online crew

your online crew is just as important as your onsite team-mate. as seconds and minutes tick away while your team races away physically, your online crew can help you to shave off minutes, make better informed decisions and essentially make or break your race.

what are the essentials to your online crew: he/she has to be...

• resourceful with online materials - google, skypigeon, streetdirectory
• have a pair of sharp ears - how to hear you when you are panting for your breath and reading instructions otherwise?
• quick with his/her fingers to tap out everything and click!
• discerning enough to sieve through the data that google sends
• be able to provide precise and sharp instructions.
  

i've found my best online crew to be christine. she's great i tell you. fast, accurate and incredibly resourceful. our bus journeys are smoother thanks to the fact that she's a bus person. and she's very fast with information, since she is a researcher professionally. i am really glad to have found her, because anyone can do the job, but no one can deliver as well as she can.

i dedicate this post to christine goh.

partner choice

this is something that nobody can ignore. if things don't work out while racing, you can put it onto luck... you can put it onto lousy organisers who never forsee bottlenecks... and so on... but if there is one thing you have some level of control over - it will be your partner/team-mates.

i've been "racing" on tv, radio and offline since i was in uni. now that's a full solid 5 years of experience. i realised that despite all the "brillance" that i may have, there are still portions of imperfections... with my plans... with my lack of experience... with my horrible running technique... so on.

the only way you can compensate, is to find a partner who can complement your skillsets according to the race needs.

example 1: dumb tv gameshow - even the lowest position gets a prize. that means i don't have to win the top necessarily, since i'd get to walk home with some prize money regardless.

i just need a partner who is family. anyone can deliver... even my ridiculous and silly sister (more about her another time). so all i have to do, is convince her to do it. since i'm the one with the brains, she is co-oped for the reason that i need family to do it and nobody else in the family is free. needless to say, she has to be someone cooperative.

example 2: any race requiring endurance - obviously it will be my everest brudder yk. he's the only one nuts enough to give up school for 1 year to pursue everest. and he's got himself a reputation since he won some paperhouse challenge a few years back.

he's also like what i call as "the brudder from another marder", we think very alike and behave extremely alke. we could say the same thing at the same time in the same tone. scary, isn't it?

however, since i've discovered C... everyone else pales in comparison.

example 3: any race requring speed and brains. since i have the brains to plan tactical and i obviously cannot run well enough to save my life, the only sane thing to do is to pick someone whom is fast and willing to take your advice. ego gets you no $ in a race, only quick thinking with quick feet does.

choose someone with a complementary skill to yours. otherwise, there is nothing new brought to the table in terms of experience. its like a marriage of sorts, getting someone or a team who can bring your skills higher and in turn... maybe take a little something home.

"you complete me" jerry macguire.