Hello all, and welcome to yet another installment of “What’s going on with Exemplar?”  I’ll be your host this evening as well as for the foreseeable future.  In tonight’s episode we are going to catch up with some of the behind the scenes activities for Wave 3, Wave 4, and yes, even Wave 2.  So sit back, relax and enjoy your commercial-free entertainment.

Wave 3

By now, Wave 3 has closed.  I want to thank everyone for who submitted recognitions for their fellow judge.  I’ve seen several posts on social media where people have commented on how meaningful previous recognitions were, and I expect no less from this wave.

So now, let’s talk about ‘What’s next?’  It’s not really a secret that the internal and external parts of the previous waves made continental drift look speedy.  This isn’t a dig against the previous owners of the project.  This project is huge, with a massive amount of infrastructure custom build specifically for Exemplar.  Every action was trailblazed.  That effort takes time, and if future releases go faster, it’s because of the investments made by my predecessors. With the end of Wave 3 and the beginning of Wave 4, we have turned a corner in working out the kinks in this project.  We are now discovering problems less, and addressing them more.  This doesn’t mean that there still isn’t work to do, but it means we are moving in a positive direction and establishing a rhythm for future waves.

With that in mind, I want to lay out a notional schedule for what’s going to happen with Wave 3.  I’m not going to lay out exact dates (because I expect some things to take longer than expected), but rather approximate time frames/goals; so you can see the order of magnitude we are dealing with.

• Weeks 1-2 – The Exemplar Team will review the recognitions and approve/reject them.
• Weeks 3-4 – The Exemplar Team will contact authors of rejected recognitions and give them a chance to correct them.
• Week 5 – Publish the Recognitions/Metrics Team starts analyzing the results.
• Week 6-7 Collect Addresses from Wave 3 recipients.
• Week 8 – Hand collected information over to WotC.

At this point, I want to talk about address collections for wave 3.  We will be using a similar method to Wave 2.  We may have a different collection method for wave 4, but right now, we are continuing with what we have done previously.  An email will be sent to each person who received a recognition, with a link to a google form and instructions on how to use it.  You will have about 2 weeks to put your address in.  Please make sure your email in Judgeapps is an email you check regularly.  Mailing Addresses provided via other means; IM, phone conversations, email, morse code, carrier pigeon, will not count.  Late entries will not be accepted.

Wave 4

There was some discussion between Wave 2 and Wave 3 regarding the appropriate amount of time between the start of one wave and the beginning of the next.  In general it was decided that, since there was no cost to starting early, there is no reason not to start as soon as possible.  To this end, we will be starting wave 4 in a few weeks.  Why not right away?  Well, if you recall, we made some tweaks to the number of slots between Wave 2 and Wave 3.  We want to check to see if they had the desired effect, and make adjustments if they make sense prior to announcing the start (and end) of Wave 4.

Wave 2

I was informed last week that WotC put out a mailing for Wave 2.  In fact, I saw some social media posts over the weekend and today, where some judges have already begun receiving ‘Thank You’ gifts. Celebrate your success.  A huge part of the Exemplar program is recognizing and encouraging behavior.  When you consider these tokens of appreciation, think about the behaviors that were recognized, because those behaviors are what we want to encourage.   As a last note of bookkeeping, I do need to remind everyone that there is no replacement plan for lost/missing or damaged mailings.

Until Next Time

Well folks, barring an unforeseen emergency, the next time you will hear from me will be announcing the start of Wave 4, followed by the release of the Wave 3 recognitions;  Maybe a few other surprises shortly after as well.  Till then keep any eye out for exemplary behavior in your fellow judges.