Day 18, Level 1: (Fri 26 June) - FIFA Women's World Cup, Michele, Taste Tests, Facial Recognition and chimps!

Well today it was announced that Aus/NZ will host the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup (football). This is indeed a coup and it will be BIG. Don't underestimate the appeal of women's sport! 

Australia will play the bigger part with more cities hosting, yes, and NZ could play no part without them, true. But what a wonderful joint effort it will be. 

Let's hope Covid is a distant memory by the time this comes around.  

Young female football players are ecstatic already!

I've never been highly sporty or much into football - but EGGS old girl Michele Cox is CEO of NZ Football Foundation and, having got to know her, I've learnt a lot about the sport. She was part of the team that made the initial pitch. How thrilled she must be. 

Michele is an all-round wonderful woman. She is an EGGS Founders Award recipient (2016) - which is how I met her - and she was guest speaker at the EGGS Graduation Dinner last year in 2019 where students and their parents learnt about her unique and impressive background in the sport. What a gem she is.

Current player Annalie Longo is also an EGGS Old Girl. Great to see the sport, and women's sport in general, shining.

Stats show that 1.12 billion tuned into the Women's World Cup in 2019 - which is 150m more than watched the Rugby World Cup that year! Without doubt, it's likely to be the biggest sporting event ever held in NZ. 

Just before lockdown I'd been liaising with Michele about her many achievements, to write a profile article about her for a magazine - more lifestyle than sports as Michele has an eclectic story that I'd pulled together - but lockdown and everything that happened with writing, journalism and magazines meant no-go there. On hold for the moment - but to be revitalised - with new elements!

One of Michele's proudest achievements is being instrumental in encouraging girls in the Middle East to play football. And there are many other great things she's done.

Hopefully people will be able to read more about her once I pitch the story of this wonderful, humble, talented and utterly delightful woman! To be in her company makes you smile, laugh and be inspired. She played football in Germany, lived in Switzerland for a long time, worked with FIFA and UEFA, is an author and helped build a beautiful home in Langkawi - which I've been invited to, but of course can't get to! Michele was responsible for the interior of the house - I've seen the photos and it looks amazing. To tell her story to a wider audience (and beyond sport) will be my privilege. 

Michele Cox making a difference

Back to everyday life ... admin stuff (work and housework, and GST - which seems to come round so quickly) to do today before packing up and heading to Omaha. As I approached Omaha the rain started falling. I managed to unpack the car just before the rain came driving down. 

Michael arrived up a bit later. Dinner was ribs, salad and rosti. Tasty. 

Rain fell, it was a quiet night of TV in Darroch Slope, with the heating keeping things warm and cosy. 

SHARE-NOTE OF THE DAY:

Research, Tasting, and Face Recognition ...

I saw a clip on Seven Sharp tonight about people who do taste and sensory tests for Fonterra in Palmerston North. It had all this mystique about it, and the clip made out that it's a job. It didn't seem to tell the full story ...

You see, I do similar taste testing for Plant & Food Research (formerly DSIR - Dept of Science and Industrial Research) in Auckland. It's occasional, it's interesting and it is well paid (but you're only there for an hour or two occasionally, so it's definitely not lucrative!) You can't wear perfume or deodorant. You can't have allergies. You have to be reliable and follow strict protocol. And it's hugely confidential. That's the nature of things for an occasional taste researcher. I've been doing it for years.

You might get 3-4 stints a year if you're lucky. You aren't allowed to do too many. They want diversity.. So it's definitely not a job! 

But it's great - taste-testing with payment when the timing suits - all good! 

And you can make a difference in the products that get to market - even better!

I've done tastings on all sorts of things - honey, chocolate, wine, yoghurt, fruit, muesli, crackers, nuts ... and more.  

Some are just one session - go in, taste test, respond, leave, done. 

Others require several sessions and quite a commitment. 

One taste test research programme I did last year was for the new "red" kiwi fruit. We had to do three different testings over several months - so it's both a commitment and a challenge. We knew this one was highly confidential, for a new (secret) product - and we had to sign up as such, and commit to each testing session required - or no payment. 

It's sort of a cross between tamarillo and kiwi fruit. It's certainly the most interesting and challenging taste test I've ever done. Now out to market. Oh so perfect to decorate a pav, it looks beautiful. 

In terms of taste - oh man, we tried many many concoctions for them to get to whatever one has gone to market.

I also do lots of taste tests for other research organisations that are more about market/brand research, whereas the ones for Plant & Research are for taste research for new products.

Whether brand or new product, I love signing up for the taste tests if I'm eligible. Will always do it as long as I'm asked and qualify (and sometimes you don't!) and am available. I can say that there is an extremely diverse mix of people in these testing/tasting groups - so all perspectives are covered!

Facial Recognition ...

Talking of research groups - another thing I've done a bit of (online) over recent years is Facial Recognition. Some years ago I somehow got onto some online thing, passed a test and became a "Super Facial Recogniser" for international academic and police studies about face recognition (catch the criminal sort of thing). I always remember a face! 

I've participated in a number of online studies over the years. 

They're always quite hard, and everyone is alerted that they will be (that's the point) - but it's not about passing with flying colours, it's about letting the academics (and the police) understand how accurate "Super Facial Recognisers" are and how that transposes to whatever studies they are doing - and ultimately, I guess, how accurate (or not) a witness can be.

You get full info about the tests, how your input will be used, opt out stuff etc. They do give you the results of your tests once complete, and I generally perform okay. But they are incredibly hard - the images are often poor quality, blurry, distorted and from all angles (by design) - and there is a time factor. It's very intriguing and challenging. I love it. It's definitely hard. 

They're trying to work out, I suspect, how hard it is for a witness to accurately pinpoint who they saw and how reliable their vision is.  

I've always prided myself in remembering faces - I've blown people away by walking up to them in some random place in the world and saying "Are you ...?"  It might be someone I went to school with or worked with in the distant past. I've always been correct, and usually it's been in a foreign country, maybe the tube in London, an airport somewhere, a tourist hotspot. Sometimes a pub at home in Auckland. Love it.

These days it might just be the face I recognise and I may need some name prompting - but that won't stop me going up to someone whose face I know I know!

Just last week they sent out a new study test - which involved doing face recognition for dog faces and chimp faces, as well as human faces. This was completely new - they've never done anything other than humans before. Oh gosh the dogs and chimps were hard. As they said it would be! 

The photos were not your normal dog/chimp photos - they were from unusual angles and perspectives, blurred, close-up etc - and lots and lots of different pugs and huskies from all angles. Just ever so slightly different to each other. Were they the same dog? Or a variation thereof? Same with chimps, a glimpse at all sorts of chimps. 

Then you had to evaluate if you'd seen that actual dog or chimp before, with photos taken from different perspectives. Very hard. Especially with time constraints. 

But the whole recognition thing is about observance and noticing the unusual. Golly ... recognising people, that's one thing - chimps and dogs, quite another! And that's what they were trying to determine - how well do people recognise other beings. 

I hope my input is valuable as they evaluate the findings!