KC Cache Dash

Geocaching in Land Rovers, Talking with Engineers and a Giant GPS device...

It’s impossible to succinctly explain the KC Cache Dash to a non-geocacher/Garmin employee – I know, I’ve tried, and unless eyes glazing over has changed from the universal sign of bewilderment to a generally accepted sign of understanding, they have no clue what I’m describing, and sometimes nod politely.

I’ll include links at the end of this so others can do this work for me – I’ve been told that while friends and family appreciate my writing, they sometimes skim the long ones, which is crazy, because as I’ve been known to tell others, every single word I write is important. Even this one…

For Cliff’s Notes, there were three parts to the event:

1) Geocaching Expo at Garmin HQ – Product Support and Rec/Outdoor Engineers to work tents. Event open to the public and all Garmin employees. Geocaches were placed around the campus for families, kids and scouts to find. Refreshments were served and if need be, there was a portable toilet.

2) “Dash” around KC – Four teams – each one comprised of a hardcore geocacher (are there any other kind?), a social media advocate for a chosen charity, and a social media “influencer” – drive around the city in Land Rovers with multiple GPS devices, searching for geocaches, while of course obeying all traffic laws. Each cache had a certain point value, and at the end of the day whichever team had the most points wins the event.

3) Award Ceremony at Aristocrat Motors – Everyone meets up at Aristocrat Motors to see who has the most points and how much money each charity won. Sadly, no oversized Happy Gilmore checks.

(Land Rover with Charities' logo's)

I was brought into the KC Cache Dash fold at Jerry’s Bait Shop, wooed by cheap beers, attempting to pay attention to the conversation at hand and not the waitress with half her head shaved to a three. It was an idea borne out of social media: Jake (from Garmin) and Kris (from Aristocrat Motors) thought it’d be cool to combine the core competencies of our two companies and turn into a day-long adventure. And then get folks to tweet about it. 

Many ideas were thrown out, some good, a lot terrible; the size and scope of the event fluctuated more than former Brazilian soccer great Ronaldo’s weight. Since none of us had a complete vision for this event and no one to shoot down ideas (yet), we could be as ridiculous as we wanted to be.

Finally, when the plan had moved from bar napkins to a dry eraser board (courtesy of a four hour Mad Men-style lock-in), we made our pitch to the leaders of the rec/outdoor team. We didn’t necessarily need their buy-in, however with it, we’d be able to work a bit more freely. Their response was great. Not only were they “on board” with our plan, they were offering to help. They wanted this to be an event that connected Garmin – the rec/outdoor team, specifically – to the community. Our idea, without us knowing it, fit perfectly into the larger group’s annual goals and objectives, and we’d benefit greatly from it. Garmin’s president even sent an email to the company notifying them of the event, encouraging support and participation from employees.  

So to my part…

Jake and Kris would handle the “Dash” side of things, while I’d focus on the expo at HQ, and all that it entailed. They were busy coordinating with geocachers, charities, social media types and planning routes across and around the city. My days were spent differently.

With help from some geocaching enthusiasts from the web team, we began work on a variety of jobs. First off was for them to come up with logos for the event and begin work on the website: http://sites.garmin.com/cache-dash/ . They made signs, electronic invitations, a giant poster and a cool new sticker book. Kids shirts were also created, and they turned out great, as did the KC Cache Dash trackable pathtag.

(Collectible Pathtag - common geocaching swag)

I began wrangling the volunteers and expo items once the creative materials were under way. One benefit of having come from Product Support is that I worked with a bunch of folks who I knew would appreciate the chance to volunteer at an event like this. I emailed my former team, and a healthy number agreed to participate.

Next up was Engineering; they were also excited to lend a hand. In all, there were over 50 volunteers. To ensure the public would know who to look to for help, I ordered OpenCaching Ambassador shirts (OpenCaching.com is Garmin’s free geocaching platform) for everyone, turning the 50 plus volunteers into an orange amalgam of intensely-bright GPS knowledge. I think ours is the only geocaching event was seen from the moon.

So what would volunteers do there? What should we offer the public? I had the dubious task of turning bar-napkin ideas into reality. Some beer-goggled ideas are fun to talk about, but often-times lead to nothing. I had no such luxury with this event.

With 50+ GPS experts there, it made sense to play that up. We’d have a science fair. Cooler, we’d have a geocaching science fair! OK, let’s go back to a science fair. I sent around a slew of emails before I found a nice guy in the warehouse that would allow me to check out 45 of our newest handheld GPS devices, the eTrex series. I even had the privilege of going down to the warehouse and personally picking them up. It’s a small thing, but it’s still neat to walk the hallowed grounds of the place where we ship out so many devices. Have the creative team make a “Learn to Geocache” sign, stick it on a tent and BOOM! We have our first station.

But wait…we don’t have any tents. Of course not…why would we? That took some more searching and friend-making before I tracked down two pop-up tents, and used one of my own.

Eye candy…we needed eye candy. Typically eye candy and geocaching aren't mentioned in the same sentence - I'd like to change that. Talking with a guy in our ID (Industrial Design) department, he volunteered to create a few nice stands to display our newest devices on. They came out looking like silver polished surfboards…stunning. I sent another round of emails to acquire the necessary devices, dropped them off in ID and returned a few days later with the final product.

There was also another table for a different ID volunteer, who really went all out. ID is where our devices begin. They start by talking about what’s required in a device (size constraints, capabilities, style, etc), then produce a series of sketches, later move them to fancy computer programs, where they’re discussed and final form factor is honed in on. On to rough 3D models, then painted models, plastic models, etc, until they get closer and closer to the real thing, electronic guts included. Or at least that’s my understanding of it. For me, and I imagine any child or scout, it’s a pretty cool process.

Our ID volunteer brought to the event a giant wall-board with initial sketches of a device, as well as a computer monitor that displayed multi-dimensional views. Kids could approach and look at those or the portable sandbox full of the various early phases of a device mentioned above. We created a fitting “Meet the Experts” sign for him and the rest of the engineering ilk, only partly playing up to their ego's. 

How to make the event more interactive? They’d be looking at new devices, learning about their history and walking around searching for geocaches, but what else? What could we give them to take home as a memory of the event? If the idea was to generate interest in geocaching as a fun recreational outdoor activity that families can do together, we should provide them with the means to do so. We put in an order for 250 geocaching kits, which would allow participants to take home literature (also ordered for the event) and a geocaching kit, along with some swag (common ‘caching term, referring to all the free stuff you get at the events) that Jake and I bought. “Build-a-Cache” was the title, similar to the famous way to create custom teddy bears.

With volunteers accounted for and presumably able to keep busy during the event, I still had a few items to check off of the list:

I emailed no less than 7 people before figuring out how to rent a portable toilet. I’d be curious to see how much you think it is to rent one of those overnight…

I wanted music and photography for the event, so I spoke with some friends and co-workers to help out. I hired a DJ, or rather a ZJ, as my buddy Zach agreed to emcee the event. Negotiations were brutal.

I bought plastic Easter eggs to fill with the pathtags, so kids would have another sort-of ‘cache to look for while at the event.

IT helped me secure laptops for the ‘cachers, and air cards for Internet. Also batteries for the 45 devices.

I worked with Facilities to secure tables and power; we did a walk-through to determine where we’d rope off the event, flow parking to, setup the tables, music, banners, booths and beverages.

Did you know that you need a city permit to place a giant banner on Garmin grounds? I didn’t. Then I did. The more I know…

I deftly negotiated with our food services company to have them provide coffee, water bottles and juice boxes for participants.

A stroke of genius hit us (Jake and I), and we found the right people to provide us access to the two-story tall inflatable eTrex, Garmin’s original GPS device. (Funny story on this one…Jake and I naturally struggled to inflate it, and left it in the hands of the engineers. When the number of volunteers working on it surpassed six, I sullied up and made a lame “How many engineers” joke. I’m sure some found it funny, though no one would admit in company of the group.)

I worked with a colleague to create and place the on-site caches. We utilized the walking track and workout stations around it, three giant treasure chests (to play up the whole “pirate searching for treasure” thing…for the kids), a bird house, a cardboard cutout of Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, bags of candy, more stickers and a lamp post that had to be physically moved to find a cache. The course was a bit over a mile long, and it was gratifying to see the product support agents and engineers escorting families and scouts around the premises with GPS devices in hand, searching for their first caches.

(Kid's Stickers created for the event)

I’m sure there was more, you’ve probably stopped reading by now, so I’ll stop. Yeah…I too thought I was going to be brief.

Quick summary of the event

The weather was gorgeous – the first non-rainy day in a week. Volunteers were on-time, orange and ready to work. The four charities involved had fun, and their workers all hunted for ‘caches. The Boy Scouts had an okay presence, and we’re already talking about how they can be more involved next year. Same for the Girl Scouts, who actually had an adjacent geocaching event that same day - go figure. There could have been more people in attendance, but those who showed up had a good time. Kids were smiling as they walked the premises searching for their treasure. We over-rewarded all who came with swag. We even had a guy from South Dakota come just for the event, proving how dedicated a geocacher he is.

Jake and I had fun, and it was a huge stress relief that the event went off as we had planned, and without an international incident. We celebrated with pizza and beers at…you guessed it…Jerry’s. Great bookend to a fun event. One that next year – and we’ve been told by the Rec/Outdoor brass that there will be a next year – will be even bigger. Maybe even bigger than a two story tall GPS device. But I doubt it. 

To learn more:

Garmin Blog: Awesome 'Caching Fun

Wanna Learn to Cache? Take a look at these two videos. You may recognize the talent: