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What's Ahead

February 10, 2012

A dozen years ago I sat in on a presentation by a futurist who was speaking with a special committee of the National Federation of State High School Associations, called the “New Paradigm Task Force.”  During the presentation the speaker provided a list of the 10 magazines a person should read regularly to keep alert to what’s ahead in our world.  Here’s the list:

• Christian Science Monitor
• Science News
• Business Week
• Popular Science
• Utne Reader
• Atlantic Monthly
• Mother Earth News
• Technology Review
• The Economist
• In Context

Since that time I’ve carried the list with me in my pocket planner, and I’ve often purchased and read one or more of the magazines when I’m traveling through airports.  Over the years I’ve subscribed to four of these publications.

Some of you will chuckle that this futurist was recommending print publications and not the World Wide Web.  Others may note that several of these recommended publications failed to survive modern technology and no longer exist.  So it goes with predictions, even for professionals.

Story Power

January 12, 2015

I spend time every day surfing the MHSAA’s family of websites – MHSAA.com, Second Half and MHSAA.tv. My counterpart in another state was astounded that I do this, and incredulous that I could find the time to do this. But it makes perfect sense to me.
More people visit our websites on a typical day than visit our office in East Lansing during an entire year. We have more visitors to our websites during a typical month than attend all of our postseason tournaments combined during a typical year.
We have more opportunity to make first impressions through electronic entry than tournament turnstiles; and for the large majority of people who make contact with the MHSAA, electronic media may provide the only impression they will ever get of the MHSAA.
This is why we have styled the MHSAA’s websites in a manner that is visually pleasing and easy to navigate on both desktop and mobile devices. And this is why we have stuffed these websites not only with schedules, scores and stats but also with stories; and it’s why the stories are presented in text, audio, pictures and video streaming.
We know that those who share the stories of school sports most effectively will shape the message of school sports most persuasively.
Our job is not merely regulation of school sports, but communication about school sports – not merely event management, but content management – managing the message and meaning of school-sponsored sports.