Bad Behavior

Anyone who has ever been in customer service understands that customers can sometimes challenge even the most patient of people.  This is never more true than in the racing business.  Take a competitive event and mix it with type A people and you have a great recipe for some really  great outbursts.  This is especially true where youth is involved.  Every race director, timer, meet coordinator, etc.

What Chip is that?

Recently I was approached by a race director who was claiming the advantages of a competitors timing system.  She was convinced that they had a better system because a claim is that their product is used for timing Formula 1.  I had to laugh.  I'm not sure whether the salesperson was being dishonest, disingenuous, or just naive, but it's not possible to use the same system used for road races to time a formula 1 event.  The problem is now the race director believes it and despite being given the facts, is now leaning that direction.  I have seen a lot of cla

Website Updates

If you have been a long-time user of our website then you should recognize that we have a new look.  We have been working with a designer since last fall trying to incorporate a lot of elements in a way that is fresh and usable.  One of the primary objectives too was designing for mobile.  In today's world, more and more people are using their phones and other mobile devices to browse the internet.  The design that we had in the past was much like many sites in that it didn't scale to mobile.  We wanted the site to look good on a desktop browser but also be

Calmer heads prevail

Recently, I timed a race which went very extremely well for everyone.  The participants had a great time, the race directors were happy and there absolutely no issues with the data or timing.  It was what we would call a flawless race.  When I got home, I got this nasty email from a participant informing how we really fumbled the ball and didn't manage our timing properly.  His anger and frustration were over the "fact" that his time was incorrect and that our timing was not managed well otherwise his time would have been accurate and reported correctly.&nb

Garbage In Garbage Out

A few weeks ago I was at a race preparing to time a Jingle Bell run.  I was working with one of the volunteers to enter their race day information.  I'm not quite sure what was going on at the registration table but there were missing ages, gender changes and lots of bib reassignments.  It was creating quite a mess with their registration sheet.  As we were trying to decipher the information she made the comment that it was no wonder that timing was often messed up.  I had to smile and simply said that it was all in a day's work.  Ask any timer and they

End of Year Reflection

As we start to close out 2015, it is both a time of reflection and a look forward.  It has been a very busy year for us and we're looking forward to an even busier 2016.  For the race directors, we have certainly enjoyed working with so many of you.  It's always a pleasure to work with some great race directors to host their events.  There are many causes for which these events are held and to the race director and their team, those events help to raise much needed funds to support their operations.  It is great to be a part of that.  To the participant

Website Upgrade

Athlete Guild is constantly trying to improve the website experience for the growing list of athletes.  As we expand our operations, we're adding new events in a growing list of communities.  This is great for everyone but it has caused a problem for you specifically with our featured events and event search feature on our website.  If you live in San Antonio for example, you would rather see events in the local area first rather than several hours away.  To resolve that issue, we have added location awareness to our site.  What this means is that when you navig

Constant Improvement

It's been said that if you aren't making mistakes, then you aren't trying hard enough and improving.  I know that I have certainly made my fair share of mistakes over the years.  I certainly hope that it means that I'm getting better.  I know that as a company, Athlete Guild is constantly trying to improve the way that we do things and we certainly have made mistakes along the way.  As most in life discover though, it's not a matter of whether you make a mistake, but a matter of how you handle it.  Do you learn from those mistakes or do you simpl

Reap What you Sow

Reap what you sow is an old saying that simply means that in order to have success you must expend effort.  This has application for so many areas of life.  It is especially true in the racing business.  Whether you are a competitor trying to improve your time, or a race director hosting an event, you get back what you put into it.  I hear a complaint from race directors a lot regarding the number of events that are taking place.  Whereas on a given weekend several years ago, there might have been 2 or 3, now it is not uncommon to find twice that many or more.