Caretaker of the Reef

It was announced that there were nearly 35,000 applicants who submitted videos for Tourism Queensland’s Island Reef Job.  It would appear that there were not nearly so many applicants as there were videos.  Only one unique email address was required per entrant.  Carrie and Jonathan, for example, admitted on their blog that they submitted 5 videos, each emphasizing an angle they wanted to promote.

The same applies to voting for the wild card candidate.  The voting process takes an email address and sends the vote confirmation there.  The recipient must click on a link in the email for the vote to be tallied.  You can vote for each email address you have.

The voting process could easily have problems.  Email addresses are free from Yahoo, MSN, etc.  Could friends of applicants sign up for dozens and use them to vote.

Even a worse problem could come from web developers like me.  I have email addresses for each of my websites.  That gives me 30 right there for each one starting with “rich.”  And I could create any number of additional email addresses from there.  If I were a hosting company, I could have script that would automatically create thousands of new email addresses and process the confirmation.

Maybe it was wise for Tourism Queensland to only have one wild card candidate.  The public is participating and that is good for publicity.  But they have no obligation to select that person.

Tourism Queensland has reveiled the top 50 Best Job in the World candidates which the world can vote for to become Caretaker of the Great Barrier Reef.  The winner will become the 11th Wild Card candidate.

The top 10 candidates presumably have been chosen.  All picks including the Wild Card entrant will be reveiled March 6.  These are the applicants that will go to Australia for the interviews.

Unfortunately, I’m not in the top 50 picks so you cannot vote for me.  But I will continue to report on the Great Barrier Reef and the caretaker job.

Tourism Queensland has created a short list of 200 applicants for the Caretaker of the Great Barrier Reef job.  There were nearly 35,000 applicants for the job so to make the short list is quite an accomplishment.

Tomorrow, March 3, the board will post the top 50 applicants on their website.  The public will then be able to vote for their favorite from that list.  The top-vote getter will become the wildcard applicant who will also compete with the top 10 finalist.

On March 6, the top 10 applicants and a top-vote getter will be announced.  The caretaker job will be awarded from these 11 applicants and will start the job on July 1.

Many applicants were cut out of the process because the server could not handle all of the last minute submissions.  It is estimated 4,000 submissions were attempted in the last hours before the deadline.

The job pays about $97,000 US ($150,000 AU) for 6 months.  This is less than 10% of the AU $1.7 million budgeted for promoting tourism in Queensland.  So far, the campaign seems to have paid off with the amount of publicity it has received.

Will this publicity pay off in tourist dollars?

Caretaker of the Great Barrier Reef has been billed as “the best job in the world.” Tourism Queensland says “the most important duty is to report back and let us know what’s taking place on the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef.”

The news media seems to think this is a 6 month vacation in paradise.  I wouldn’t argue with the term paradise but I wouldn’t call it a vacation, either.  The amount of area you need to report on is absolutely huge.

We are talking about the largest reef system in the world.  It covers 133,000 square miles and includes 900 islands and 2,900 individual reefs.  How many islands could you cover in 180 days?

Travel is certainly a requirement here.  If you don’t like flying in small, single-engine planes and riding in boats, you will have a serious problem with this job.  I own 2 boats so I don’t think I’ll have a problem.  I’d recommend a suitcase full of Dramamine for those who suffer from motion sickness.

A love of the outdoors would be another requirement.  I have an 11-foot camper on the back of my truck and have run a website Utah Fish Finder for many years.  You might get the idea I love fishing.  Trying out the Great Barrier Reef has been a dream of mine for many years.

The “reporting back” is another issue for this job.  Do you like to write?  Take pictures?  Conduct interviews?  Be interviewed?  This is another aspect of the job that might not be appealing to some.

So, is this the best job in the world for you?  Or would you rather spend your vacation there and just relax?

Perhaps the ideal job for you would be something else.  What would it be?

The application process for the Caretaker of the Great Barrier Reef has now closed.  Tourism Minister Desley Boyle said she was blown away by the interest in the island caretaker role. During the closing hours there were 4,000 applicants trying to upload their videos. The website slowed to the point where not all of them were able to finish.

Because of the staggering number of applicants, extra staff has been hired to process the applications. A short list of 50 applicants will be announced on Tuesday, March 3. Those top 50 will then be narrowed down to 11 which will be interviewed in Australia.