Rob McKenzie’s Program Coordinator Application Spring of 2018 – Part 1

| Rob McKenzie

Greetings all,

So, as mentioned at the Program Coordinators’ blog post on the 2018 application process, I’m applying to be a Program Coordinator.  You can see a rundown of what the Program Coordinator role is on the Official Resources page about Program Coordinators.

I’ve decided to be fairly public about this process, because there is not a compelling reason for me to not publish my application.

I sent in my Wave 2 answers yesterday, and I’m publishing both the Wave 1 and Wave 2 answers on my personal blog here.  You can find Part 2, the Wave 2 questions and answers, here.

I’ll have some sidebar commentary next to my answers as well, to provide context for people not as involved in the inside baseball of the Regional Coordinators and Program Coordinators.

Why should you be a Program Coordinator? Please list your past accomplishments related to the judge program that you believe have prepared you for this role.

 

I am Regional Coordinator of the USA – North region, and have been RC since February of 2016.  I’ve been successful in this role – we have maintained our L2 core, have good acceptance rates to large scale events, and have maintained a healthy and functioning judge program in the North region.

 

I am one of the primary contributors on the Exemplar team.  I handle the address collection for Exemplar every wave, providing information to Regional Coordinators and managing addresses on a worldwide scale.  Starting with Wave 12, I will be producing Exemplar Tokens for every judge in the world that gets an Exemplar nomination.  This is a large scale project, and I have timelines and operational plans for managing art direction and production and distribution of over 3000 tokens.

[cets_callout_box style=’yellow’ align=’right’ title=’Context’]So, what was my plan here?  I wanted to do a few things.  I wanted to demonstrate my experience, and talk about recent things that demonstrate that I’ve stepped up on a larger program scale than just running regional things.

The Program Coordinator role tends to connect into a lot of project work, so that had to be the primary thing I focused on.  There is also a substantial diplomacy aspect.  Also, judges judge.  So demonstrating I’m a quality judge is important.

I kind of gloss over the diplomacy a bit, with a throwaway comment about the “issues related to the fall Program Coordinator selection” – I won’t go into more details here, the whole situation is not public and should not be.  This is mostly here so that the people involved (the Regional Coordinators and Program Coordinators on the selection committee) remember my involvement, for good or ill.[/cets_callout_box]

 

I keep innovating on smaller projects, especially ones that involve a physical thing that goes to judges.  I started making Flash Feedback tokens, which I distributed at GPs I attended for about a year.  This is growing into a plan from Edwin Zhang to distribute these to all GPs worldwide.

 

I provide support to a number of other projects, from Judge of the Week to the Prerelease Announcement Helper and Leaflet from the Customer Experience Project.

 

Last year I was one of the very small team that made an attempt to start up Level 3 Maintenance, along with Alfonso Bueno and Ivan Petkovic.  This was a substantial amount of work – much of it ended up not being used, but it was an example of me getting deep into a project that I felt had program-wide importance.

 

I have a strong history with the judge program.  I have:

  • Head judged 900 player Opens.
  • Team lead logistics at the largest Professional REL draft of all time.
  • Certified over 35 L2 judges.
  • Participated on an L3 panel for Jon Goud (RC of Canada).
  • Heavily mentored and wrote an L3 recommendation for Jarrod Williams (former RC of the Great Lakes region).
  • Worked as stage lead or event manager for two different premier tournament organizers at at least a couple dozen Grand Prix.
  • Worked with local tournament organizers on PPTQ scheduling, RPTQs, judge miniconferences, and skill building for local play.

 

Within the last six months, I have demonstrated diplomacy during a substantial issue related to the fall Program Coordinator selection, and was the primary author on the judge program statement on harassment and how we respond to it.

 

I have a long history with the judge program, have been involved across a wide swath of different parts of the program, and have demonstrated my ability to work with and speak for the program as a leader.

 

What would you expect to accomplish in the role? Let us know what you think your task as PC would be.

 

I’m a technocrat.  I get physical and logistical processes done.  I do practical things like manage a bunch of the logistical backend for Exemplar, and the Program Coordinators don’t currently have anyone doing things like this.  I would likely take over some amount of the Program Coordinator/Sphere nominations management, coordinate with the technology sphere, and would do a lot of the operational process management the Program Coordinators need.

[cets_callout_box style=’yellow’ align=’right’ title=’Context’]Why did I focus on the “getting things done” aspect of the Program Coordinator role is tailored to Riccardo, who is running the process.  He likes to get things done.

I also hammer on a big advantage I have that only one other applicant (CJ Crooks) has – my United States knowledge.  The majority of judges are in the US, and we currently have no US Program Coordinator.  This means some of the decisions the Program Coordinators make are less informed than they could be.  I firmly believe that there should always be one US Program Coordinator, at the minimum, because there are so many potential issues that having geo-regional knowledge helps with.  Likewise, there should always be a European Program Coordinator.  There has not historically been an APAC Program Coordinator, but I believe that there should be one of those as well.[/cets_callout_box]

 

I am a diplomat, and I am well-spoken and respected.  I have made some fairly carrying public statements, and worked out problems between very entrenched and unhappy members of the program.  I would likely end up writing the Program Coordinator statements and articles on major topics (like the current fiasco with background checks), and would act as the well-spoken native english speaker on the team, making sure things the Program Coordinators say aren’t phrased awkwardly or poorly.

 

 

I’m a United States representative that is willing to get my hands dirty with program work.  This is uncommon right now.  We have a Program Coordinator core of European judges.  This is good, but a wider representation would be better.  I have been to events across the United States and I know and work with a lot of US judges across multiple projects and events.  I’m not an epic road warrior, but I make it a point to hit enough large events per year to meet and know people and keep the sword sharp.  These relationships mean I have the respect and trust of a lot of judges, many of whom don’t know the current Program Coordinators very well.  This is far from an indictment of the current Program Coordinators – just a statement of strengths and weaknesses.  In the Program Coordinator role, you need to lean on others and have them play to their strengths.  The European PCs have a depth of knowledge about the judges in Europe, and a measure of trust of those same judges.  I’d expect to lean on these things from the European PCs in the same way as I’d expect them to lean on these aspects of me.

 

The program is also going through a major shift right now, and there are more on the horizon.

 

It is very possible that the program will need some sound business and nonprofit leadership fairly swiftly (or fairly far out, depending).  I have some excellent resources in this space, and my prior mentioned good relationships with US TOs means that I can bridge into that group without much trouble if we need to forge a different working relationship as a program.

 

I’m being vague here, because I genuinely don’t know if the judge program is going to need to shift into being a nonprofit certifying body.  It’s very possible.  I have several RCs that understand the problems associated, a couple of the bigger TOs in the US on board with connecting with a body like that, and I’m tentatively ready to make steps in that direction if necessary.  I don’t know if it will be necessary, but I’m prepared for this outcome.  There aren’t a lot of people in this position, and none of the other ones want to be Program Coordinator to the best of my knowledge.

 

How do you expect to accomplish it?

 

I plan to make myself accountable to US judges.  They are the primary people I expect to serve, because they are the ones I know.  As mentioned above, I expect the Program Coordinator group to lean on each other for communication paths and geo-regional knowledge.  If there are problems that someone in France sees, I’ll absolutely listen to them, but I would likely defer a lot of the problem solving to a European Program Coordinator, because they have a much better knowledge of European things than I do.

[cets_callout_box style=’yellow’ align=’right’ title=’Context’]This is my platform!  The core thing is really the “office hours” coupled with the plan to do video interviews of different people in the program.  I’m probably going to do the video interviews regardless – I’ve got the streaming/recording setup all in place, I just have not had the time to get this off the ground yet.  I’m very excited about the possibility of doing this, and really want to shine spotlights on people running projects or coordinating regions, or doing other less-visible program work.[/cets_callout_box]

 

I would commit to open-door hours on particular days where people can get into voice, text or video chats with me.  The schedule would probably be weekly, for an hour or two a week.

 

I have a streaming/recording rig I have dedicated to judge tasks for the USA-North region.  I would start doing video interviews of key program figures and key community figures, to make the judge program more accessible to others and make some of our faces more visible worldwide.  The Program Coordinators have sometimes been accused of being faceless.  I would want to change that.  My plan would be to do these twice a month, and talk about projects (like JudgeApps development), communities worldwide (how does the RC of UKISA keep South Africa engaged in their region?), and events that are of relevance to the judge community (big GPs, policy changes, etc).  This is an underused communication channel, and I think I can do some great work providing content and context here that judges sorely need.

 

I like physical goodies, and I have been a critic of the current structure of the Program Coordinator and Sphere nomination system currently used.  I would change the Sphere/Program Coordinator nomination/foil distribution plan a bit and personally ship all the packets for these in the United States, alongside a Program Coordinator token.  I would put a personal note on each token shipped.  There are not that many, and really, these people that get the nominations are our shining stars and deserve to know we care.

 

In summary:

  • I am experienced at all levels of the judge program and organized play.
  • I represent a group of people not well represented in the current group of Program Coordinators.
  • I have a desire to get things done and have demonstrated my ability to do so.
  • I want to make the judge program more approachable, especially those in leadership positions, and have a plan to do so.

 

So, that’s my application.  It was good enough to get me to Wave 2, with follow-up questions.  You can read those on the Part 2 post.