Follow-up: Imagine Cup Canada

It has been a few days now since I posted about the problems facing Imagine Cup Canada. First of all, let me say thanks to everyone for the feedback on that post, online and offline. It was reassuring to know that some of you share my concerns, though not unexpected. Thank you also to Daniel, for making yourself immediately available to discuss my concerns.

So what happened? Well as you might expect, my post prompted some people at Microsoft to spring into action. Like I said to so many people, it just takes someone to stand up and say “we have a problem, let’s do something about it.” I am proud that I was able to make that step – I think it will go a long way towards improving the Imagine Cup. Let me explain what I mean by that.

The Imagine Cup teams, both in Canada and Redmond, are now aware of my concerns, and are committed to improving the experience for students. Daniel sounds enthusiastic about incorporating some feedback, proclaiming “let’s improve it tenfold!” In fact, Daniel has agreed to provide conference call facilities so that any interested student can take part in a feedback session with Daniel, and possibly members of the Redmond team. Here’s the details:

WHO: You, me, and the Imagine Cup team
WHAT: Conference Call Regarding Feedback for IC06
WHEN: May 31st, 2005 at 4 PM EST
WHERE: Phone/Internet Conference (LiveMeeting)

I’d rather not share the conference details on my blog, so if you are interested in taking part, please email me and I’ll send you everything you need. Keep in mind, only the first 20 students to attend will be able to take part, so if you want to join, make sure you’re there on time! If you won’t be able to attend but still have feedback you’d like to offer, drop me an email, and I will be sure to voice your concerns! I’ll be on MSN Messenger for the duration of the call as well.

Some of the big things on my mind are transparency and worldwide consistency in judging, some sort of written feedback to participants about their entry, and improved access to local competition information. How about you? What would you improve?

In Response
I had the opportunity to speak with Daniel after I made the original post. Here are some of the things I was able to learn:

• The winners in Canada for 2005 were announced the day after I made the original post. Congratulations to the winning team if you are reading this! One of my biggest complaints was that participants did not receive any feedback regarding their entry, and so the opportunity to learn from the experience was lost. Daniel has promised to talk with any interested participant on the phone about their entry. All you have to do is get in touch with him (and he said he’ll work on being more available too).
• Reducing the number of judges to two for this year was done as an experiment. In previous years, it was felt that the larger number of judges meant that not everyone’s entry was being fairly judged. This year, by having only two judges look at every entry, it was felt the process would be more fair. That may sound perfectly fine, but the problem is not with having too many judges. The problem is not having standard and very clear judging criteria! A good judge can fairly score an entry if their criteria is made reasonable clear.
• Everyone generally agreed that communication was not very good. Daniel has said he’ll work to improve, and is open to ideas like a Canada-specific website for information. There were also some things that were, understandably, out of Daniel’s control.

I’d like to point out that everyone I spoke to at Microsoft seemed very concerned that things got to the point where I would post, Daniel included. The general feeling was that in experimenting to improve the competition in Canada this year, the opposite result was accomplished. That said, I am very encouraged by the opportunity to provide feedback and suggestions on how to make the Imagine Cup better!

Read: Imagine Cup