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0:00:13.1 Chris Ronan: Hello everybody. Welcome to Inside Geocaching HQ the podcast about what is happening at HQ in Seattle I am Chris Ronan and my geocaching username is Rock Chalk. And today we are talking about the Wheel of Challenges which is the current souvenir challenge. For many of us, the wheel has directed much of our caching over the past few months. A lot of talk about it out there in the community. And so I connected with Genevieve Minor from HQ’s marketing team. There are a number of teams at HQ involved with creating something like the Wheel of Challenges but Genevieve’s team is primarily involved with setting it all up. And so I wanted to hear more about how they did that. So here is me and Genevieve taking a ride on the wheel of Challenges.

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This is extremely exciting. We’re actually in person for the HQ podcast. It’s the first time in over three years that I’ve been in person with somebody to record the podcast. We’ve been doing it on Zoom which has its benefits but it’s nice to actually be across the table from Genevieve from HQ’s marketing team. And the first time you’ve done the HQ podcast and were you even working here the last time I did an in-person podcast. When did you start at HQ again ’cause my memory’s terrible.

0:01:40.1 Genevieve Miner: I started at HQ in 2019 in April.

0:01:44.4 CR: Okay. So you were here. Yeah.

0:01:45.2 GM: So there were a few podcasts I think still happening in person during my early days here at HQ. Yeah…

0:01:51.8 CR: Okay. Gotcha. So before we get into why you’re here which is to talk about the Wheel of Challenges let’s start about what you were doing back in 2019 when you what first brought you to HQ and what kind of things have you done leading up to what your role is now on the marketing team?

0:02:09.1 GM: Yeah. So I arrived at HQ to fill the role of the guest experience coordinator in the visitor center. So I started out there greeting visitors, giving them the little tours around the visitor center and doing other work with the community team ’cause that was the role was a part of that team so supporting them in that way too and that was really a lot of fun. It was kind of a dream job to be able to see all these people that were so happy to come to this special place and to be able to just share their joy really. Yeah. So that was great and then I moved to a different role on the community team where I was a community coordinator and I was helping out with social media and responding to geocachers when they have questions and projects related to that. And then I moved to the marketing team which is where I’ve been for a couple of years now. And on the marketing team I work on managing our newsletter that goes out weekly for premium members, the logbook and our monthly basic newsletter. And I also work on managing engagement campaigns like Wheel of Challenges as well as some other projects but those two are the big ones for me.

0:03:33.7 CR: So with your experiences starting in the visitor center you’ve had this great exposure to all sorts of different aspects of HQ and of the community. Like you said one of the neat things in your first role was getting to actually meet people from the community. And now you still get to communicate with those people via the newsletter. So I would think it’s a lot of fun just to have this opportunity to be close to the game and close to the people that are playing the game in these various roles that you’ve done. And also on the community engagement team where you were answering questions and stuff like that. I mean from the beginning you’ve really been pretty consistently doing stuff that really allows you to be talking with the community and being involved with everybody that’s playing the game.

0:04:19.8 GM: Yeah, that’s definitely like the through line, through everything that I’ve done at my various roles here at HQ is that I’ve always been talking to the community, hearing what the community has to say which is great because we have such a passionate and engaged community. So we’re never at a loss for feedback or for ideas and also with the community being so passionate it’s like, I mean, it’s energizing for the work I do because that I know that people are interested in geocaching. I know that it means a lot to people. So it’s a really rewarding job because of that.

0:04:58.3 CR: Well, you could not have segued better into our conversation when you talk about engagement and passion and feedback I think all of those things apply to this souvenir promotion that’s been going on this summer the wheel of challenges. And I think you know there is an actual wheel as people have seen in the videos and I thought about bringing it in here. I thought how cool would that be if we spun the wheel and when we found that we like decide the questions I’m gonna ask based on the wheel, you know and we could throw in some geocaching stuff and maybe ask you about your favourite TV show and all sorts of stuff but I didn’t do that. I don’t know if that people might be out there really disappointed now that they can’t hear the wheel.

0:05:43.6 CR: But yeah. Let’s talk about the Wheel of Challenges because I think as I think back on various summer promotions that we’ve done and different souvenir opportunities that maybe this one is talked about as much as any people seem to be very opinionated about it. Very and very excited about it too but it’s been fun to watch the chatter. And before we get into that chatter let’s just talk about how does your team start with coming up with these ideas? Like how long ago did you first start thinking about what eventually became the Wheel of Challenges and what was the process like for that?

0:06:27.9 GM: So the process for coming up with these kind of engagement campaigns wheel of Challenges as our example here it starts with brainstorming. So Wheel of Challenges that started in April. And so I think we were having those initial brainstorming meetings in September and October. And so we meet up those months in advance and sometimes we already have a little bit of a framework in mind. So we knew like for Wheel of Challenges that we wanted to do something that felt different from Signal’s Labyrinth, the souvenir challenge that we had right before Wheel of Challenges. So we knew the things that we would want it, that we would want to be different about this was we wanted a shorter timeframe for the whole length of the challenge but also the different periods for different souvenirs with signals Labyrinth. A lot of the challenges though the leaderboard points would be different.

0:07:27.4 GM: A lot of it was just, you know, to find Geocaches to hit a certain number of points. So for this we wanted it to have a little bit more variety just to stand out from Signals Labyrinth too. So more kind of specific challenges to find souvenirs. So those were like broadly the ideas that we had going in. And so we heading into these brainstorming meetings and we’ve got members of the marketing team as well as members of the community team and engineers, the web developers that we have ’cause it’s good for them to keep us in line. We can get a little blue sky and in the brainstorming sometimes and it’s good for them to say, that’s great. Here’s what’s possible so we have all these folks in a brainstorming meeting, and we also have members of the creative team who create all of the souvenir artwork, the artwork that goes into our newsletter and social media.

0:08:21.7 GM: So we get all those folks together and we lay out what the framework will be. If there isn’t a framework, then we just lay out all the ideas that we have. But either way it starts with everyone sharing those ideas. We go through what we think will be possible what will be like feasible with the kind of engineering work that might be required for it. And then we just work on getting that list shorter and shorter until we land on what the campaign will be. So we knew that it was going to be after those brainstorming meetings. We knew that it was going to be a collection of different souvenir challenges with kind of different themes so we knew that much. And then we have brainstorm meetings where we talk about the theme of the campaign. And also I should mention part of these brainstorm meetings things that we bring into it is community feedback.

0:09:14.1 GM: So we always have surveys that go out to members of the community asking what they think about ongoing campaigns, what they want to see in future ones. So we bring those into the conversation too because we want to make sure that this thing we’re creating for the community is something that’s based on what the community wants and enjoys. Then go into those meetings for the theme as I was discussing. And those are always fun because we get to think like what story do we want to tell with the campaign or what kind of souvenir artwork do we think would make a really cool Geocoin and what fits best with what we have already for that framework. So since we knew we had was it was gonna be this kind of mixed bag of like different challenges each time and it would be a surprise that kind of led us to this sort of game show theme spin the wheel and find out what the next challenge will be. So that was a long answer for kind of what that development process looks like.

0:10:18.0 CR: So yeah it’s a long process and it sounds like you’re about to start thinking about next summer.

[laughter]

0:10:23.8 GM: Yes.

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0:10:28.5 CR: You talked about community feedback. Is there anything that’s I don’t know anything that’s consistent as we hear from the community over the course of these souvenir challenges? Is there I don’t know in some of the surveys that I’ve seen I feel like you’ll see both ends of the spectrum sometimes like some people say this was too hard or some people say it’s too easy I want it to be harder. Are there certain things that come to mind for you that any particular feedback that is reflected in this current in the Wheel of Challenges?

0:11:03.1 GM: Yeah. So what you just mentioned the people saying it’s too easy. It’s too hard. We hear that really consistently. So we tried to address that by having these different levels of souvenirs. And we’ve had that before where Signals Labyrinth always had each challenge had two souvenirs available. One that was a little easier to earn, one that was a little bit harder. But even when we were offering that, we were still hearing it’s too easy or it’s too hard just like you said. So we wanted to really listen with this one and have options that felt super achievable. So for those cachers that maybe they like geocaching but they go out and they just find one cache they’re tailoring their outing just to one location or something like that. Or there people that are going to find a hundred caches in a day.

0:11:56.3 GM: So we wanted to really try and create something that could cater to all those different types of geocaching. So we had a really achievable souvenir and a medium one that felt kind of middle of the road. And then one that was a really relative to what we’ve done before it was pretty difficult. So like the challenge that we have going right now with Streak Star as it’s called it starts out with a two-day streak to earn a souvenir which we thought, okay, pretty manageable. You know two fines, two days, and then it goes all the way up to a 28-day streak, which is more ambitious definitely.

0:12:35.6 CR: And if you’re hearing this after the streak portion of this has ended don’t freak out. We’re recording this in July so. Yeah. I’m not sure exactly when this is gonna come out but yeah. So anyway are you already getting feedback right now about each of these things or does that happen after the whole thing’s over?

0:12:55.6 GM: We are getting feedback now. So we’re always communicating on the geocaching blog about what challenge is coming next and other blog posts that we’ll put out related to like tips that are specific to this, to the challenge that is happening during a month. And so people will comment on the blog and we’ll see what they’re thinking about different challenges there. Also on social media we see comments on Facebook what people like, what people would want to be different. So we’re definitely paying attention to that. We’ve seen some people sharing that they were… They’re hoping that there could have been some kind of like in progress indicator for the challenge so that they could keep track of those streaks and things like that. So we take note of that definitely. We also have been seeing some comments about the timing for the campaign.

0:13:53.0 GM: ’cause it always the challenges turn over on the first Monday of the month and a little peek behind the curtain for everyone. If they’re wondering why it starts on the first Monday of the month instead of maybe the first day of the month. It’s because some of our challenges are based around the leaderboard, so earning points on the leaderboard and the leaderboard is actually set up so that it always turns over on Mondays. We can change it so that it’s weekly, monthly change that time period but it’s always going to switch over on a Monday. And we figured if we’re going to use the leaderboard it would be easiest just to keep it consistent for those new challenges where we’re always starting on the first Monday as opposed to this month, it’s the first day of the month, next month it’s the first Monday of the month. So that’s why we have it that way. And I think with other comments that we’re seeing from the community interestingly enough, we’re still seeing some people say it’s too easy and some people say it’s too hard. But there are some things that will be I think consistent feedback no matter what but yeah.

0:15:00.2 CR: Well, I mean you’re talking about a game that’s played by people all over the world.

0:15:04.5 GM: Yeah. ALL Over the world.

0:15:05.4 CR: And that’s one of the great things about geocaching is that you can play it any way you wanna play it and then as a result of that you’ve got such a spectrum of people and probably not possible to make everybody happy. But personally me as a player it’s been fun to see those different levels. So you talked a little bit about the story that you tell and Geocoins and all that stuff, and it kind of gets into the various teams that are involved in this thing. I know you mentioned the community team and engineering and the creative team that come. Right. They come up with, yeah. I just love seeing the whether or not I buy a Geocoin I love seeing the artwork that they could, could you talk a little bit about how that process works and the input that’s involved and all that sort of stuff?

0:15:56.3 GM: Yeah. Our creative team is wonderful. What they come up with is always so delightful to me. So I mentioned we have those meetings early on where we talk about the theme of what a campaign will be. And the creative team is a big piece of that meeting. So they’re part of coming up with that in addition to marketing community, other folks here at HQ. And then once we’ve landed on what the theme will be I write up just like a little brief laying out what different types of images we’ll need, what types of art we’ll need. So if there is art needed for a coin, how many different souvenirs will need all that? And then I give it to them and we’ve discussed kind of what the theme is. And then based on that they come up with the artwork and we discuss if it works best if there’s anything we wanna tweak with it.

0:16:50.1 GM: And yeah it’s pretty amazing because I always feel like, okay, well, you know, I gave them like the kind of rough outline of what I’m thinking but I don’t know what they’ll come up with. And it’s always just something so, so great. Like for as you said we’re recording in July during the Streak Star challenge. So for that one, for example, I knew that the artwork would somehow be related to streaks but what the team came up with was this great souvenir design where you can see kind of a graphic of calendar days for streaks but then in front you have signal and tracker and Signal’s a rockstar ’cause he is a streak star. And I thought that was just such a fun way to capture that theme for this month’s challenge. Really got me.

[laughter]

0:17:37.4 CR: Yeah. Sometimes they’ll come up with stuff where I just look at it and think, oh, that looks really cool. And then like a month later somebody will say, did you see this part of it.

[laughter]

0:17:46.0 GM: Yeah.

0:17:47.7 CR: And I’m like no, I’m not smart enough to pick up on that.

0:17:49.9 GM: They put in so much detail. Yeah.

0:17:51.9 CR: Yeah. It’s really cool. So how we talked about streak, you know, there’s been other different challenges within the Wheel of challenges. How does the team come up with the different aspects of this whether it’s streak or whether it’s X number of fines in a month or whatever?

0:18:10.3 GM: Yeah, so we start off by thinking of everything that we have at our disposal to create a challenge. So we know that we could award souvenirs for finding different types of geocaches for finding geocaches with certain attributes, for attending events, for receiving favourite points. So we just start with the biggest list of everything we could possibly have. We also think about what is manageable for the community. So for example, I was mentioning we could have challenges with attributes, and though that could be fun. Some of those attributes are super rare. So if someone has to find a night cache or find a cache that requires scuba gear in order to earn a souvenir that’s pretty limiting.

0:18:55.6 GM: So we think through those kinds of things too. And we say okay this is off the board then ’cause it’s not quite manageable. And then just following that kind of process we come down to what seems like the challenges at least for Wheel of Challenges. This is how we were doing it, the challenges that we could do. And we talked to engineering to see if some of these challenges might actually require some additional work on the like the process that we have for rewarding souvenirs things like that. And that kind of leads us to the list that we have for what the souvenir challenges will be. And you know some things end up on the cutting room floor for one reason or another but we try to have a mix of things and yeah.

0:19:44.1 CR: And then when it’s all said and done how does your team determine whether a souvenir challenge was successful or not?

0:19:52.9 GM: The way that we kind of evaluate whether a souvenir challenge is successful or not is by looking at different areas and seeing how we performed. So we look at social media and we see what the response was there. So we see were people excited about it there, were people confused, did people have questions? Were people talking about it with other geocachers things like that. And related to that we’re also looking at our newsletter and our blog seeing if people were responding to the newsletter survey with feedback, the blog, etcetera and what the nature of that is. We also look at the number of souvenirs earned to see how many people were out there trying to get those souvenirs. If it got more people excited, if it was interesting for more people seeing that. And then also seeing overall during the timeline of a campaign if overall more people were geocaching or, for example, like this month again, I keep mentioning it, it’s streaks is the theme of this month’s challenge. So if this month more people are going on streaks specifically we’ll look at that data and say, okay, so this was something that people were interested in. It’s something people responded to. So looking at those different kind of pieces of information and based on what we see there that’s how we kind of evaluate, give ourselves a grade for a campaign.

0:21:24.7 CR: Yeah. And it’s also been fun to see people trying to guess or speculate on what the next campaigns are going to be. So I probably can’t get you to spoil anything in the future.

[laughter]

0:21:37.9 GM: No information is under locking key for now.

0:21:41.3 CR: I Don’t even know it’s like I suppose I could probably find out since I work here but I don’t know. And I haven’t been intentionally been trying not to find out but it’s been a surprise to me too. I just kinda wait and see what the blog says when the next one is announced and then find out when I’m gonna have to do for the next month which is a lot of fun.

0:22:00.6 GM: Where will the wheel land?

0:22:02.4 CR: Where will the wheel. Exactly. And now again I wish we had the wheel in the room how I could have just been spinning it every so often. So before we let you go it’s summertime in Seattle where we’re based. It’s great time to be at out geocaching what is your favourite kind of geocaching? What’s a good caching day for you if you were to plan one out?

0:22:21.4 GM: A good caching day for me would be geocaching on my bike, picking a cycling route, probably an urban one that’s my preference. And then picking a few caches along the way usually ones that are gonna be a little bit easier. So I can have that satisfaction of the find. So maybe picking three caches along my route and then stopping off. And if I can somehow fit in between the cache finds maybe like a farmer’s market or a bakery that’s just a perfect day. I remember a few summers ago when we had mystery at the museum I had some really great cache outings trying to find those clues in the summer and on my bike. It was great, yeah.

0:23:11.7 CR: I had the same experience with mystery at the museum. I do remember when I would bike home from the office I would be planning my route based on. Oh, there’s a clue in this cache I just have to go whatever, 2, 2, 3 blocks over from where I usually go. And but I don’t know I bike a lot but I don’t usually like to stop ’cause of my momentum I keep going. So like the other day we were out geocaching on the weekend and we were on this bike path that I ride. Literally, I mean I’ve ridden it hundreds times over the years and there was this cache that we found that has been there for like I don’t know, eight years or something.

0:23:51.7 GM: Oh, and you hadn’t found it yet, yet?

0:23:51.8 CR: I had never found it before.

0:23:53.0 GM: Oh my gosh.

0:23:54.2 CR: I biked past it. I don’t even know how I mean, truly hundreds of times. And so I should stop more but I also wear cleats when I go biking. And so it’s not really great to walk. I get out and try to walk into, especially if there’s any bush whacking involved. That’s why that’s not a super great. It sounds like your setup is better.

[laughter]

0:24:13.7 GM: Yes. Yeah. I’m in a more soft shoe when I’m on my bicycle. Yeah.

0:24:15.8 CR: Alright. And getting to go to farmer’s markets too that’s really cool. Well, this has been great and I know people are excited about finding out what’s to come and excited about what the next one was. Like I said you guys are gonna be talking about it real soon, aren’t you? For the next time. Yeah.

0:24:30.8 GM: Tes. We are and stay tuned.

0:24:36.4 CR: That was Genevieve from HQ’s Marketing Team. Check out the geocaching blog for more about the Wheel of Challenges. There is also a link on your profile page on the website and in the Geocaching app to learn more about the Wheel of Challenges. If you would like to drop a line about the HQ podcast please do so by emailing podcast@geocaching.com. We do love hearing from you. And until next time, from me and Genevieve and all of the lackeys at Geocaching HQ, happy caching.