Quote:
Originally Posted by MrRoboSteve
A lot of people have seen decks similar to this. If you are planning a migration from the competition model in slide 6 to the one in slide 7, it is difficult to do in one season. The proposed North/South model for 2017 would make a good transition between the two.
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I understand that you see it as a 'good transition', and I understand why. However, FIRST has been quite open about the difficulty of Slide 6 to 7 for many years now. To the best of my knowledge (someone correct me), splitting Worlds was never floated. I see people draw their line of what to consider reasonable unilateral latitude at different places. I'll present my reasoning and agree to disagree:
This method has led to completely blindsiding many [majority position unknown] people best positioned to positively contribute to the change. This includes both those who are personally opposed to content and method of the decision, and more notably those who now have the legitimate problem of "how do we actually make both of these events as inspirational as possible with only 2016 Worlds as a true preparation?" (The announcement being so close to 2015's that it cannot be fully utilized for this purpose.) I do not personally understand why HQ would do this or what upside they were looking for. I understand that they
can of course, just not why they would. Moreover, the split was announced entirely as corporate "spin" (or insert a positive term), with exactly zero attempt to preemptively discover or address community objections and get people on board. Again, particularly in light of the first issue, I don't understand this choice. Both results are directly antithetical to all of our goals.
This is not to say that the community as a whole or myself individually have taken this in the most productive way possible. (Though I argue expressing upset is productive in this instance, if only to illustrate the cost another such action would entail.) But failure on the part of the community does not absolve HQ of not taking its own helpful action. Perhaps this split is correct. I am personally working to make it a positive experience. But this process have given me me very, very little confidence in its reasoning and management.