I had an amazing opportunity to be part of a global reporting team in Spielberg, Austria with Nathan, Felix, Maxi and Kevin (on site team). I would like to share my view of the event itself and give some thoughts:
We met at Friday late afternoon and after the introduction, and quick tour on Global Race Control Center we had a first meeting. There were no fixed plans. Jutta just asked us: “Ok, guys how are we going to do this?” With incredible level of mutual respect and team work ideas just started popping up and in an hour or so the plan for the next day morning was in place. No complex introductions, no limits, no obligations – just pure enthusiasm, smart ideas and courage to get the job done. The “job” was only a framework – reporting from a global race control center – and could take shape and form in the way we found interesting.
The team was very different: Maxi is a cool student from Austria, Nathan and Kevin are student graduates from Belgium. Felix is very intelligent young guy that already have some working experience from military background … . The point is: age difference, cultural difference, experience, background – and the team was functional after a few hours.
We never met before but just few hours later we were able to solve some problems together. We had to drive to our accommodation. We didn’t know where it was, there was a big rain but we put together our gadgets … some of the roads were closed so our navigation system lead us to village where our accommodation was arranged. We had another meeting that night and lot of technical details for the next day was considered and all ideas were listened and discussed.
I was confident that the Team was “fully functional” just a few hours after we first met. That’s just teamwork!
How does teamwork work?
Recipe: a level of personal initiative, ideas and responsibility is expected and needed to do the job done. The job was “reporting” from the Global race control center. None of us were reporters, journalists, writers or (social) media experts but we quickly adapted, learned, created content, asked lot of questions, made some cool interviews and had a chance to peek into every corner of the global race control center. Maxi had some experience in a media and gave as some tips. Felix brushed his organizational skills, Nathan and Kevin created some cool interviews from technical point of view.
My interests was the organizational aspects of the project, people and their enthusiasm and endurance that was necessary to create such a enormous project. And believe me Wings for Life World Run was the biggest thing that was ever put together. It took almost 7 years from idea to that final day – the day when the whole world was connected and run for those who can’t. I am confident that next year we will have more that 100 000 athletes running. One of the track’s will most certainly be in Varazdin, Croatia – a small town in Croatia. I can guarantee you that. I’ve setup up a meeting with people that are also interested in doing that. We all need just a little inspiration.
Being part of such a project is an incredible experience, and some personal sacrifice is sometimes needed. You need to invest some time and yes maybe some money. We didn’t get paid for our “jobs”. We had some personal expenses … . All of that should be considered as an investment into personal growth and a small price for our own careers.
Cisco Networking Academies are not free, the books are not free, the certificate exams are also not free. But this is no high school or college any more. This is your professional life and careers starting to evolve.
Are you ready to achieve great things? Get involved! On May 3th 2015 – your lives could change.
Cisco Networking Academy student and alumni from Croatia
#NetAcad Team at the Wings For Life #worldrun
