Track and Field is clearly one of my passions. Creating opportunities for athletes and teams to perform to the best of their ability is at the center of that passion for the sport.
The Portland Track Organization was faced with cancelling our three major events in the early summer that draw athletes and fans into the Portland that sustains our organization through entry fees, sponsorships and ticket and merchandise revenue for the Portland Track Youth Meet ( 1000 entries+ parents), Portland Track Festival ( 600 entries+fans) and Stumptown Twilight (200 entries+fans) High Performance Meets.
We knew that it was possible to pull off a small isolated event after producing the Portland 5000 which we produced a short documentary in the Fall of 2019. There are elements of the operation that proved to work.
We needed athletes and teams to participate and trust the quality of our event
We needed a location
We needed it to be certified by the governing bodies
We needed to have it officially timed to insure accuracy of performances
We needed officials and a crew to produce the event
We needed people to be able to watch the race
We needed photographers to capture the beauty of the events and share to others.
The Portland 5000 had all of these in place when we produced a world class 5k on the Nike campus and an estimated 2000 people showed up through word of mouth to surround the track and witness one of the best 5000 meter races in US history.
Knowing that we could not have spectators and insure the safety of the athletes and following the State of Oregon's COVID19 recommendations we reached out to our network of coaches, schools, communities and partners and explained our intent.
Our ability to provide a clear vision and mission to our network of coaches and partners for the benefit of these athletes was incredibly rewarding during this challenging time.
We gained insight into facilities around the state, challenges each school and community was facing while maintaining our operational framework to deploy when and where we could. The relationships built during the time will pay dividends in trust and engagement in the future.
Operationally if you can align 80% of the process and know that 20% will need to be improvised as long as it is aligned with the vision and mission....the reward and confidence and ability to build up that foundation is innovation at the intersectionsummary of the series of races this summer:
What have you been thinking is impossible to do on your team?
I would love to help your team transition through this challenging time and identify what your path forward could be.
Contact me at michael@incubatorU.com to help your organization do the same.
Focus on what is possible and know that we understood all along that we could fail at any given moment but our framework, vision, mission and relationships allowed us to exceed expectations and we now have a foundation to build upon.
