Tag Archives: Sport

July 12, 2012 · 9:56 am

Sports And Social

Some news this morning from the folks at Trendrr about social interactions with TV.

English: The iPad on a table in the Apple case

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On today’s list of not-so-surprising findings:

Sporting events continue to dominate in terms of social TV: ABC was given a boost by the NBA Finals, which accounted for more than 13.5 million social interactions. This made ABC the “most engaging” broadcast network in June.

Well, YEAH!  Sports is, and has always been, an extremely social activity.  In fact, when you think about the various ways in which people consume sports, it’s pretty obvious that without social something fairly big is missing.  The best sports viewing experience is in your living room.  Big screen TV, comfy chair, hundreds of people working very hard to make sure you see every detail of the game, supplemented with statistical insights and brilliant analysis.  Except if you’ve ever watched a game alone you realize it’s not as much fun as watching with a group.  Social is missing.

The other extreme is at the game itself.  It’s the best social sports experience.  You’re surrounded by thousands of other people who are doing almost nothing but socializing about the game, even before it begins (even before you get into the stadium in many cases).  It’s great, except you don’t have a lot of replays, you don’t get the insightful analysis, you  can’t see the perfect angle.  Social is there but obviously something is still missing.

To me, the ultimate sports experience is a sports bar.  Perfect game presentation, great social experience.  Social apps that we can use even when we’re alone help to bridge that gap and put us closer to that sports bar experience.  What Trendrr has reminded us is that the technology by itself is only part of the story – it facilitates something that has always been a major part of the sports experience.  It’s a good point to remember about your business: you can’t confuse the business with the technology.  I think activity around sports in these social areas is huge only because social has been a natural part of sports for a long time.  It doesn’t need to be manufactured.  Think about that as you contemplate using some new piece of tech.

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July 9, 2012 · 9:38 am

Goal-Line Technology And Your Business

The lords of international soccer recently gave their approval for the use of technology that can tell if a ball crossed the goal-line for a goal.

a soccer goal, shot on the German »Chambers Le...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Revolutionary for soccer but the same technology has been in use for tennis for quite some time. We’ve all seen the cool animations CBS provides during the U.S. Open although frankly I’d rather see another McEnroe tirade than an absolutely correct call.

The use of technology to improve upon the imperfections of human officials is widespread.  The NFL uses TV replay to get things right, as does the NHL and, to a more limited extent baseball.  Be that as it may, there was an interesting quote in the Reuters report on the introduction:

UEFA president Michel Platini is among those who fear that Thursday’s ruling will open the floodgates for other forms of technology to be introduced.  “I am not just wholly against goal-line technology, I am against technology itself because then it is going to invade every area of football,” he warned last week.

Sounds like quite the Luddite, but he’s not alone.  Baseball doesn’t use technology to call balls and strikes although it seems possible.  Other sports don’t employ technology, preferring to let the quirks of human referees remain part of the game.  What does this have to do with your business?

Your business might be in the same boat.  Developing strategies without planning a set of KPI’s to measure progress is the same mentality.  Not having a system in place to capture, analyze, and report on what’s going on the digital world is as well.  You wouldn’t dream of operating a business without some sort of financial reporting yet we often ignore many other pieces of vital information that could help us make the correct calls.

The technology in place won’t end all of the questionable goal calls in soccer.  That’s OK – we’re still talking about some of them (The Hand of God goal) 25 years later.  But if we’re to be talking about our businesses 25 years from now, we’d do well to take advantage of every piece of information we can.

You agree?

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May 3, 2012 · 9:27 am

Overtime

I’m kind of tired this morning.  I stayed up to watch the first overtime period of a hockey game last night, which turned into a second period and then a third.  In the NHL, playoff overtime periods are the same 20 minute length as a period in a regular game, so it was the equivalent of watching almost a complete second game.  The thing that always strikes me about OT (as overtime is commonly known) is how the players deal with it.  After all, they’re told to put out 100% effort during the game, so what’s left in their tanks if they’re doing that?

into.overtime

(Photo credit: MelvinSchlubman)

It’s a good question for all of us in business.  Then again, we don’t play OT since there’s really no game clock any more.  Overtime is the quaint notion that there is work beyond normal working hours for which we get paid additional money.  Of course, with our “always on” technology, it’s not unusual to receive (and reply to) emails and documents at any hour.  In fact, I’ll bet most of you get antsy if you send a note at any time and don’t receive a reply within an hour.

There are lots of issues here.  The biggest is the same one the players face.  They’ve given everything they have to win during the allotted time and then find out that because they haven’t accomplished the goal they’ve got to continue to give more.  Can they?  These OT games often come down to conditioning and team management – who’s got the fresher legs.  That’s why as managers, we need to make sure our people are pacing themselves since there is no clock in business any more.  Sometimes our best performers will burn themselves out if we don’t make sure they’re turning off the mail and setting the phone to mute, at least on the weekend.

The notion of paying people for overtime work is a fair one yet I don’t know how anyone keeps track.  Business is not just done in the office and burnout can happen anywhere.  There is no clock in business – most of us don’t “punch in” and “punch out.”  As a result, we need to be cognizant that the game might go into OT, the little breaks in between periods of game action won’t be enough to fully recover, and we need to have the stamina to compete.

Make sense?

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