JC / Railbird

While it’s great to see someone saying that, I always think it’s a concern when something thinks that throwing programmers at a problem is the way to solve it… programming is only a small part of the spectrum of change that’s needed… as noted by your sentiment!

Posted by dana on May 11, 2010 @ 6:46 pm

That’s just it, a broader cultural change has to happen.

Posted by Jessica on May 11, 2010 @ 8:37 pm

Sure you can fool people into buying just about anything at just about any price if you design and market it right (a certain type of fruit comes to mind), but what racing needs above all is better management. Just adding a couple of gimmicks and social networking opportunities is not gonna gloss over the fact that this business has enormous integrity issues and that almost every year the HotY turns into a month-long mudslinging fest because once again 12 months weren’t enough to have the candidates settle the issue on the track.

Racing does work great in Singapore or Hong Kong without a start-up culture. Common sense will do.

Posted by malcer on May 12, 2010 @ 2:18 am

Interesting that you equate start-up culture with gimmicks, social networking, and fooling people, Malcer. I equate it with a mindset that encourages experimentation, risk-taking, and flexibility and has driven most of the innovations of the past 15 years. In American sport, it’s best exemplified by Major League Baseball’s Advanced Media division, which also happens to have been very well managed. So, for that matter, is Google, which isn’t a start-up anymore, but still seems to retain some of what made it into such a powerhouse. Good management and a start-up mentality aren’t mutually exclusive.

Posted by Jessica on May 12, 2010 @ 7:53 am

Still need a baseball-reference.com style site for racing in the worst possible way.

Look at at Illman’s blog….there is a huge demand to see the PP’s of runners from ages ago.

It’s been a no brainer for racing to do this. It’s *WAY* overdue.

Posted by o_crunk on May 12, 2010 @ 9:10 am

Or something like this site, but with a better UI/design:

http://www.european-football-statistics.co.uk/

Racing is popular in Singapore and Hong Kong partially because they both have huge gambling cultures in general; I think we need to work a bit harder, and having accessible stats would be a great start.

But as a start-up veteran, I know that a culture that celebrates innovation and that doesn’t mind the odd failure is one that gets things done; racing could use that. (And the fact that no major industry body has – presumably – tried to buy the site from Jessica suggests that don’t get it at all).

Posted by Superfecta on May 13, 2010 @ 1:15 pm

Robin Howlett is doing interesting stuff. I asked him, when we met at Aqueduct on Wood Day, what sort of response he was getting from within the industry to the Party Manners archive project and thoroMotion, and his reply was basically, “What response?”

Posted by Jessica on May 13, 2010 @ 2:11 pm

Jessica:

Late entry (sorry, wasn’t home for a couple of days)

I can see how my earlier comment reads as if I generally “equate start-up culture with gimmicks, social networking, and fooling people”. The reason is that, in my experience, if a well-established business looks for ‘a start-up culture’ as a cure this project usually ends up being little more than a bunch of gimmicks, re-brandings and re-designs rather than an actual attempt to solve the institutionalized problems at the core – in short, it’s usually managerspeak, trying to solve the problem without addressing its roots.

I believe that without addressing the fundamental integrity, quality, direction and presentation issues American racing has, no start-up mentality has a chance to develop. If those issues are addressed, a start-up mentality will develop on its own (more exactly, I think the seed is already there, judging from the slow but still noticeable developments we see in several isolated areas). In the example of better archival data and video, the underlying problem is the fragmentation of racetrack management – establish a unified management of track replays, data and signals and several good dbs are likely to pop up more or less by themselves.

So in essence, I think that asking for a start-up culture without mentioning the underlying issues for why it doesn’t already exist is like changing your wet shoes while still standing in a puddle – let’s get on dry ground first.

P.S.: I don’t get your Google reference (agree with what you said, though), did you mean Apple?

I also agree that MLB does a lot of things right, but at the basis of their success is the fact that they have central management and have done a lot to increase the quality of their product.

Superfecta:

It’s interesting that you mention the far superior databases available for Baseball and Soccer, then say American racing has to try harder than its Asian counterpart because of the latter’s supposedly greater customer base. Before going the extra mile, let’s first close the several miles gap American racing is behind when it comes to the data and presentation compared to what you will find on HKJC.com and numerous other HK racing sites. Given how popular racing still is in America (or Germany) despite horrible horrible mismanagement, I’m not convinced the problem is lack of potential.

Posted by malcer on May 18, 2010 @ 12:01 pm

No, I meant Google.

Posted by Jessica on May 18, 2010 @ 1:02 pm