If you don't know this is the process of giving people access to Sports Events. People who are participating or working at the event.
Credentialing our USA cousins call it.
A lot has changed. We started working in Accreditation in 1989 for the 1991 Rugby World Cup in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and France. Thats complicated right there. Five host countries and Rugby Unions, three telecom companies and legal jurisdictions and two currencies.
The most obvious changes are not in the process but in the technology available. In 1991 smart phones weren't around, there was no Google, no social media and email was state of the art comms. People were coming to terms with the internet and fax (does anyone still use it?) was still a big deal.
We worked on Euro 96 in England and were supplied with a sponsors Accreditation software. It didn’t work — we were saved by faxing forma all over the country with our team working through the night to produce passes ensuring that there were no hold ups and denials of access at the event.
I have always been tempted to name and shame that software provider. Indeed that same software created in Europe became the basis of the software used at some of the largest events in the world. It is enormously complex and expensive to run. Much like the events that use it.
Now we have the ‘Cloud’ a concept that would have seemed like science fiction in 1991. Today we deploy the latest Accreditation software in the cloud and it works like other ‘Apps’ on any internet connected device.
It’s fully automated and can work with no contact at all if required. It can be set up and deployed in minutes and the applications start rolling in. That is a process that would have taken a month or three in 1991. Now it’s minutes.
Hardly time to write a blog about it.