webservices and automatic purging from Sitecore.

Using the Telerik RadFileExplorer and some crafty C# code I am now able to trigger content purging from the Sitecore Desktop. Just created the service object, collected the parameters and called the webservice.

Pretty cool, I even get an email once the purge has been completed.

//create the purgeResult object
X.Web.Isc.UI.ServiceReference1.PurgeResult r = new X.Web.Isc.UI.ServiceReference1.PurgeResult();
X.Web.Isc.UI.ServiceReference1.PurgeApiClient a;

a = new X.Web.Isc.UI.ServiceReference1.PurgeApiClient();
string[] options = new string[4];
string[] uri = new string[1];

//get the login credential and other data for Akamai from the web.config
options[0] = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["AkamaiCCUEmail"].ToString();
options[1] = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["AkamaiCCUAction"].ToString();
options[2] = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["AkamaiCCUType"].ToString();
options[3] = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["AkamaiCCUDomain"].ToString();

//build the URL to the file that was uploaded

uri[0] = "http://www.mydomain.com" + e.Path;

//request the content purge
r = a.purgeRequest(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["AkamaiCCUUserName"].ToString(), ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["AkamaiCCUPassword"].ToString(), "", options, uri);

//log the activity
X.Web.Core.Context.Current.LogMessage("Akamai CCU WebService Message: " + r.resultCode + " " + r.resultMsg + " " + r.sessionID + " " + uri[0].ToString());

}
catch (Exception ex)
{
//something didn't work so let's report the issue
X.Web.Core.Context.Current.LogMessage("Error Akamai CCU WebService Message: ", ex);
}

Adobe Omniture Marketing Suite - Mobile

I just found the mobile version for the Marketing Suite. Pretty cool that I can keep tabs on traffic real-time from my phone. But I've got 16 report suites...I can't for the life of me figure out how to switch report suites.

Any ideas?

The Crunchies - Love Social Media

I have to say, it's awesome to see people build new technologies and have the masses pick it up. I'll be putting my brain power to use and dive into this world at some point.