Podcast: Fantasy Football

https://soundcloud.com/chrisconley1534/fantasy-football

I'm a huge fan of fantasy football, so that is why my podcast revolves around this years draft.  I'm a strong believer in the theory that the running back position is still the most important position to focus on during a draft.  Please sit back and enjoy my thoughts on high risk/high reward players, as well as sleepers that one can draft in the middle to late rounds.

Viral Video: Terry Tate: Office Linebacker

For my viral video I chose to go with an oldie but goodie.  I'm not much of a YouTuber, but this video is honestly one of my all time favorites!  For those of you who have never seen or heard of this particular video here is a little overview of Terry Tate:  Office Linebacker.

This video first aired during the Super Bowl in 2003 and used a documentary style to focus on an employee named Terry Tate.  Terry was hired by a corporate firm to help straighten out some inefficiencies in the office work place.  Checkout the video below to see just how efficient Terry was with his particular skill set.

This video is an excellent example of Reebok marketing through sport as we learned in our Sports Marketing class.  Reebok was able to market their product and create a hilarious video that became one of the 10 most popular Super Bowl commercials of all time.  I particularly enjoy how Reebok took the idea of a documentary, reality tv, and the things we dislike the most about our jobs and rolled them all into a commercial which happened to become a viral video.

I think that we'd all like to have an enforcer at our workplace who could tackle a coworker if they forgot to refill the coffee pot, took our food from the refrigerator, or didn't fill out their paperwork correctly.  With this video, we can live vicariously through Terry Tate as he handles all of our workday frustrations for us.  In the words of Ron Felcher, "I wish that I had 10 Terry Tate's on my team."

The Conley Impact

When it comes to Cleveland sports a few iconic phrases come to mind:

"The Fumble" and "The Decision" have to be the most recognizable in my opinion.  However, after the NBA free agency period began this year a new phrase might take the city of Cleveland by storm:

"The Return"

Lebron James decided that he had to follow his heart back to his home state and start a new chapter of his legacy and future hall of fame career.  With that being said, one has to wonder if this prolonged return has been in the making for the past couple of years.  Let's take a look back when the Cavs first drafted James with the number 1 overall pick in 2003.

During Lebron's first tenure with the Cavs, it seemed as if owner Dan Gilbert didn't want to surround Lebron with much talent.  The most notable players that Lebron played with were named Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Mo Williams, Carlos Boozer (for one year), and one might be able to say Larry Hughes.  It was remarkable that Lebron's Cavs made it to an NBA final when he didn't have a big name sidekick in the starting five.  What's more puzzling, is that the Cavs had the chance to sign quality free agents when they were in their prime such as Michael Redd and Amare Stoudamire.  In the end, the lack of talent and the hopes of winning a title in South Beach propelled Lebron to the Miami Heat where they went to four straight NBA finals; winning two.

While the world was focused on Lebron and company in Miami, the Cavs were quietly lurking in the shadows building up draft picks.  Since drafting Lebron with the number 1 overall pick in 2003, the Cavs have also had a top 10 draft pick 6 times!  Most notably, the past 4 years in which they've acquired the number 1 overall pick 3 out of 4 years running!

It looks like the Cavs have been planning for the king to return to Cleveland.

With the young talent now surrounding Lebron (Kyrie Irving, Dion Waiters, and Andrew Wiggens) and the potential pick up of Kevin Love, the Cavs finally look like they're on the right track to bring the first title to the city of Cleveland since 1964.

GolfSense

With the advancement of mobile technology, recreational athletes now have access to applications which allows them to try and perfect certain sports motions from the palm of their hand.  The most prevalent application, that I have seen on recent commercials, is an app that allows golfers to try and perfect their golf swing; it's called GolfSense.  In order to track their golf swing, the golfer must attach a wearable motion sensor to their golf glove which allows them to send information to their smart phone through a downloaded app.  This app then gives instant feedback to the golfer which allows them to evaluate their golf swing.

I find this advancement in technology helpful to amateur athletes in a couple of different ways.  One, it allows amateur athletes the ability to critique their own sports flaws without having to pay a coach.  Private lessons can be rather expensive, but technology is helping amateur athletes become their own coach through the use of apps such as GolfSense.  Two, amateur athletes can now perfect certain sports motions on their own time instead of having to set up an appointment with a coach.  With everyone's busy lifestyles, GolfSense allows amateur golfers the chance to perfect their golf swing from their own backyard.

GolfSense also allows amateur golfers the ability to share and compare their results through new media technologies such as Facebook, Twitter, and email.  The ability to receive instant feedback is crucial in allowing amateur golfers the ability to share their results instantaneously which friends and families.  The instant results and feedback amateur golfers can receive will help them perfect their swing quickly, which in return will help improve their overall golf game in a timely manner.

Website Eval: TexasWildTennis

I've never heard of www.texaswildtennis.com before this assignment, but after looking over their website I now know more about their team and the league that they are apart of.  My first overall impression of the website was that it was very bright and caught my attention right away.  It wasn't too busy, which I liked, and at first glance it seemed very organized and easy to navigate.

Overall, I would have to say that the accessibility of the website is easy to get to as long as you know the websites url.  That in itself might pose a problem if you don't watch the Texas Wild play or follow the World Tennis League (WTT).  The WTT has seven different professional teams across the United States.  With the size of the league being rather small, a major obstacle has to be the ability of the marketers to get the team's and league's name out to sport fans who aren't familiar with the league itself.

In terms of navigation, I found the website to be rather straight forward and easy to navigate.  With this being my first time accessing this particular website, I was able to find simple information about the teams history, current players, ticket information, and 2014's schedule.  Even though the website was easy to navigate, it did come with a few problems.  The biggest problem, in my opinion, was that their wasn't a home button to take me back to the main page.  The only way the I was able to navigate back to the home page was by clicking on the back button until I reached my destination.  I also noticed that after returning to the home page some of the main columns wouldn't bring up their drop down menus when the mouse cursor was hovered over them.  The only way I found to fix this was to refresh the page, which then allowed me to fully access the website once again.

The overall interactivity of the website was good.  The website responded smoothly to the objects that I clicked on which made for a seamless interaction.  In terms of interaction with the website, there weren't any parts of the website for me to interact with such as user polls or questionnaires.  The team did, however, have an ad for a team app that could be downloaded on either Apple's App Store or from the Android Playstore.  I found this intriguing only because the team isn't that well known and since it belongs to such a small league.  However, I found this to be a great way to use technology to connect with current fans, as well as a great way to reach out to new fans.  The website also had a running link to the teams Twitter page, as well as a large colorful Facebook icon that took me to the teams Facebook page.  I thought that the teams use of new technology was excellent in regards to how they presented it on their webpage.

The website also had a nice big video gallery icon that I could click on.  It allowed me access to previous match highlights, interviews with players, and a draft recap of their 2014 league draft.  I liked the fact that I could play the videos in their current size, or I could also make the videos full size if I wanted to.

Overall, the quality of content for Texas Wild Tennis was presented very well.  For a first time user, I was able to interact and navigate the site with very few problems.  If I were a fan, the team's webpage allowed me to easily purchase tickets, access a season schedule, and know the rules and regulations pertaining to the facility.  The only areas of improvement that I think of fixing would be the problems that I mentioned in terms of navigating the website.  The number one area for improvement would be a home button to allow browsers the chance to skip all the way back to the homepage.  

Thursday May, 29, 2014 Technology Deprivation

I chose this day for my technology deprivation for a couple of different reasons.  One, I had the day off from work and I knew that I wouldn't have to be as connected to my smart phone in terms of emails, spreadsheets, and Whats App.  Two, my girlfriend and I had already planned out a nice little day that revolved around going to Lowe's and Home Depot in order to pick out gardening and lawn supplies to create a flower bed in front of our house.  I knew that I needed some kind of activity to keep me occupied so that I wouldn't be as tempted to constantly be connected to my smart phone.

Overall, I did a good job of using my smart phone for only making and receiving calls.  It was very tempting, however, to check my notifications for my emails and Whats App since I constantly use those two forms of technology to stay connected to my job.  I kept getting drawn to my phone, by the blinking notification light, which seemed to keep tempting me to want to check it.  I survived my notification light's test and not once did I check my phone for any type of notification that I received that day.  The convenience of the internet almost got the best of me when I needed to figure out the formula to calculate the cubic inches of my flower garden.  Instead of using the internet on my smart phone, I called my father, who is an engineer with Tyson Foods, and he was able to calculate the number of bags of wood chips that were needed for my flower garden

I'm not a heavy social media user by any means, but the convenience of not being able to utilize certain functions of my phone did seem to pose a few problems.  With the number of different devices that are packed into a smart phone, it's easy to see why society, as a whole, has become so reliable on the technology of their smart phones.