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magaden · 3 years

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Why Are Progressives So Illiberal?

By Victor Davis Hanson January 31, 2021

Progressives adopted identity politics and rejected class considerations because solidarity with elite minorities excuses them from concern for, or experience with, the middle classes of all races.

One common theme in the abject madness and tragedies of the past 12 months is that progressive ideology now permeates almost all of our major institutions—even as the majority of Americans resist the leftist agenda. Its reach resembles the manner in which the pre-Renaissance church had absorbed the economic, cultural, social, artistic, and political life of Europe, or perhaps how Islamic doctrine was the foundation for all public and private life under the Ottoman Sultanate—or even how all Russian institutions of the 1930s exuded tenets of Soviet Marxism.

Pan-progressivism

To be a Silicon Valley executive, a prominent Wall Street player, the head of a prestigious publishing house, a university president, a network or PBS anchor, a major Hollywood actress, a retired general or admiral on a corporate board, or a NBA superstar requires either progressive fides or careful suppression of all political affinities.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, 98 percent of Big Tech political donations went to Democrats in 2020. Censorship and deplatforming on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media companies is decidedly one-way. When Mark Zuckerberg and others in Silicon Valley donate $500 million to help officials “get out the vote” in particular precincts, it is not to help candidates of both parties.

Google calibrates the order of its search results with a progressive, not a conservative, bent. Grandees from the Clinton or Obama Administration find sinecures in Silicon Valley, not Republicans or conservatives.

The $4-5 trillion market-capitalized Big Tech cartels, run by self-described progressives, aimed to extinguish conservative brands like Parler. Ironically, they now apply ideological force multipliers to the very strategies and tactics of 19th-century robber-baron trusts and monopolies. Poor Jack Dorsey has never been able to explain why Twitter deplatforms and cancels conservatives for the same supposed uncouthness that leftists routinely employ.

Silicon Valley apparently does not believe in either the letter or the spirit of the First Amendment. It exercises a monopoly over the public airwaves, and resists regulations and antitrust legislation of the sort that liberals once championed to break up trusts in the late 19th and early 20th century. As payback, it assumes that Democrats don’t see Big Tech in the same manner that they claim to see Big Pharma in their rants against it.

Wall Street donated markedly in favor of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden in their respective presidential races. Whereas conservative administrations and congressional majorities are seen as natural supporters of free-market capitalism, their Democratic opponents, not long ago, were not—and thus drew special investor attention and support from Wall Street realists.

The insurrectionist GameStop stock debacle revealed how “liberals” on Wall Street reacted when a less connected group of investors sought to do what Wall Street grandees routinely do to others: ambush and swarm a vulnerable company’s stock in unison either to buy or sell it en masse and thus to profit from predictable, artificially huge fluctuations in the price.

When small investors at Reddit drove the pedestrian GameStop price up to well over a hundred times its worth, forcing big Wall Street investment companies to lose billions of dollars, progressives on Wall Street and the business media cried foul. They compared the Reddit buyers to the mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6.

One subtext was: Why would nobodies dare question the mega-profit making monopolies of the Wall Street establishments? The point that neither the Reddit day-traders nor the hedge-fund connivers were necessarily healthy for investment was completely lost.

Surveys of “diverse” university faculty show overwhelming left-wing support, reified by asymmetrical contributions of 95-1 to Democratic candidates. The dream of Martin Luther King, Jr. to make race incidental to our characters no longer exists on campuses. Appearance is now essential. More ironic, class considerations are mostly ignored in favor of identity politics. “Equity” applies to race not class. The general education curricula is one-sided and mostly focused on deductive -studies courses, and in particular race/class/gender zealotry that is anti-Enlightenment in the sense that predetermined conclusions are established and selected evidence is assembled to prove them.

We are also currently witnessing the greatest assault on free speech and expression, and due process, in the last 70 years. And the challenges to the First and Fifth Amendments are centered on college campuses, where non-progressive speakers are disinvited, shouted down, and occasionally roughed up for their supposedly reactionary views—and by those who have little fear of punishment.

Students charged with “sexual harassment” or “assault” are routinely denied the right to face their accusers, cross examine witnesses, or bring in counterevidence. They usually find redress for their suspensions or expulsions only in the courts. What was thematic in the Duke Lacrosse fiasco and the University of Virginia sorority rape hoax was the absence of any real individual punishment for those who promulgated the myths.

Indeed in these cases many argued that false allegations in effect were not so important in comparison to bringing attention to supposedly systemic racism and sexism. In Jussie Smollett fashion, what did not happen at least drew attention to what could have happened and thus was valuable. It was as if those who did not commit any actual crime had still committed a thought crime.

Almost all media surveys of the last four years reflect a clear journalistic bias against conservatives in general. Harvard’s liberal Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy famously reported slanted coverage against Trump and his supporters among major television and news outlets at near astronomical rates, in some cases exhibiting over 90 percent negative bias during Trump’s first few months in office. Liberal editors can now be routinely fired or forced to retire from major progressives newspapers if they are not seen as sufficiently woke.

No major journalist or reporter has been reprimanded for promoting the fictional “Russian collusion” hoax—and certainly not in the manner the media has called for punishment, backlisting, and deplatforming for any who championed “stop the steal” protests over the November 2020 elections. The CNN Newsroom put their hands up and chanted “hands up, don’t shoot”—a myth surrounding the Michael Brown Ferguson shooting that was thoroughly refuted. Infamous now is the CNN reporter’s characterization of arsonist flames shooting up in the background of a BLM/Antifa riot as a “largely peaceful” demonstration. BLM, of course, has been nominated for a Nobel “Peace” Prize. After the summer rioting, one could better cite Tacitus’s Calgacus, “Where they make a desert, they call it peace”.

A George W. Bush or Donald Trump press conference was often a free-for-all, blood-in-the-water feeding frenzy. A Barack Obama or Joe Biden version devolves into banalities about pets, fashion, and food. The fusion media credo is why embarrass a progressive government and thus put millions and the planet itself at risk?

Andrew Cuomo’s policies of sending COVID-19 patients into rest homes led to thousands of unnecessary deaths. Still, the media gave him an Emmy award for his self-inflated and bombastic press conferences, many of which were little more than unhinged rants against the Trump Administration. Anthony Fauci’s initial pronouncements about the origins of the COVID-19 virus, its risks and severity, travel bans, masks, herd immunity, vaccination rollout dates—and almost everything about the pandemic—were wildly off. Yet he was canonized by the media due to his wink-and-nod assurances that he was the medical adult in the Trump Administration room.

It would be difficult for a prominently conservative actor or actress to win an Oscar these days, or to produce a major conservative-themed film. Bankable actors/directors/producers like Clint Eastwood or Mel Gibson operate as mavericks, whose films’ huge profits win them some exemption. But they came into prominence and power 30 years ago during a different age. And they will likely have no immediate successors.

Ars gratis doctrinae is the new Hollywood and it will continue until it bottoms out in financial nihilism. When such ideological spasms contort a society, the second-rate emerge most prominently as the loudest accusers of the Salem Witches—as if correct zeal can reboot careers stalled in mediocrity. Hollywood’s mediocre celebrities from Alec Baldwin to Noah Cyrus have sought attention for their careers by voicing sensational racist, homophobic, and misogynist slurs—on the correct assumption their attention-grabbing left-wing fides prevents career cancellation.

Hollywood, we learn, has been selecting some actors on the basis of lighter skin color to accommodate racist Beijing’s demands to distribute widely their films in the enormous Chinese market. Yet note well that Hollywood has recently created racial quotas for particular Oscar categories, even as it reverses its racial obsessions to punish rather than empower people of color on the prompt of Chinese paymasters.

Ditto the political warping in professional sports. Endorsements, media face time, and cultural resonance often hinge on athletes either being woke—or entirely politically somnolent. A few stars may exist as known conservatives, but again they are the rare exceptions. For most athletes, it is wisest to keep mum and either support, condone, or ignore the Black Lives Matter rituals of taking a knee, not standing for the flag, or ritually denouncing conservative politicians. Those who are offended and turn the channel can be replaced by far more new viewers in China, who appreciate such criticism directed at the proper target.

Again, what is common to all the tentacles of this progressive octopus is illiberalism. Of course, progressivism, dating back to late 19th-century advocacy for “updating” the Constitution, always smiled upon authoritarianism. It promoted the “science” of eugenics and forced race-based sterilization, and the messianic idea that enlightened elites can use the increased powers of government to manage better the personal lives of its subjects (enslaved to religious dogma or mired in ignorance), according to supposed pure reason and humanistic intent.

Many progressives professed early admiration for the supposed efficiency of Benito Mussolini’s public works programs spurred on by his Depression-era fascism, and his enlistment of a self-described expert class to implement by fiat what was necessary for “progress.”

Even contemporary progressives have voiced admiration for the communist Chinese ability to override “obstructionists” to create mass transit, high-density urban living, and solar power. Early on in the pandemic Bill Gates defended China’s conduct surrounding the COVID-19 disaster. Suggesting the virus did not originate in a “wet” market was “conspiratorial”; travel bans were “racist” and “xenophobic.” In contrast, had SARS-CoV-2 possibly escaped by accident from a Russian lab, in our hysterias we might have been on the brink of war.

So it is understandable that progressivism can end up as an enemy of the First Amendment and intellectual diversity to bulldoze impediments to needed progress. To save us, sometimes leftists must become advocates of monopolies and cartels, of censorship, or of the militarization of our capital.

The new Left sorts, rewards, and punishes people by their race. And some progressives are the most likely appeasers of a racist and authoritarian Chinese government and advocates of Trotskyizing our past through iconoclasm, erasing, renaming, and cancelling out. San Francisco’s school board recently voted to rename over 40 schools, largely due to the pressure of a few poorly educated teachers who claimed on the basis of half-baked Wikipedia research that icons such as Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Washington were unfit for such recognition.

Absolute Power for Absolute Good

There are various explanations for unprogressive progressivism. None are necessarily mutually exclusive. Much of the latest totalitarianism is simple hula-hoop groupthink, a fad, or even a wise career move. Loud progressivism has become for some professionals, an insurance policy—or perhaps a deterrent high wall to ensure the mob bypasses one for easier prey elsewhere. Were Hunter Biden and his family grifting cartel not loud liberals and connected to Joe Biden, they all might have ended up like Jack Abramoff.

More commonly, progressivism offers the elite, the rich, and the well-connected Medieval penance, a vicarious way to alleviate their transitory guilt over privilege such as a $20,000 ice cream freezer or a carbon-spewing Gulfstream by abstract self-indictment of the very system that they have mastered so well.

Progressives also believe in natural hierarchies. They see themselves as an elite certified by their degrees, their resumes, and their correct ideologies, our version of Platonic Guardians, practitioners of the “noble lie” to do us good. In its condescending modern form, the creed is devoted to expanding the administrative state, and the expert class that runs it, and revolves in and out from its government hierarchies to privileged counterparts in the corporate and academic world.

Progressivism patronizes the poor and champions them at a distance, but despises the middle class, the traditionally hated bourgeoise without the romance of the distant impoverished or the taste and culture of the rich. The venom explains the wide array of epithets that Obama, Clinton, and Biden have so casually employed—clingers, deplorables, irredeemables, dregs, ugly folk, chumps, and so on. “Occupy Wall Street” was prepped by the media as a romance. The Tea Party was derided as Klan-like. The rioters who stormed the Capitol were rightly dubbed lawbreakers; those who besieged and torched a Minneapolis federal courthouse were romanticized or contextualized.

Abstract humanitarian progressives assume that their superior intelligence and training properly should exempt them from the bothersome ramifications of their own ideologies. They promote high taxes and mock material indulgences. But some have made a science out of tax evasion and embrace the tasteful good life and its material attractions. They prefer private schooling and Ivy League education for their offspring, while opposing charter schools for others.

There is no dichotomy in insisting on more race-based admissions and yet calling a dean or provost to help leverage a now tougher admission for one’s gifted daughter. Sometimes the liberal Hollywood celebrity effort to get offspring stamped with the proper university credentials becomes felonious. Walls are retrograde but can be tastefully integrated into a gated estate. They like static class differences and likely resent the middle class for its supposedly grasping effort to become rich—like themselves.

The working classes can always make solar panels, the billionaire John Kerry tells those thousands whom his boss had just thrown out of work by the cancellation of the Keystone XL Pipeline. It is as if the Yale man was back to the old days when the multimillionaire and promoter of higher taxes moved his yacht to avoid sales and excise taxes and lectured JC students, “You study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

There is no such thing as “dark” money or the pernicious role of cash in warping politics when Michael Bloomberg, George Soros, and Mark Zuckerberg, both through direct donations and through various PACs and foundations—channeled nearly $1 billion to left-wing candidates, activists, and political groups throughout the 2020 campaign year.

In sum, the new tribal progressivism is the career ideology foremost of the wealthy and elite—a truth that many skeptical poor and middle-class minorities are now so often pilloried for pointing out. Progressives have adopted identity politics and rejected class considerations, largely because solidarity with elite minorities of similar tastes and politics excuses them from any concrete concern for, or experience with, the middle classes of all races. The Left finally proved right in its boilerplate warning that the “plutocracy” and the “special interests” run America: “If you can’t beat them, outdo them.”

Self-righteous progressives believe they put up with and suffer on behalf of us—and thus their irrational fury and hate for the irredeemables and conservative minorities springs from being utterly unappreciated by clueless serfs who should properly worship their betters.

https://amgreatness.com/2021/01/31/why-are-progressives-so-illiberal/

#progressives #liberals #biden #trump #politics

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rickhorrow · 5 years

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15 TO WATCH/5 SPORTS TECH/POWER OF SPORTS 5: RICK HORROW’S TOP SPORTS/BIZ/TECH/PHILANTHROPY ISSUES FOR THE WEEK OF JULY 29 with Jacob Aere

Forbes named the most valuable franchises in sports, led by the Dallas Cowboys, who for the fourth consecutive year landed atop the list. The study values the Cowboys at $5 billion, with the Yankees second on the list at $4.6 billion, and Spain’s Real Madrid in third with a valuation of $4.24 billion. Rounding out the top ten are Barcelona ($4.02 billion), the Knicks ($4 billion), Manchester United ($3.81 billion), the Patriots ($3.8 billion), the Lakers ($3.7 billion), the Golden State Warriors ($3.5 billion), the New York Giants ($3.3 billion), and the Dodgers ($3.3 billion). The NFL dominates the overall list with 26 teams in the top 50. A major contributor was the league��s lucrative media rights deals with CBS, NBC, Fox, ESPN, and DirecTV, which saw each team receive more than $260 million last year. Way behind the NFL was the NBA, which had nine teams on the list. Eight European soccer clubs made the list, as did seven MLB franchises. Cowboys owner and Sport Business Handbook contributor Jerry Jones has been credited with driving up the franchise’s value since purchasing it for $150 million in 1989.

The cost of the Raiders' new Vegas stadium has risen to $1.9 billion. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal (LVRJ), the Las Vegas Stadium Authority has reportedly approved $40 million worth of additions to the build, including 20 more suites and a field-level club area near the venue’s north end zone. The LVRJ report added that close to $1 billion has so far been spent on the construction of the 65,000-seat stadium. The new venue is expected to be ready for the 2020 season, when the Raiders are scheduled to relocate from Oakland to Las Vegas. The construction project, of which $750 million is being funded by taxpayers, has now passed the halfway stage, with the next major task being the installation of the cable steel roofing system that will support the stadium’s translucent roof. The latest update comes a month after the franchise appointed AEG Facilities to operate the new stadium. Right now, the Raiders are reluctantly in the spotlight as HBO’s “Hard Knocks” documents their every move during NFL preseason camp.

As NFL teams settle into training camp, Patriots legend Tom Brady sits at No. 1 on the NFLPA Top 50 players sales list, while new Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray is the highest rookie on the list at No. 21. The first list of the 2019 season, according to the NFLPA, is based on total sales of all officially-licensed NFL player merchandise, tracking year-to-date preseason results from March 1 to May 31. The NFLPA list is the only verified ranking of all officially licensed, NFL player-branded merchandise sold from online and traditional retail outlets as reported by more than 75 NFLPA licensees. Additionally, Fox Business noted the Browns’ Odell Beckham Jr., who ranked second in sales overall, was the NFL's "top-selling player in terms of jerseys manufactured by Nike, the league's official uniform supplier." Brady "ranked third in that category.” Also high on the list – Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield.

Lovers of the made-for-TV Skins Games of the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s, rejoice. According to ESPN.com, Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Jason Day, and Hideki Matsuyama are rekindling the series, with the first event taking place before the inaugural Zozo Championship at Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club in Japan on October 21. The Zozo Championship was Woods’ first official commitment following his historic Masters victory in April. The one-day Skins competition will reportedly offer “lucrative prize money.” The event, which will be run and sanctioned by the PGA Tour, harkens back to The Skins Game series that ran 1983-2005. The upcoming event is also reportedly part of Woods’ content agreement with GolfTV; negotiations are currently taking place to televise the event in the U.S. The Zozo Championship is the second leg of a three-tournament Asia swing on the 2019-2020 PGA Tour schedule that includes CJ Cup in South Korea and the WGC HSBC Champions in China. The Zozo Championship features a 78-player field, no cut, and a $9.75 million purse.

It’s official – Colombia has its first official Tour de France win. Columbian Egan Bernal left his mark on the Tour de France in the mountains and in the record books, at 22 becoming the youngest Tour winner since the World War II. NBC Sports also clocked some firsts – throughout this year’s event, NBC Sports Group provided U.S. cycling fans with a deeper look at the action than ever before. The Peacock deployed several new production tools for its coverage of the 21-day race, including, for the first time, live feeds from POV cameras mounted on several competitors’ bicycles. NBC Sports’ studio production had another new tech toy in its arsenal this year: an augmented-reality graphics and telestrator system developed by Israel-based Morpheus, which produces virtual cyclist graphics. Live Tour de France coverage on NBCSN averaged 307,000 viewers through last Sunday’s Stage 15 – the highest since 2015, and up 11% from last year at this point in the competition. In two years, the Tour will have a fresh look as well, as in 2021 it will begin in bicycle-mad Copenhagen for the first time in its 100+ year history.

World Cup star Alex Morgan looking to launch female-focused media venture. Morgan, co-captain of the USWNT and World Cup champion, is planning to launch her own media venture focused on storytelling, specifically content for girls created by female athletes. The unnamed project is one of many off-field pursuits for the 30-year-old, recently named one of TIME's 100 most influential people. Morgan has written a series of children’s books about soccer called “The Kicks,” and last year acted in her first movie, a sports comedy called “Alex & Me.” Her sponsors include Nike Inc., Coca-Cola Co., AT&T, and Secret, a deodorant brand owned by Procter & Gamble. Morgan reportedly isn’t planning to launch it in partnership with any major media companies – rather, it’s part of a larger push by women on the team to advocate for gender equality in sports and beyond. “We’re authentic to who we are and what we stand for, and we’re becoming more brave and comfortable in our own skin,” Morgan said. This latest venture shows how the women of the USWNT can continue to use their championship platform to speak up about important issues.

Although he didn’t prevail, racing at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course was still a win for IndyCar driver Zach Veach. Stockdale, Ohio native Zach Veach is still searching for that elusive first IndyCar win. But as the Mansfield News Journal pointed out, Veach, “in his second full season behind the wheel of an IndyCar, racing for Andretti Autosport…is still looking for the checkered flag, but there is plenty of time left in what looks to be a very long career behind the wheel.” Veach’s work off the track makes him a compelling public figure. In 2010, when he was 16, he made CNN's list of most intriguing people for his role as national spokesperson for FocusDriven, an initiative to fight distracted driving. His newest venture is with EverFi, an education initiative to help kids learn life lessons through sports. Veach also “has a ton of success over his career at Mid-Ohio.” During his three-year Indy Lights Series run, Veach had five Top 5 finishes at the track. While that didn’t come to pass this weekend, the confident, talented young driver considers the event a win for his family, his friends, and primary sponsors Group1001 and Gainbridge.

James Harden has joined the ownership group of MLS club Houston Dynamo. According to Front Office Sports, Harden has acquired a 5% stake in the Dynamo, which carries an overall valuation of more than $475 million. Harden, who in 2017 signed a then-NBA record $228 million dollar contract extension with the Houston Rockets through the 2022-2023 season, becomes the fifth member of the ownership group, which also owns the National Women’s Soccer League’s (NWSL) Houston Dash and BBVA Stadium. The group is led by Mexican businessman Gabriel Brener, who acquired control from AEG in 2015. The other members of the group are Ben Guill, Jake Silverstein, and former boxing world champion Oscar De La Hoya, all of whom are expected to continue their involvement after the basketball player’s investment. Harden said, “Houston is my home now, and I saw this as a way to invest in my city and expand my business interests at the same time.” On the pitch, the Dynamo sit two points behind the playoff positions in MLS’s Western Conference, while the Dash are five points off the pace for a spot in the NWSL’s final series.

The Oklahoma City Thunder partnered with the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum to unveil their new City Edition uniforms, a "charcoal and gold Nike uniform [that] pays respect to those affected" by the 1995 bombing there. The Oklahoman reported that it has "long been a Thunder tradition to bring each player to the memorial when he joins the team," but now the team will "put its own imprint on the museum." The team "plans to underwrite a permanent exhibit that will focus on the 'Oklahoma Standard.'" The "three values associated with that standard -- service, honor and kindness -- are also printed above the City jersey’s tag." In addition, a time stamp "appears under each: 9:01, the minute before the bombing, and 9:03, the minute after." The "survivor tree, a 90-year old elm that withstood the blast, appears on the waist band of the shorts." The Thunder also "pledged to fund free admission to the museum once a month" during 2020. The jerseys – a touching way for basketball fans to honor those lost in the tragedy almost 25 years ago – will be available to purchase at a later date.

A new report by MVPindex shows the NBA’s latest season brought notable increases in the league’s social media footprint and brand value. The report shows a 132% increase in the NBA’s collective social media footprint during the 2018-2019 campaign, with league and team accounts collectively generating more than $1.1 billion of value for brand partners, up 20% from $921 million 2017-2018. By comparison, the NFL last season generated $343 million in brand value, the second-highest social media value among the top leagues. Among the various social media platforms, Instagram proved most valuable to brands, generating about 90% of the total brand value while accounting for only 10% of the NBA's total social media content. The NBA patch program is also driving activations, with seven team patch partners among the top 25 of the league’s top social media activations. “The smart teams are activating around moments along with scores and highlights,” said MVPindex co-Founder and CMO Kyle Nelson, also a Sport Business Handbook contributor. The team with the most social media engagement was the Warriors with 291 million social media engagements, followed by the Lakers with 147 million.

Williamson signs landmark deal with Jordan Brands. Pelicans forward Zion Williamson's deal with Jordan Brand is for seven years and $75 million, according to a source cited by Forbes. In DC, The Washington Post notes for "comparison purposes," LeBron James signed a seven-year, $87 million deal with Nike in 2003. Williamson "arrives in the league as arguably the most-hyped prospect since James." Rockets guard Russell Westbrook and Thunder guard Chris Paul "have signature lines with Jordan Brand, but as an ascendant superstar, Williamson can quickly become the face of the brand." ESPN reported Williamson "ultimately turned down a higher offer from Puma" and as much as $15 million annually from Chinese brands Li-Ning and Anta "in order to wear Michael Jordan's brand." Williamson could see also his already impressive social media following expand after signing the Jordan Brand deal. Jordan has 33.1 million total followers, with 55% of those on Instagram. Williamson became a social media juggernaut due to his high school and college exploits, amassing almost four million Instagram followers and 390,000 on Twitter. Clearly, this sneaker lace up is a win-win for Williamson and the Jordan Brand.

Women’s Wear Daily reported Vineyard Vines has signed a deal with the Premier Lacrosse League to become its "official style partner." Vineyard Vines will "create exclusive product that will be available for purchase" during the current 2019 season as well as the 2020 season. It will "consist of PLL T-shirts and Shep shirts for men, women, and children that will be sold on the league’s web site." The deal "includes Vineyard Vines activations in each of the league’s 13 major-market cities that will include branded signs, on-field half-time entertainment for fans and T-shirt giveaways.” Vineyard Vines, which recently wrapped up a massive collaboration with Target that is thought to have helped revive the classic but aging brand, previously partnered with Peyton Manning, Manning’s Nationwide ad campaigns, and has outfitted golf announcing legend Jim Nantz. The PLL deal seems to be right in line with Vineyard Vines’ preppy image, albeit for a younger sports generation.

Outland Trophy finds presenting sponsors again. The Outland Trophy - awarded to college football’s top interior lineman - will have presenting sponsors again, in 2019. The Football Writers Association of America and the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases announced that they plan to partner on a public awareness campaign bringing attention to the importance of flu prevention. Selected by FWAA, the trophy is awarded annually to the top interior lineman in college football. As part of the public awareness campaign, the Outland Trophy presented by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases will use the hashtag #FightFlu on all advertising, marketing, social media, and public relations materials. The 2019 Outland Trophy presented by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases will be awarded during ESPN’s The Home Depot College Football Awards on December 12. While this may seem like an odd alliance for a football award, it exemplifies the power of sports as a vehicle for widespread messaging and the commitment of collegiate and pro sports alike toward public service campaigns.

Nasdaq makes a bet on sports gambling. The New York-based stock-exchange group announced a deal with UK betting platform Football Index to help build its trading platform using tools similar to those Nasdaq uses on traditional stock exchanges. The four-year-old, privately held Football Index launched a virtual “stock market” in 2014 in which participants buy shares in star players like Lionel Messi or Harry Kane. The site provides a mix of fantasy sports and regular sports betting with elements of stock market speculation. The Football Index deal will be the first in which the Nasdaq brand will be visible to gambling customers. Nasdaq has other sports-betting clients including the Hong Kong Jockey Club, which has a monopoly on the Chinese territoryʼs sports-betting market. It also has an agreement to provide betting technology for the horse racing unit of Australiaʼs Tabcorp, a lottery and gambling giant. In both those cases, Nasdaq has supplied back-end technology but its logo and branding did not appear on any consumer-facing products. Football Index says the ultimate goal is to create “recreational markets for retail traders in something they understand a lot better than” traditional financial instruments, such as currencies.

Nike, Nickelodeon join forces in a pineapple under the sea. Nike and Viacom Nickelodeon Consumer Products have launched the Kyrie x SpongeBob SquarePants collection, available August 10. The collection features five shoes inspired by the signature characters from SpongeBob SquarePants, as well as apparel and accessories including T-shirts, a hoodie, socks, and backpacks. According to the official release, NBA superstar Kyrie Irving’s latest collection “is suited for on-court competition and off-court jellyfishing.” The sneakers in the collection showcase the signature Kyrie 5 silhouette in bright yellow for SpongeBob, pink and green tones for Patrick, and turquoise accents for Squidward. The low-cut silhouette of the Kyrie Low 2 pays homage to the currency-crazy crustacean, Mr. Krabs, as well as a Sandy Cheeks version with colors inspired by the squirrel’s space suit. SpongeBob SquarePants, one of the most iconic TV series ever created, has impacted pop culture with its universe of beloved characters. The title character has also influenced the worlds of fashion and streetwear with recent collaborations, including Moschino, Lisa Frank, Marlou Breuls, and Chinatown Market. This year marks SpongeBob’s 20th anniversary, off the court and on.

Top Five Tech

The PGA Tour adds DraftKings as its daily fantasy sports (DFS) partner in a multi-year partnership. According to Golf Channel, DraftKings offers a DFS golf game where contestants in most U.S. states can wager real money to compete for cash prizes. The typical game setup requires participants to submit an entry fee and choose a fantasy roster of six players for each tournament while staying within the guidelines of a designated salary cap. The new partnership began during the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational, with PGA Tour-related prizes to be added to the cash offerings available to top finishers. The Tour will also make available real-time video highlights of rostered players for DraftKings participants among other specific content offerings, similar to video offerings now available around other fantasy leagues. By moving golf into the DFS format with DraftKings, the sport may be able to pick up new and younger fans who wager on live tournaments.

Odell Beckham, Jr. is launching a production company and YouTube Channel. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the NFL superstar is changing up more than just his longtime New York Giants outfit this offseason. The new Cleveland Browns wide receiver has launched his own media outfit, ITN Productions, as part of a pact with Wheelhouse Entertainment. To start his new productions, Beckham will launched his YouTube channel to offer an off-the-field look into his life. The new YouTube platform will add to the wide receiver’s hefty social media presence with 13.4 million Instagram followers and another four million on Twitter. Looking to current NBA superstars with production companies like LeBron James’ SpringHill Entertainment and Stephen Curry's Unanimous Media, it looks like OBJ is on the right track to set himself up for long term success.

The Fortnite World Cup has appointed IMG to manage distribution and media production. The Epic Games event was hosted July 26-28 at the 23,000 capacity Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York City. According to Esports Insider, the tournament featured several separate events including the Creative championship, solos and duos finals, as well as the Celebrity Pro-Am. The total prize pool for the tournament was $30 million, with the winners of both the solos and duos competitions taking home the top prize of $3 million each. IMG delivered all content via an encoded stream from its IMG Studios production facility in the UK and The Finals was broadcast live on Twitch, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and within the game itself (via the Watch Live button when you log into Fortnite). Sport 24 Extra, IMG’s in-flight sports channel, also presented the Fortnite World Cup live during international flights on select airlines. Bringing IMG Media on-board is a smart move from Epic Games, as it will continually allow them to reach a multitude of worldwide audiences on social media and even up in the sky.

NASCAR, NBC, and iRacing team up to deliver eNASCAR on NBCSN. According to Sports Video Group, this is the first ever eNASCAR live event on television. The world’s best NASCAR iRacers will compete in the event on TV as part of “NASCAR America” and will later return to “NASCAR America” on NBCSN on the last Thursday of each month in a four-race series. In the online simulation racing game, competitors race head-to-head from around the world. More information on the three future iRacing events on NBCSN will be revealed in the coming weeks. In addition to the eNASCAR iRacing All-Star events being broadcast on NBCSN, iRacing and NASCAR also have a professional esports series known as the eNASCAR PEAK Antifreeze iRacing Series, where global drivers compete for more than $100,000 in prize money in a year-long championship. NASCAR’s aging audience may get a younger boost with a heavy dose of esports while real life racers have transitioned to notable esports team owners including NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt Jr. and other racing stars Clint Bowyer and Austin Dillon.

MLS’ Los Angeles Football Club is using tech for food and drink orders at home matches. According to the Los Angeles Times, LAFC and Satisfi Labs have partnered up to expand their virtual assistant platform, Olly, with Apple Business Chat to offer a new system for fans to communicate directly with food and beverage vendors at their home venue, Banc of California Stadium. Fans will be able to order food and drinks from their seats and pick them up at their convenience using the Messages app on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac – but not Android. To start an Apple Business Chat to order ahead, fans open the camera on their Apple device to scan a QR code found around the stadium. A conversation with Olly will open immediately in the Messages app, and then the user can respond in their own time frame for a pickup location and finalize the purchase with Apple Pay. The food and drink options will always be changing depending on what LAFC wants to experiment with and what fans are demanding – allowing for a more pleasurable, convenient fan experience.

Power of Sports Five

MLS WORKS showcases the soccer league’s philanthropy during 2019 All-Star Week. According to Orlando City FC, MLS’ philanthropic group is rolling out a slate of community-focused initiatives and events in the Orlando area for the MLS All-Star Game on July 31. MLS will offset a portion of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with All-Star Week festivities by purchasing 2,600 carbon offsets from a clean cookstove project in Africa. Supporting the Orlando City Foundation’s commitment to urban agriculture, MLS will invest in a community garden as part of the MLS WORKS + Target All-Star Community Day. And in partnership with Fleet Farming and their Edible Landscape service, a garden will be installed at Neptune Middle School. MLS will also provide funding for South Street Urban Farm’s education program in the Parramore area of downtown Orlando. The charity arm of MLS will also team up to combat hunger and support the Special Olympics as the MLS All-Stars take on La Liga’s Atletico Madrid.

Wasserman Media Group launches The Collective with $1 million for women in sports. According to Philanthropy Women, Wasserman unveiled its new program July 13 and the Collective will offer resources for female-focused initiatives, utilizing the full reach of Wasserman entities to support business and client campaigns. Among the Foundation’s grant recipients are Women in Sports and Events (WISE) and the City of Los Angeles’s Evolve Entertainment Fund. Currently, Wasserman represents 56% of the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team, 26 WNBA players, and “a number of women Olympians who have won a total of 37 gold medals since 2010.” Representing some of the top women in sports such as Megan Rapinoe, Abby Wambach, Mia Hamm, and Katie Ledecky, Wasserman Media Group has furthered its commitment to increasing the prominence of top female athletes.

LA Galaxy and Chevrolet team up to launch the Chevrolet Charity Challenge. According to LA Galaxy, The LA Galaxy Foundation, Chevrolet, and players from the club have teamed up to launch a competition to raise awareness and donations for local Community Partners. Eight LA Galaxy players will compete and be rewarded for completing designated tasks at upcoming games and their earnings will go to charity. For every pass completed, tackle, duel won, meter covered, clearance made, and cross completed, the LA Galaxy Foundation will donate up to $1,000 to a local Community Partner. The eight community partners include Garden School Foundation, Playworks, Make-A-Wish: Greater Los Angeles, The Mission Continues: Reporting for Duty in Your Community, SurfRider Foundation: Los Angeles, Gift of Life, Special Olympics Southern California, and Positive Coaching Alliance: Los Angeles. Fans of the game were also encouraged to support community partners by making their own donation to the partner of their choice during the club’s July 24 home match.

Kevin Durant helps to send kids from Prince George, Maryland to college. The newly-signed Brooklyn Net has opened the Durant Center, an educational facility in his hometown. According to BET, the Kevin Durant Charity Foundation has committed $10 million over the next decade in a partnership with Prince George’s County Public Schools and College Track to help minority low-income high school students earn a college degree. The Durant Center is the first College Track center on the East Coast, with the inaugural class of the Prince George’s county program totaling 69 students of color. Enrolled students attend the center after school for tutoring and advising where they are taught life skills, including time and stress management. Last year, Durant donated $3 million to University of Texas Austin, in addition to supporting organizations like the Tulsa Dream Center, Larkin Street Youth Services, and Black Girls Code in San Francisco, and was named ESPN’s 2018 Humanitarian of the Year. This only builds on his philanthropy track record.

The Tom Hatcher charity golf tournament raises nearly $100,000. Six years ago, Tom Hatcher had no idea what he was starting when he decided to organize a charity golf tournament. According to The Daily Times, Hatcher is the circuit court clerk for Blount County, Tennessee and was moved to action by his father, who was in the midst of a five-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease. At this year’s tournament, more than 300 golfers competed for two causes close to Hatcher’s heart. The sixth-annual event raised roughly $100,000, which will be split up and donated to Alzheimer’s Tennessee, Inc. and the Blount County Boys & Girls Club. The total donations have increased every year, with Hatcher’s inaugural tournament raising $23,000 in 2014. This one’s total bested last year’s by roughly $20,000. By mixing politics, sports, and charity, Hatcher continues to see growing success in raising funds and awareness for the Boys & Girls club as well as Alzheimer’s Tennessee.

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holytheoristtastemaker · 4 years

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In the last few weeks many cancelled events, from concerts to conferences, have been replaced by virtual ones. And in the process, many are realising that moving events online isn’t just about damage control; it actually brings benefits of its own.

“For a start, the reach can be much greater,” notes Olga de Giovanni, global PR and communications manager at marketing and media consultancy Ebiquity. “Our initial webinars, for example, attracted five to 10 times as many participants as we’d typically get, and we reached an international audience too.”

Vinda Souza, VP of global communications at Bullhorn, is also enthused by the possibilities of virtual events. “The fact there’s virtually no barrier to attendance, other than internet access, means there’s capacity to invite way more people,” she says. “Those who couldn’t otherwise afford to travel, be away from their computer, leave overnight and be away from their family, or have mobility concerns, can now attend.”

So how do you make your event a success? In this article, we gather the best advice from both veterans and those who’ve recently joined the party.

01. Make it relevant

With so many virtual events taking place right now, you need to work hard to grab people's attention

The first point might be obvious, but it’s worth stating: any event you organise needs to take account of the strange circumstances we all find ourselves in right now. Dan Peden, strategy director of marketing agency Journey Further, offers a typical example. “We had a number of brand-facing events in Manchester, Leeds and London planned in over the next few months but have had to completely rethink them,” he says.

“There’s no point offering advice that brands can’t action in the current climate,” he reasons. “So our first online performance marketing masterclass instead focused on how we're helping leading brands navigate the Covid19 crisis. It went down really well, and we have more planned in for the next couple of months.”

Neil Davidson, CEO at communications agency HeyHuman, tells a similar story. “People are heading towards ‘peak webinar’,” he says. “So when we organised our latest online event, which replaced a face-to-face event we’d had in the diary since the start of the year, our first question was: 'Is the content applicable right now, and is it future-gazing?' If not, don’t bother; you’re just adding to the pile. So our event focused on how neuroscience can help brands connect with customers, during and after the pandemic. It was something all brands, no matter what position they’re in, could learn from.”

That doesn’t mean, of course, that every virtual event has to be about the pandemic and its effects on society; just that it has to take it into account. For example, running an online music festival doesn't address people’s concerns about Covid-19, but it does address their need for entertainment and distraction while under lockdown.

02. Get the timing right

People are busy, so don't make your event run any longer than it needs to

How long should your event last? Of course, that will depend on the context and the audience, but in general, an hour is a good ballpark to aim for, says Rob Dennis, PPC specialist at Liberty Marketing: “Any longer and people start to lose interest,” he says.

If you’re hosting multiple events, you should soon get a feel for how long your audience’s attention will last. “Our first masterclass was 60 minutes long with talks from three different speakers,” says Dan Peden. “However, to keep people engaged we now think it’s best to keep events to around 30 minutes. Moving forward, we’ll be doing more focused events with just one speaker.”

Emma Robson is head of events at Ingenuity London, which recently launched Virtual Connect, an online ‘speed dating’ event for brands and agencies. She advises: “Keep individual sessions concise: anything more than an hour could be a bit of a drag. Looking at a computer screen isn’t the same as seeing someone in the flesh, so take attention spans into consideration.”

Also think carefully about when your event starts. “For instance, anything too close to lunch could summon the wrath of a small child, so give enough time either side of lunchtime to allow people to be settled into their work,” Emma recommends.

03. Differentiate your event

Roger Sanchez was among the DJs taking part in Defected Records' Virtual Festival 3.0

While you want your event to be current, don’t just copy what others are doing. “For example, Coldplay’s Chris Martin live-streamed singing from his living room, and now everyone’s doing living room gigs,” says Alex Wilson, head of content at brand experience agency Amplify. “Instead, think about how you can differentiate from the ‘wall of same’. The way you do that is the same as before: lean into the insights of your audience, look at the best solution to the problem, and be creatively brave, to ensure you’re leading from the front.”

James Kirkham, chief business officer at Defected Records, pushes a similar line. "It isn’t enough to merely stream and assume you’ll cut through; there are too many competing events,” he points out. “So consider what it’s unique about you, convey the essence of who you are, and find a way to get super-personal with those viewing. For example, when we put on our virtual music festival, we created a set of ‘House Rules’ for those watching and dancing along at home, intended to help convey the spirit of the brand and add a layer that made it feel like a truly Defected event.”

04. Brief your speakers carefully

Panellists at the World Media Group webinar: advertising and the COVID-10 Pandemic

If your event involves talks, then don’t think that just picking speakers and topics is all you need do. You still have to brief those speakers carefully; in fact, even more so than you would for a physical event.

That’s a lesson recently learned by Belinda Barker, director of the World Media Group, which hosts regular events for the marketing, creative and publishing industries. The Group recently held its first virtual event; a webinar with 10 industry experts discussing whether advertising is appropriate at a time of crisis. “A webinar doesn’t have the natural flow of a live event, so it’s vital to keep speakers brief and on point," she advises. "For Q&A sessions, for instance, I'd suggest scripting some of the questions in advance to make sure that speakers are aware and fully prepped for them. And remember that virtual audiences are far harsher critics, because it’s much easier to turn off an app than it is to walk out of a room full of people.”

Also, just because people are good at speaking at physical events, don’t assume those skills are instantly translatable. “Too often there’s a mistaken belief that people will learn how to do live events through osmosis,” says Richard Robinson, managing director of Econsultancy. “This dangerous falsehood is akin to asking an army of stage actors, who normally feed off the audience and energy of the room, to seamlessly step onto a film set and shoot an Oscar-winning movie."

Anyone new to speaking at a virtual events needs to rehearse, rehearse and rehearse again, he stresses. If that includes you, you'll need to: "Master the tech, make sure you’re fluent on the platform, and the computer it will run from. Find a stable and quiet area to present, and consider the unexpected like other people living in your household, especially children and animals who take no prisoners. Lastly, be aware of the power of your gestures: rolling eyes, eyebrows and other mannerisms that may detract from your delivery.”

"Not everyone knows how to use FaceTime and how to frame themselves," adds Jon Pearson, who's recently been running a virtual comedy night called Comedy Virtually LIVE. "So I'd advise people to look directly down the lens of the camera, even if they're on video call, because you look strange on screen."

05. Choose your platform wisely

Erica Freas of Specialist Subject Records says Instagram Stories works well for hosting gigs online

When it comes to software, you’re spoiled for choice in terms of what to use to host your virtual event, as you’ll see from our sister site’s round-up of the best videoconferencing services. But how do you choose between them?

“Before you decide on an off the shelf tech platform for your virtual event, pay close attention to your users and the devices that they are most likely to be using,” advises Jason Anderson, digital director at experience agency Avantgarde. “Not all tech solutions play that well on mobiles, and some are more suitable for informal gatherings amongst friends rather than corporate events. Privacy and data security are important: the recent issues with Zoom and its invisible sharing of data with Facebook and others is a prime example. Make sure your chosen platforms meet your security, GDPR and data requirements.”

Aside from formal videoconferencing tools, social media platforms can also offer a great platform for hosting virtual events. Erica Freas of Specialist Subject Records, for example, has been coordinating virtual gigs on Tuesdays for the past month via Instagram Stories. “We've had between 150 and 5,000 viewers depending on the band, and it's been a really nice touchstone for the music community,” she says.

The company opted for Instagram Stories because it was the most simple, low barrier way to organise the event at the last minute, she explains. “YouTube Live requires verification, and none of us uses Twitch. We looked at applications that let you stream from multiple sites at once but those cost money. Instagram Live was something we already had access to, and it alerts your followers that you've started a stream, so it catches more people than those who were paying attention to the upcoming event.

“Once we clocked that we could let the performers into our account and everyone could stream back-to-back through @specialistsubject, we knew we were done," Erica adds. "It's so fun and seamless to have musician after musician pop up in our stream. A downside is that to watch you have to have an Instagram account, but they are free. I have a handful of friends, some in their 60s and 70s, who downloaded the app just to come to the show.”

06. Consider specialist services

Hopin allows you to build in chat functionality that enables meetings and networking during the event

While there are many free services, you may find it's worth paying for a platform that will make your event look and feel more professional. Imagen's Plan B, for example, is selling itself as a ready-made solution to deliver content to registered attendees online as a consequence of event cancellations. CMO Helen Aboagye outlines some of the benefits.

“For imminent events, many video assets, scripts and presentations will already have been completed,” she says. “Imagen’s Plan B offers the ability to immediately create a branded portal to host video presentations, interviews and clips, enabling you to easily repurposing these assets for your virtual events. Access to this content can be controlled on a very granular level, so VIPs or sponsors can access premium content that is invisible to standard delegates, for example. In addition, the platform is browser-based, so any attendee with a desktop can participate, while any speaker or contributor can upload assets for approval from any computer too.”

Hopin, meanwhile, is marketing itself as an online events platform that allows attendees to learn, interact, and connect with each other. “Content is only half of a good event experience, connections are the other half,” says founder Johnny Bourfarhat. “For an online event to replicate an offline event, there needs to be a way to meet new people serendipitously. Hopin does this with an automated one-on-one matching system in the event for networking meetings, like a Facetime chat.

“Speakers may have a back and forth with your attendees in a controlled way,” he adds. “We do this through our moderated sessions. And to prevent people from feeling ‘lost in the crowd’ and losing interest, you can create different spaces where they can meet people in the way they prefer, whether that's broadcasting, one on one, or in a group.”

07. Make attendees feel involved

Letting attendees hold meetings makes a virtual event feel more like a physical one, says Dave Bradley of Real Steel

Presenting the right content is only one part of your event. If all you do is stream content in one direction, there’s no real incentive for people to keep watching, so you need to find ways to make people involved and engaged.

Dave Bradley of Steel Media was keen to pursue this when he recently organised Pocket Gamer Connects Digital #1, a virtual event for the games industry that's going to take place again in June. "Our live conferences are well known for being places to meet and do business, so we wanted to continue that into the virtual event as best we could," he explains. "The 'meeting' system we’ve used enables you to search for individuals based on the job they do, or what they are looking for - a games developer in need of a publisher, for instance - send them a message, and automatically schedule a Zoom call.

"There’s evidence that this feature has been heavily used," he adds. "We can see that literally hundreds of meetings per day – thousands in total across the week – were arranged. We encourage people to meet at our events through all our marketing shout-outs and this event was no different. One thing the meeting system also includes is a Digital Expo. To replace the exhibition hall, with its booths and tables, we created a space where people can post portfolio pieces, links to game trailers, samples of their work, descriptions of their services and so on. This proved to be very popular, with over 200 display pages published there."

Don’t forget about social media, either. “Social can be a major aspect of in-person events and can be just as useful for virtual events too: you just need to adjust your approach accordingly,” says Corie Leaman, director of IT Nation Events at ConnectWise. “So in our case, we still create hashtags and look for ways to communicate with our audiences, but now we’re asking different questions – about participants’ views, locations and lunches – because we know this encourages engagement. It’s also important to find a dedicated moderator and a platform able to support chat and Q&As, so that your moderator can guide the conversation and focus on relaying information between speakers and attendees."

Meanwhile, Erica Freas says that encouraging interaction between audience members at virtual gigs has happened naturally on Instagram. “Whenever someone new joins the stream at our online gigs, their Instagram handle pops up in the scrolling comments, so you do get a lot of recognition and chat, just like at a real show,” she explains. “We can't see each others' faces but we can talk to each other, welcome each other, make jokes and ask questions across the platform."

08. Remind people it's happening

Given the multiplicity of virtual events happening right now, it’s easy for people to forget they’ve signed up for one. So don’t take anything for granted, says Jason Anderson. “Don’t forget the pre- and post-event communication,” he says. “You still have to engage your audience with pre-event marketing, to ensure they sign up and actually turn up, while post-event analysis through scores such as NPS can provide great feedback and insight.”

09. Expect technical challenges

Internet connection issues can play havoc with timing, warns Jon Pearson of Comedy Virtual Live

Technical problems are the bane of every virtual event, and they’re only more likely to occur at the current time, with unprecedented demands on the broadband network. “Glitches are always likely to crop up, so be prepared,” says Emma Robson. “For instance, we found out that you can’t host two different events or meetings at the same time on our choice of platform. This meant a frantic call to our agency selection manager was needed so he could move his meeting onto another platform, and we could start our event. Wifi is also famously temperamental, so it’s helpful to have another team member on standby to jump in when your signal falters. When this happened to my colleague, I had to reclaim myself as host and take over temporarily.”

Also, don’t assume that attendees are well-versed in using videoconferencing technology: this may be the very first time they’ve used it. “So if there’s a ‘mute all’ option, make sure that’s activated as people join,” adds Emma. “This will help avoid the confusion of people talking over one another, and to help create a more seamless process.” Rob Dennis adds: “If you’re doing a screen share like I had to do, then ensure your laptop is in Do Not Disturb mode, so that you don’t receive any notifications while you’re in screen share!”

It’s important to understand the limitations of a virtual event, too. For instance, Jon Pearson of Comedy Virtually LIVE notes that “Timing is essential, and any lag on the internet will ruin punchlines.” Erica, similarly, has learned that “Singers can't duet across a shared stream: the lag is unbearable.”

It’s also worth asking yourself: do I actually need video? “For our event, we found it more natural to turn off the video once we got going," says Neil Davidson, CEO at transformative communications agency HeyHuman. “It’s not a physical audience to begin with, so we focused on great slides: they should be well-designed and pointed, rather than animated. I’ve been burnt by too many dodgy home Wi-Fi connections!”

10. Generate a sociable atmosphere

Most of these tips have been focused on public-facing events, but what about organising social events for your colleagues online? With all of us stuck home remote working, getting together for drinks and a chat can be an invaluable way of keeping up morale and motivation.

But it can be tricky to organise a group chat that feels less like a meeting, and more like a social occasion. “So consider including activities that get everyone involved,” suggests Heather Delaney, founder of Gallium Ventures. “Games for teams can be a good way to keep a fun and consistent flow, keeping staff connected without it feeling like an awkward conference call.”

She adds: “It’s great to set a start and finish time for your internal event, in order to allow any late arrivals a window to when they might have missed the boat. Obviously virtual drinks with friends or colleagues has the likelihood of running over any calendar invite, but at least you offer those with prior commitments a way out without scrutiny.”

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biofunmy · 4 years

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What to Know This Week in College Basketball

College basketball this season is shaping up with a consistent theme: The unexpected should be expected daily.

That can be seen in several breakthrough performances and some highly unusual results, and it means that many teams and players are likely to take turns in the spotlight from now until the end of the N.C.A.A. tournament.

What We Learned Last Week

Florida is again challenged offensively. Much like last season, the Gators can’t consistently score despite having their most talented roster under Coach Mike White. After beginning the season in the top 10 of the Associated Press Top 25 poll, Florida is 2-2 after losing Sunday at UConn. Through four games, the Gators are averaging just 62.5 points and are shooting just 38.4 percent from the field and 24 percent from 3-point range.

Zeke Nnaji is one of the best players, not just one of the best freshmen. Arizona’s 6-foot-11 big man is averaging 21 points and 6 rebounds through the first four games. He is also shooting 84.6 percent. “I’m not surprised,” Arizona Coach Sean Miller said. “He isn’t a freshman physically. He bench pressed 185 pounds 19 times.”

Ohio State is ahead of schedule. The Buckeyes were expected to contend in the Big Ten, but didn’t return a starting guard from last year’s team that reached the N.C.A.A. tournament. Still, Ohio State beat Villanova by 25 last Wednesday in Columbus. “A lot of things this season for us are going to come down to our guard play,” Ohio State Coach Chris Holtmann said. Forward Kaleb Wesson also continued his early-season tear, averaging 10.3 points and 11.7 rebounds through the Buckeyes’ first three games. “He’s been a really good facilitator, and the weight he’s lost has helped him become a better rebounder out of his area,” Holtmann said. Ohio State is 10-0 over the past three seasons when Wesson gets 10 or more rebounds.

What’s Coming This Week

Georgia freshman Anthony Edwards gets his first high-profile test. The Bulldogs host in-state rival Georgia Tech in Athens on Wednesday, in the last game for Georgia before it heads to Hawaii for the Maui Invitational. “It’s a really big game,” Georgia Coach Tom Crean said. “It’s a rivalry game against an in-state opponent, but they’re also playing really good basketball right now.” The 6-5 Edwards is projected to be one of the top picks in next year’s N.B.A. draft. Through three games, he’s averaging 19.7 points, 5.3 rebounds, 4.7 assists and 3.3 steals. “He can really shoot the ball, and he’s a great athlete,” Georgia Tech Coach Josh Pastner said of Edwards. “A lot of guys don’t have the ability to do both. He does. He’ll play in the N.B.A. for a long time.”

Duke goes to Madison Square Garden for the second time in three weeks. The Blue Devils will face California on Thursday in the Empire Classic, and then either Texas or Georgetown on Friday. By Saturday, Duke will have played three games at Madison Square Garden this month, only two fewer than the Knicks.

Virginia gets a top midmajor. The Cavaliers are holding opponents to an average of just 36.7 points during their first three games. The Cavaliers’ next test will be against one of the best midmajors in the country as Vermont visits on Tuesday. The Catamounts’ recent win at St. John’s on Saturday was the first for Vermont over a current Big East program since 1924. “We’ve worked hard to build a nonconference résumé the past few years,” Vermont Coach John Becker said. “But we didn’t really break through until this win.” Becker has led Vermont to appearances in two of the past three N.C.A.A. tournaments.

Michigan State’s Malik Hall may have solved the Spartans’ issue at power forward. The 6-7 freshman came off the bench in last Thursday’s win at Seton Hall to score 17 points in 19 minutes. He also grabbed five rebounds and was perfect shooting. “I certainly feel better about that position now,” Michigan State Coach Tom Izzo said. “The thing I like about Malik is that when teams go small, he can switch and guard a point guard if he has to. He’s a really versatile player.”

North Carolina’s Cole Anthony is on track to have a tremendous freshman season statistically, but will he get enough help? The Tar Heels’ secondary offensive options right now are the veteran forward Garrison Brooks and Justin Pierce, a graduate transfer from William & Mary. Neither averages more than 11.3 points. North Carolina’s supporting cast needs to be ready to produce by next week’s Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas.

West Virginia Coach Bob Huggins has coached several special big men during his career. He has got another one in the freshman Oscar Tshiebwe. In just his second college game, Tshiebwe tallied 20 points and 17 rebounds last Friday against Pittsburgh. “That was the first time that he was really aggressive,” Huggins said of the 6-9, 258 pound Tshiebwe. “We just told him to do what he really does well. He can really run and he’s got great hands.”

Texas Tech’s Jahmi’us Ramsey is on track to be the best freshman that Chris Beard has ever coached. “Sometimes with five-star recruits, you don’t know how they’re going to react to coaching,” Beard said. “That’s not an issue with him.” Through the Red Raiders’ first three games, Ramsey leads Texas Tech in scoring and is tied for first in rebounding.

Penn State hasn’t been to the N.C.A.A. tournament since 2011. That could change in 2020. The Nittany Lions never trailed during the second half in a 15-point win at Georgetown. “We’ve finally got both the depth and experience that we need to get over the hump,” Penn State Coach Pat Chambers said. The Nittany Lions have the requisites to finish in the top half of the Big Ten.

DePaul’s double-digit win at Iowa sent a message to the rest of the Big East. The Blue Demons have their best roster yet under Coach Dave Leitao and a burgeoning star in the junior Paul Reed. “We know that attention comes from winning,” Leitao said. “We’ll get the attention we deserve if we continue to win.” DePaul is the first Big East team to reach five victories this season.

While Gonzaga and St. Mary’s were ranked to begin the season, another West Coast Conference team — Brigham Young — showed it can also be a factor after its 1-point win at Houston. The Cougars will also add one of the best big men in the country after nine games when 6-8 senior Yoeli Childs returns to the lineup after a suspension for hiring an agent before properly filing paperwork with the N.C.A.A. “It’s nice to know that you have help on the way,” B.Y.U. Coach Mark Pope said of Childs, who averaged 21.2 points and 9.7 rebounds last season.

Games to Watch This Week

All times are Eastern.

Tuesday Vermont at Virginia (7 p.m., ACC Network Extra)

Wednesday Georgia Tech at Georgia (7 p.m., SEC Network)

Thursday Texas vs. Georgetown (7 p.m., ESPN2), Duke vs. California (9:30 p.m., ESPN2)

Friday L.S.U. vs. Utah State (7 p.m., CBS Sports Network), Houston at Oregon (9 p.m., Pac-12 Network), Temple at U.S.C. (11 p.m., Pac-12 Network).

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ramialkarmi · 7 years

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Martin Sorrell: People feel 'ripped off' by the Cannes Lions, the ad conference where a chicken sandwich costs €32

CANNES, France — The Cannes Lions Festival is advertising's glittering moment in the sun, the industry's equivalent of the Oscars. It is often said that the importance of the Lion trophies is that they are the only awards people outside the business have heard of.

It's the biggest moment of the year on the advertising calendar, and tens of thousands of media and technology company execs pour into the French Riviera to attend the conference, take meetings with clients, drink pink wine, and see who wins. The folks who make ads for baby food, incontinence aids and cans of beans get to rub shoulders with the likes of Ron Howard, Helen Mirren, Ryan Seacrest and Halsey, the singer.

But this year the burnish came off those Gold Lions considerably, as the ad execs who pay for the rosé-soaked festivities complained loudly, and with their chequebooks:

Publicis, the third-largest ad agency network, said it would not attend the Cannes Lions at all next year and instead invest the money it would have spent on award entries and hotel rooms on a new AI product.

WPP sent only 500 staffers to Cannes this year, down from 1,000 last year. WPP CEO Martin Sorrell told Business Insider that people were complaining they felt "ripped off" by Cannes.

The Daily Mail, which last year had two gigantic party yachts pulled up at the docks and a party deck built alongside them, at an estimated cost of up to $8 million (£6.3 million), didn't do anything this year. Revenue at the Daily Mail was down 12% in the first half of fiscal 2017, so someone inside the company appears to have concluded that whatever deals they signed on their yachts last year were not good enough to require rebooking those boats this year.

And the stock of Ascential, the holding company that owns the Cannes Lions, took a precipitous dip right in the middle of the festival as it became clear that one of the main themes emerging from it was not the celebration of creativity but the mere cost of being there.

The Cannes Lions may be pricing themselves out of their own market, in other words.

Jose Papa, managing director of the Lions, defended his prices to Business Insider via email:

"We know that depending on where you are in the world, to come all the way to the south of France can be a big commitment. It’s why we put so much focus on value for money, to make sure the Festival is accessible to as many people as possible. We have passes which start at €1,595 (£1,395) for two days, and attendees under 30 can save up to 45%. There are lots of misconceptions about the expense of Cannes – one of the most prevalent being that we charge people to speak on stage, which we don’t; or that all the hotels are very expensive, which they’re not.

And that, many say, is part of the problem: It's €1,595 for one person for two days! (Papa's full statement is below.)

Sorrell says, "They feel it's very expensive, they go so far to say as if they feel they are being ripped off. It may have passed its sell-by date."

To understand Cannes' problems, it's worth knowing just how expensive it is for a company to be there: It can cost €1 million ($1.1 million or £874,697) before an ad agency even gets on a plane. WPP sent 500 people this year, but even if that number were reduced to 200, Business Insider calculated last year that they might need passes that cost €1,500 (£1,312) each, for a total of €300,000 (£262,409). Then a global agency might enter 1,500 prize categories at €500 (£437) per entry — that equals €750,000 (£656,023).

Already, the bill is over €1 million before a single flight is booked or hotel room reserved.

Once you're at Cannes, things don't get cheaper. The local hotels and restaurants know they have a captive audience. It costs €9 (£8) just to have a cup of tea inside the Hotel Barriere Majestic on the Croisette, one of the main hotels for the festival. At the Carlton down the street, it's €32 (£28) for a chicken sandwich. It can be difficult to escape dinner from the cheaper nearby restaurants for less than €40 (£35) per head. And employees expense all that back to agencies.

"Well, we said last year we question what the setup was here or the value of Cannes was. Last year, we had about 1,000 people, this year we had about 500," Sorrell says. "We were seriously questioning our participation last year and we will continue to do that."

Sorrell also thinks it might do well to move the Lions out of Cannes. "Whether it should be here or not is another question. There are some tremendous places in New York, there are tremendous places in London. After 9/11, Davos did go to New York."

"Cannes in the middle of June may not be the best place logistically for people to get to. If you had it in a city, Berlin, Amsterdam, whatever, in a city centre there may be other attractions ... it will be less clunky."

That's unlikely to happen. The Cannes Lions benefit enormously from their association with the Cannes Film Festival. Gwyneth Paltrow has attended both, for instance. That glamour rubs off on the Lions.

What is really going on here is that the large agencies — WPP and Publicis — are likely attempting to force Cannes to lower its prices in consideration of the bulk buying they do on entry fees and the like. WPP's people had a meeting scheduled with the Cannes Lions organisers on June 24. No doubt costs will be negotiated.

So expect Cannes to continue, but expect its price to go down. The Lions will still roar, but a bit less loudly.

Full statement from Jose Papa, Managing Director of Cannes Lions:

"We know that depending on where you are in the world, to come all the way to the south of France can be a big commitment. It’s why we put so much focus on value for money, to make sure the Festival is accessible to as many people as possible. We have passes which start at €1,595 for two days, and attendees under 30 can save up to 45%. There are lots of misconceptions about the expense of Cannes – one of the most prevalent being that we charge people to speak on stage, which we don’t; or that all the hotels are very expensive, which they’re not.

"Yes, we’re a business. But the spirit of what the Lion stands for as the global symbol of creative achievement belongs to our clients. We exist for the creative. Admittedly the definition of creativity has expanded and developed, and we’ve mirrored that evolution.

"A recent study undertaken by McKinsey showed the link between Lion-winning work and business results. We know creativity matters because thousands of people watch our award shows on live stream, and more physical proof can be seen in the sheer volume of work on display in the Palais by the end of the week. It’s an exhibition that covers the area of five Olympic swimming pools.

"But the best proof in the values of Cannes Lions can be found in the stories of the people here. Take a short walk around the Palais or the Croisette and ask anyone you meet about the value of the Festival: the atmosphere this year is incredible and we’ve heard amazing stories of the connections, achievements and transformative experiences people have enjoyed.

"Cannes Lions exists to serve the industry, and everything that happens here is the result of consultation with the industry. There’s a lot of noise around the tech companies in Cannes, but the creativity is there, in all its guises, just like it always has been. We put in a lot of effort last year to make a better visitor experience, like improving registration, but I accept the fact we need to do more to help people to navigate the Festival.

"The dialogue with our clients never stops. We continually consult with all our clients about the Festival on everything from the structure of our juries to the development of new Lions or what they want to see in the content programme.

"Apart from the Lion itself, the other constant thing about Cannes Lions is change. The Lions change as the work changes and the Festival evolves as the industry evolves. Our role is to help the industry be the best it can be, and this is only possible because we work hard to stay relevant, useful and valuable to our clients."

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hotspreadpage · 7 years

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Will Artificial Intelligence Replace Manual Content Creation?

There are only a few industries in which automation isn’t threatening some job roles. That’s a pretty scary thought, right? Well, don’t panic just yet.

“While automation will eliminate very few occupations entirely in the next decade, it will affect portions of almost all jobs to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the type of work they entail,” according to McKinsey Quarterly.

Roles that require empathy, like therapists and psychologists, as well as jobs that are highly reliant on social and negotiation skills, like managerial positions, are less threatened by automation, according to The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerisation?

Those of us in roles that require creative thinking and original ideas — like content creation — are also deemed at less risk of having our jobs swiped from under our noses by something harder-working, “smarter,” and cheaper to maintain.

For now.

It’s pretty tough to envision a machine generating great content ideas, not to mention creating that content — content worth consuming. Or so you might think.

The reality is that machines are already writing content — and they’re pretty good at it.

In fact, Gartner predicts, “By 2018, 20% of all business content will be authored by machines.”

By 2018, 20% of all business #content will be authored by machines via @Gartner_inc. Click To Tweet

While that’s only a year away, don’t panic — “business content” isn’t quite the same as creative content used for marketing.

Natural language generation

Natural language generation (NLG) is the name given to artificial intelligence capable of producing logical, coherent text.

“Natural language generation is a software process that automatically turns data into human-friendly prose,” as Automated Insights explains.

It’s clever but, unlike a human, NLG can’t produce prose on its own. The format must be templated, and it needs access to a structured data set.

For example, to use NLG tool Wordsmith, you upload your data, write a template and presto — you have content!

Want to see what the results look like? Chances are you already have, although you probably didn’t notice.

Have you ever read Forbes’ earning reports? They are generated using Quill, another NLG platform. Here’s what the content looks like:

“The consensus estimate remains unchanged over the past month, but it has decreased from three months ago when it was 39 cents. For the fiscal year, analysts are expecting earnings of $1.68 per share. Revenue is projected to be 2% above the year-earlier total of $369.4 million at $378.4 million for the quarter. For the year, revenue is projected to roll in at $1.56 billion.”

What do you think?

Sure, it reads fine and it makes sense. If you didn’t know it was written by a machine, you probably wouldn’t notice anything was off. But it lacks something.

Humanity.

The writing has no discernible soul, and why should it? A machine doesn’t.

Machine-generated content has no discernible soul, and why should it, asks @SujanPatel. Click To Tweet

Then again, this is financial content we’re talking about. It doesn’t matter whether the writing has personality. It just needs to accurately report the facts. And for that, NLG is ideal.

Let’s see something else.

Below are the opening sentences to two sports pieces (courtesy of the New York Times). One is written by a human and the other by a machine.

“Things looked bleak for the Angels when they trailed by two runs in the ninth inning, but Los Angeles recovered thanks to a key single from Vladimir Guerrero to pull out a 7-6 victory over the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park on Sunday.”

“The University of Michigan baseball team used a four-run fifth inning to salvage the final game in its three-game weekend series with Iowa, winning 7-5 on Saturday afternoon (April 24) at the Wilpon Baseball Complex, home of historic Ray Fisher Stadium.”

Can you guess the author for each?

If you couldn’t, you’re not alone. A similar experiment using multiple pieces of text like those above concluded that “readers are not able to discern automated content from content written by a human.” (For the record, the second one was written by a human.)

The study also asked participants to rate each piece of content on 12 characteristics. The results are telling:

Software- and journalist-authored content (also known as machine and human) score pretty equally on factors like coherence and accuracy — characteristics that can easily be learned by a machine (or I assume they can, based on my limited knowledge of programming).

The machine-written content came out on top (noticeably so) for the criteria of trustworthy and informative. That’s fine — those things are important, but they’re not what make content “great.”

The human-written content, however, soared ahead in two critical categories. It was rated significantly less boring and significantly more pleasant to read.

That makes sense.

A computer can’t read the content with a critical eye, and it can’t understand the vital complexities and nuances of language.

But will it be able to one day?

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Why Automation Is the Future of Content Creation

Turing test

Every year for more than two decades, the artificial intelligence community has congregated for the Turing test — a trial designed to determine whether machines are able to think and talk like humans. It’s named after its creator, Alan Turing — you might know his name from the loosely biographical Oscar-winning film, The Imitation Game.

In 2014, a machine won the Turing Test — reportedly for the first time.

Now, when I initially heard about this, I have to admit I was concerned. If a machine can fool people into thinking they’re conversing with another person, surely it would be capable of creating content that can fool people, too, right? After all, a conversation is unpredictable. A machine that can keep its cover when questioned should produce content using data and a template easily.

Thankfully (for those of us who don’t want to see AI replacing manual content creation, at least) things aren’t quite as they seem. For many years, the Turing test has been regarded as the benchmark for AI intelligence. If a machine can pass the test, it’s deemed to possess at least average human intelligence.

And yet, in the wake of this pass, a number of computer scientists and tech investors questioned the result. Scott Aaronson, a computer scientist and former faculty member at MIT, challenged Eugene (the “winning” machine) to a conversation. Here’s a snippet of what happened:

Anyone with a half-decent grasp of the English language should be able to see that Eugene is far from human. If this is what’s deemed equal to average human intelligence, I think content creators can rest easy.

For now.

Ray Kurzweil, Google’s director of engineering, believes computers will be smarter than humans by 2029. Specifically, he says, they will “be able to understand what we say, learn from experience, make jokes, tell stories, and even flirt.”

Just to clarify, this guy knows his stuff. Not only is he helping to bring natural language understanding to Google, but he has correctly foreseen similar things. In 1990, he predicted that by 1998 a computer would defeat a world-class chess champion. It happened in 1997.

Of course, Kurzweil isn’t talking about content creation specifically, but surely a computer that can comprehend language and learn from experience could create content that stands up to that written by human hands, right?

I honestly think it could — provided it’s given the right data. Based on Kurzweil’s predictions and the quality of content AI already produces, I have little doubt that in the not-so-distant future, computers will be capable of creating some pretty awesome content that’s indistinguishable from human-written content.

What I don’t believe computers will be able to do — at least, not our lifetime — is to think creatively. And that’s key.

Even if computers can create content, they will never be able to think creatively says @SujanPatel. Click To Tweet

The point may come where machines are writing the bulk of business content and news reports, but could a machine write a moving opinion piece or a novel?

AI content creation is, for now, algorithmic. Its capabilities are based on the information we humans provide. This is where I think its limitations lie.

To fully replace manual content creation, AI has to be able to think like a human. It has to be able to feel (to have emotions), it needs to form opinions, and it needs to think critically.

Should that ever happen, I think we’ll have much bigger things to worry about than the demise of manual content creation.

What do you think? Do you believe AI will ever replace truly creative content creators? Let me know in the comments.

Please note: All tools included in our blog posts are suggested by authors, not the CMI editorial team. No one post can provide all relevant tools in the space. Feel free to include additional tools in the comments (from your company or ones that you have used).

Want to explore further the role machines can play in improving your content marketing today and in the future? Don’t miss the Intelligent Content Conference March 28-30 in Las Vegas. Register today and use code BLOG100 to save $100.

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lucyariablog · 7 years