Hello all,
The deadline for Exemplar Wave 6 is fast approaching. We will be accepting nominations up until Tuesday Aug 2nd at 23:59 PST. So find your favorite Pokestop, drop a lure module and write some nominations while you catch an Ala-kazam-dabra-pocus (Whatever it’s called; The one with the spoons). If you had one or more deferred nominations, you should now see your additional nomination slot on the screen you make nominations from.
One thing we try to do every wave is to highlight some nominations that members of the Exemplar team thought highly of. It could because the nomination was for something awesome, or the nomination itself was awesome. Below we have some of those nominations, followed by *why* a particular team member selected that nomination.
Let’s get started.
From: Nemesio Alejandro Bolaños Gutiérrez
To: Daniel Ojcius
Dani, tu participación en el RPTQ y last chance el pasado Febrero en santiago fue ejemplar, la rompiste levantando el espíritu del equipo en especial el sábado donde era un día mas pesado físicamente. Quisiera destacar que en la preparación de ambos días tus comentarios e ideas me dieron exactamente a la dirección que queríamos llegar, como el plan de publicaciones y como llevaste a la perfección el procedimiento de fin de ronda en un floor que tenía un piso dividido. Incluso ayudaste a notar una discrepancia en el testimonio de una investigación que logro resolverla rápidamente. Muy buen trabajo pulse, enfocate siempre y recuerda siempre hacer de cada torneo una experiencia de aprendizaje! Un Abrazo!
Translation
Dani, your work during the RPTQ and Last Chance Qualifier last February was Exemplar. You were outstanding in keeping the team’s mood high, especially on Saturday, which was a very physically demanding day. I’d like to highlight how during the preparation for both days, your comments and ideas helped me find the direction I wanted to take, like the plan for pairings, and how perfectly you managed the end of round procedure in a venue with a split floor. You even helped by noticing a discrepancy in a testimony during an investigation that allowed us to resolve it quickly. Excellent work, Pulse, keep being focused all the time, and don’t forget to make of every tournament a learning opportunity. Hugs!
The nomination discusses various points that made an impact in the judge writing the nomination and others who were present at the event. It highlights several positive contributions, like helping to keep the team’s spirits high, and offering ideas during the preparation for the event. It’s very specific, calling out those things that Daniel did during the day.
From: Francisco Jose Plana Caballero
To: Jose Tamargo
En las ultimas conferencias de liderazgo me explicates el como gestionas la zona de los arbitros, y me ayudaste a ver un posible mejora en la forma en la cual yo lo llevaba, si uno piensa que lo hace bien, pero de repente alguien le hace ver que se puede mejorar es un punto muy a favor para ese alguien, en este caso tu Jose, por eso creo que te mereces este exemplar
Translation
In the last leadership conference, you explained to me how you manage your subregion, and you helped me find a way to potentially improve how I handle mine. If you believe that you’re taking good care of something, and suddenly someone else makes you understand that you can improve, that’s a huge contribution. That’s what you did in this situation, José, and that’s why I believe you deserve this Exemplar.
From:CJ Crooks Throughout an event weekend there are a lot of issues that arise or things that happen that make judges and staff lose some of their excitement. Tone plays a large part in the player experience and I want to commend your ability to stay enthusiastic/smiling from start to stop. I had several players mention that you were accessible and helpful to them during the weekend. Hope you know how much your attitude affects others. From:Zachary DeLadurantaye It’s much easier to learn from failures than successes. Stefan helped me take a successful performance in my first team lead role and offered a ton of perspective that allowed me to make the work for me. He was beyond insightful and was an awesome addition to my team. Next level mentorship, From:Erick Carlsted Brandon, you head judged SCG states in Minneapolis, and you were awesome. Overturning a judge ruling is never an easy thing to do, and you did it like a champ. Not only did you defuse a bad situation between the players, From: David de la Iglesia Sigo quedando boquiabierto con la calidad de tu trabajo y con lo fácil que haces que parezca todo lo que hacemos en el Graphic Design Gang cuando pasa por tus manos. En concreto esta vez tu trabajo renovando el branding del Magic Judge Network ha sido rápido, preciso, y en definitiva excelente. Moltes gràcies, senyor! Translation: From:Arthur Halavais In a productive meeting, the Southwest Region area captains met and decided to put together a project to offer the region’s judges branded items, contributing to a more close-knit community in what is a wide geographic area and helping to create a foundation for more support towards community resources and backend. Then, in a display of usual meeting protocols, most of the attendees thought someone else had it handled and put it out of their mind. You though wrangled together all of the resources and people needed and managed them through not just one but multiple branded SW Judges items, and have created a system that is self sustaining and functional, and have spent a great deal of your time and energy to do so. Thank you. This nomination fits our criteria from the guidelines completely. It’s specific, clearly identifies an issue and how the nominee solved it along with highlighting the nominee even created a system to ensure the problem doesn’t re-occur. These types of problems with regional projects getting stymied happens all the time and the judges who step in to ensure they get completed and even better, are repeatable, are certainly a perfect example of what I’d call exemplary. While this nomination is centered towards an issue from a very narrow event, an area captain meeting of the Southwest, it’s certainly relevant to judging because lots of regions have issues with regionally branded items or other regional initiatives. Finally, the representation of the behavior is done well in this nomination, you clearly see something that you can learn from this and behavior that is inspirational and worthy of modeling after. Awesome job on the nomination Arthur; and awesome job on the behavior Angela! From: Mikaël Rabie Je lis des recognitions de la vague 4, et je vois de manière récurrente des textes écrits par ta personne, transmis par un intermédiaire. Ca devient méta de reconnaître quelqu’un de reconnaissant, mais quand cette personne a soumis, sans être level 2, 17 recos en une seule vague, c’est impressionnant ! Ce qui est encore plus impressionnant, c’est le détail que tu y mets. Elles sont bien développées, personnelles, et mettent en avant des comportements qui t’ont touché personnellement, des implications poussées en lignes, un investissement supplémentaire lors de tournois… Elles développent toutes plusieurs points, au lieu de se limiter à un unique comportement. Elles sont un bon moyen de montrer au reconnu, en un unique message, que plusieurs de ses actions méritent d’être mises en avant.Ce n’est pas facile de trouver qui reconnaître, et encore moins comment l’expliquer. Chacune de tes reconnaissances semblent réfléchies, et tu as ensuite fait l’effort de trouver douze intermédiaires pour transmettre tes messages. Cela permet en plus à certains d’entre eux de découvrir le travail remarquable de pairs, et certains en ont même profité pour ajouter un second mot personnel. Translation From: Adam Eidelsafy Hi Angela, You’ve been instrumental in helping me with my first Feedback Loop article. You’ve helped me stay on track with frequent reminders. When I got stuck, you’d offer feedback and your editing has greatly improved my work. Then I realized that you do this for each Feedback Loop writer which is awesome. Despite your name not appearing on any of the articles, you are a large part of the Feedback Loop’s success. This nomination has a lot of little things going for it. Angela is helping and providing Adam support with his first article. She’s helping him when he gets stuck and providing gentle prods to continue making progress. Futhermore, Adam makes the realization that the level of attention he is getting is what Angela provides to everyone on the team and there is more than he immediately sees. Reading this nomination, I know exactly what Angela did, and why and how it is important. From: Marit Norderhaug Getz At Gothcon, when I asked if you wanted to HJ one of the larger competitive event at our shift just a few hours prior to the event, you didn’t just accept, you really went out of your way to make all the events run as smoothly as possible. As it was my first time as a team/shift lead, and the number of events per judge ended up being more than I had anticipated, I really appreciated how you helped out by making sure that we all got the breaks we needed, that the relatively fresh L1 at our shift got some extra challenges and mentoring, and by making sure that the events were fun both to judge and play in. I’ve heard other judges refer to you as probably one of the nicest judges in the program, and I understand why, the 11 hour long shift seemed much shorter thanks to your good mood and initiative. I also like that there is a thing called “Gothcon”. From: Justin Miyashiro Clint spoke his mind in an important discussion on the Exemplar program itself, bringing up important concerns about it’s efficacy, or lack thereof, for many judges. He was willing to express his concerns in the face of opposing views from many experienced judges and did so clearly and respectfully, going to great lengths to continue the conversation and respond to critiques of his position. He even did further research into the context behind the program and expressed the importance of understanding all the perspectives on it. His contribution to the development of an important aspect of the Judge program is an Exemplary one in my view. From: Lyle Dixon Scott, I really wanted to thank you for your handling of a very delicate situation at GP DC. I was at the table with you for the match that was on turn 5, in which one of the team members was a very young boy, whose mother was standing behind his team. It was a very tense and emotional situation, and obviously a very difficult situation for such a young boy, as well as his mother to watch him go through, but I was very impressed with how patient you were with the whole situation, and how you tried to help educate the mother, as well as help keep the players from getting DQ’d by explaining to them their options very clearly so that no one said anything that would get them in trouble. I honestly hope I never find myself in such a situation as a judge, but if I do, I feel much more confident I can handle it after watching how you worked through it. Thank you! Well, thats all for this update. Join us next time when I give advice on what to do with all your extra Ratatta candy.
It’s very visible that what José did was extremely valuable to Francisco, giving him new ideas on how to handle his management of his subregional judge community. The impact of José’s acts is definitely exemplar.
To:Morgan Wentworth
It calls out specifically what Morgan was doing, and the impact it had – Morgan kept up a great tone, to the point where players specifically gave CJ feedback about how positive interacting with her was. That’s impressive at a show as big as a GP. (This is in reference to GP Minneapolis.)
To:Stefan Mackiewicz
Stefan!
It talks about giving feedback, and it talks about the specific impact that Stefan’s feedback had on Zach. The feedback itself is compartmentalized away, but the ability for Zach to get better even during his day as TL is notable.
To:Brandon Arsenault
but you also talked over the ruling with the judge, showing how great you are as a mentor. Thanks for taking the extra effort to make sure everyone is on the same page, and keep up the great work!
It talks about a specific action, and how it was done in an extraordinary way. It shows the optimal way to handle a contentious overturn – deescalation with unhappy players, follow up and mentoring with the judge. Not everyone does these things.
To: Jose Tamargo.
I’m still astonished with your quality work, and how you are able to make everything that we do in the Graphic design Gang easy, specially when it comes to your hands. Specifically, this time your job was renewing the branding for the Magic Judge Network, which has been fast, concise and, tu sum all up, excellent. Thank you very much!
I think that a nomination doesn’t have to be too long to manifest an exemplar thing and to impact the nominated judge. This nomination has, from my point of view, both of these things. And with nomination we’re looking for these two things.
To:Angela Chandler:
To: Victor Truong
I’m reading wave 4 recognitions, and I see again and again texts that you wrote, submitted on your behalf. It’s a bit meta to recognise someone for recognitions, but when that person submitted, without being a level 2, 17 recognitions in a single wave, that’s impressive! What is even more impressive are the details you put into them. They are well rounded, personal, and put a spotlight on behaviours that affected you personally, thorough online interactions, extra investment in tournaments… They touch multiple areas, without limiting themselves to a single behaviour. They are a good mean to show the recognised judge, in a single message, that multiples of his or her actions need to be recognised. It’s not easy to find behaviours to recognize, and even less to explain a recognition. Each of your recognitions seem well thought, and then you took the extra step of finding 12 judges to transmit them. That allowed some of them to learn more about the exemplar work of their peers, and some even added their own personal message.
It started as a disputed nomination, because it only rewarded quantity, the number of suggested nominations a level 1 decided to pass to level 2s. But after the dispute, Mikaël focused instead on the quality of the nominations, explaining how they are above and beyond, giving practical qualities we can emulate in future waves.
To: Angela Aliff
To: Patrik Fridland
What I really like about this nomination is that Marit was a first time lead, and encountered a rather odd problem: too many judges. This is a problem that occasionally takes judges by surprise, as it seems like a good problem to have. But judges start getting bored and unproductive. In this nomination, Patrik recognized the problem brought a solution to his lead, and they were able to turn an unfulfilling situation into something that judges got value from. Specific, praiseworthy and relevant. Triple crown of awesome!
To: Clint Herron
I know a bit more about this nomination. Specifically that the discussion happened on the forums. What I particularly like about this nomination is the detail on how the discussion unfolded. He expressed his concerns, got feedback, responded politely, went off and did his own investigation, and then incorporated the results and developed a different perspective and then came back and posted it! I truly wish more forum discussions followed a similar evolution. What specifically strikes me about this nomination, is that it calls out relevant behavior we not just want, but need judges to emulate.
To: Scott Marshall
While the nomination is a bit vague on what the actual situation was, there is enough other relevant details to form a picture. Scott was one of the Head Judges at GPDC. This means there was a lot of events competing for his attention. However, he proactively took the time to recognize and prevent a potentially bad situation. What elevates this nomination to outstanding in my mind, is the age of the boy and the involvement of the mother, as well as the ‘indirect’ education provided to the judge witnessing the event.