Action Tracker: Live event coverage based on real-time data from the Sydney Olympics.

In addition to supervising a team of 5 PMs as Director of Project Management at Quokka Sports, I also directly managed several projects supporting the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Action Tracker provided live images, commentary and results of track and field, swimming, diving and gymnastics with minute-by-minute updates straight from Sydney.

With the significant time difference between Australia and the US, and the restrictions on streaming video at the time, Quokka Sports’ coverage of the Sydney Olympics provided a live look at events that weren’t otherwise viewable. Some of the coverage, such as the Action Tracker, focused on moment-to-moment results. Other coverage added detailed analysis and commentary in order to tell a compelling story – a hallmark of “Quokka Sports Immersion”.

A typical sports site will have 4-5 minutes per visit. We’re averaging for NBCOlympics.com over 15 minutes per user visit. – Tom Newell, GM NBC/Quokka Ventures

Helium’s work at Quokka Sports was focused on exploring new experiences and technologies supporting the immersive Quokka Sports approach to sports viewing. Central to the experience was the integration of live data, imagery, commentary, and analysis: providing viewers the “expert” perspective that makes all sports most compelling. All of the projects were tied to live events, often with never-before-seen data streams from the event.

Managing these projects required not just identification and tracking of the typical milestones and deliverables, but also creation of sample data, determining what data would be available or needed, figuring out how to test and evaluate the program during development without access to the live event, and negotiating a million compromises between design, development, and client in order to achieve a powerful, possible result.

Company: Helium for Quokka Sports
Position: Program Manager

References:
Helium project page
Archived nbcolympics.com
Quokka.com overview