Communication breakdown

Running a tournament where everyone is spread out all over kingdom come is a real challenge. I offer the following suggestions if you wish to try it at home.

First, have people text the results. We used a Google voice acct at Princeton, one that the Princeton Debate Panel uses for team business. It worked like a charm. Have people send you judge name, aff code, points, neg code, pts, winner code, + lpw if necessary. 90% of your debate judges are capable of doing this. 5% are capable of doing it wrong, and another 5% are simply incapable of doing it at all. The ones who do it wrong simply can’t read the directions printed on the ballot. There is no way to adjust for these people, because if the directions were worded differently, they’d read those different ones wrong. My guess is that the metal plates in their heads, combined with the botched lobotomy back when they were still in the toddling stage, are cutting off the neural signals in and out of the cerebral cortex. Whatever. The 5% who don’t text at all either don’t have cell phones or refuse to text on principle. Curiously enough, our tardiest ballots did not come from these people, so they may be luddites or simply obdurate, but at least they moved fast on the ground, so they weren’t a problem. This may just have been a happy accident, though. Last I heard, we were coming into 2010 any day now. Trust me, people: It’s all right to own and use the features of a cell phone. You’ll survive the experience.

Second, I used Twitter again for crowd herding. I know people were signed up for the tweets from @DebateTab, and in the event people were where they were supposed to be when they were supposed to be there, aside from the ones who make being late their calling card because they’re so dreadfully busy doing…Well, you’ve got me there. What does one do at a debate tournament when one isn’t involved in the debating part of it? Our slogan is “Ne flanez pas,” which is loosely translatable as, “Would you mind readjusting your busy and important life just a tad to take in our insignificant little tournament that we apologize for inflicting on you, your Highness?” Anyhow, Twitter (or whatever replaces Twitter on the next tech wave) is a good tool for general announcements, and more and more people are using it, if for nothing else than to at least follow our tournament tweets. We’ll use it again next at Columbia, where once more we are all scattered to the winds.

Third, and most inconveniently, CP had put out a phone number for tab, and given us the phone with that number. At the beginning, we thought simply that some random Tigger had left his phone behind, so we ignored it, except the ringtone was execrable, and as we started banging it with a hammer someone on the other end started talking about room problems or something, and eventually we cottoned to the idea that this phone was for us. After that (and after adjusting the ringtone), we carried it everywhere so that when people called us, wherever we were, we could solve their problems. Of course, one or two problems were not for us, but curiously enough, in those cases, the person on the other end of the line, rather than following our suggestion that they go to the registration table or whatever, decided that we were just joshing them and that we could solve their problems, and that continuing to talk to us, endlessly repeating the nature of the situation, would eventually cause us to come to our senses. Which is why all cell phones have that red button that performs the goodbye function without the user actually having to get out of the conversation. Jeesh!

The easiest tournaments to run are in one building, with tab and an umbilically attached ballot table in the direct center, with no stairs anywhere. A pantabicon, so to speak. Move away from that, and the further away you are from pantabicon, the more other measures must be taken. This weekend at Ridge is one of the closest to a pantabicon solution around. I’m looking forward to it.