US Open 2014 Update #5 – Gandalf and Radagast
Scoring a huge event, how to monitor unregistered "sneak-in" jack and jill contestants, transparency, and the loss of Lance.
This will be the first year in many, many years that Lance Shermoen will not be scoring.
Lance is sorely missed, he’ll be missed forever. He was a huge part of the Open, the dance community, and a beloved, personal friend to many people. Lance was one of the special people. His spirit is very much here this weekend, though his body is no longer.
This year we have a new scorekeeper.
Meet John Bianchi, a wide-eyed, soft spoken, attentive, shiney-faced, delight of a man, who likes to laugh. John likes funny people.
Computer-programmer by day — dancer/hockey player/cyclist/backpacker/roller-blader – and runner – in his spare time. In other words he’s active. One of those wiry athletic types who probably drove his mother crazy as a toddler and energetic young kid. He radiates outdoorsy good health.
He has hands that look like they do things. He talks with his hands (not for nothing is his name Bianchi) and will talk with his hands about computer programming until you stop listening. He gets excited about programming, especially programming registration/scoring systems for the west coast community.
John and his partner Doug Sudd are the guys everyone raved about at Doug Rousar’s events (I mentioned him after Michigan Classic) – they’re the ones who got the scores posted instantaneously, as in, at the same moment the results flew out of the emcee’s mouth.
These are the guys who did that amazing QR thing where – on Sunday, after Awards, instead of a wall with 1,000 people crowding round to squint at tiny print – you just point your cell phone at a QR code and BOOM the scores are in your phone! Like magic (or awesome computer programming.)
They are really, really good. And funny. And geeky. And nice. They kind of remind me of Tom and Ray, the “cartalk” guys, except with Chicaaaago accents instead of Boston accents. They’re the “computerguys.”
They got into the scoring business in 2006/7 – inspired by Brian Faust’s first attempt at computerizing scoring and registration (remember how everybody made fun of judges using Ipads? Calling them etch-a-sketches?) John says a bunch of computer guys got interested in the problem at the same time – swingdirector.com, countrydancedirector, nowdancing – and started talking about designing programs, thinking that scoring was the most important aspect of programming for an event. Turns out not to be the case at all. The MUCH more complex (and interesting, if you like this sort of puzzle) part is registration.
I asked what’s the hardest part of creating a program like this. John says it is literally hundreds of thousands of man hours, years of trial and error, going down long roads in the wrong direction, mistakes that take huge amounts of real-life testing to discover – that’s the hard part, and the part of the process that computer guys understand but the rest of us don’t know about. (I had no idea it took that kind of effort. I thought Hey, just write a program, what’s the big deal? How long can it take? The answer: long.)
For those of you still reading:
One of the trickiest problems is how to handle dancers who are lining up for their jack and jill, but they’re not on your (or the judge’s) sheets, not showing as registered. You say hey Susie did you register? Susie says “Yeah, thought I did, not 100% positive but pretty sure at least I meant to.” So you add her as a write-in. Meanwhile the scorekeeper has to add her – and someone has to check to see if she actually paid.
This is all done by hand, the payment part after the fact, sometimes long after the fact. Much falls through the cracks, revenues are lost, and of course unnecessary scoring problems must be handled last minute.
John and Doug are working on this problem.
They’d like to create an elegant program where Susie would either be able to pay right there on the spot. Or, more likely, be entered into the system with a bib number, and then sent a bill by email (a copy also going to event directors, chief judge, scorekeeper, contest coordinator) so that the whole system is updated with Susie’s name and details.
They’re also thinking about real-time actual ticketing, with seating, scannable, all computerized, something like TicketMaster or EventBrite, but with registration and scoring. That’s a huge project for the future. First they’ve got to get the current system working perfectly.
If you are here at the Open this weekend, go find John and Doug in their dungeon deep in the Misty Mountains and the forests of Mirkwood, knock on the door of their hut, and introduce yourself.
But not tomorrow. Tomorrow they will be a little busy.