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| "As exciting as all of this is, you will lose your shit when I tell you about the light show." |
Certainly what the figure skating faniverse is dying to see is a photo of an event director explaining basic tech eight months in advance of an event Russia managed to produce in four weeks. It's no wonder the media above is on their toes, drinking in every word. They're as mesmerized by the whole process as we are, as Barb is. Barb's enthusiasm is always endearing. I'm in media! Look - it's real! Lighting equipment! Wiring stuff! Clip-on mikes*. Recording devices! Real reporters - they've got sunglasses on their heads and "breaking news' facial expressions! They're wearing windbreakers and everything!
And that's not all from Skate Canada:
Did you know that 25+ tv cameras** will be installed @JLC for the #FSWorlds13 the event will be broadcast to over 160million ppl worldwide!
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| gif credit: Its-Delovely |
The fact that a Communications Director finds television cameras pr-worthy suggests she's every bit as good at media as Debbi is at business development and William Thompson at diplomacy. The only shortcoming is she keeps [attempting to] communicating that Skate Canada is this exciting, high level type enterprise managing urgent business without actually keeping in the forefront the organization's purpose, which is figure skating and figure skaters. Perhaps she and Debbi & Co. are under the impression the public cares as little about that part as they do.
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*Wait, no, in Canada they like those big phallic things that say "important media personality."
**That number feels low to me.
So weird to get these dribbles of information about the Event Director for Worlds, or the number of cameras (who cares?). Meanwhile, both the Skate Canada and Skatebuzz websites are not navigator-friendly. Plus, they're just boring.
ReplyDeleteYou wanna see the skaters? You can watch video of them in stilted interviews with Debbie. There are no interesting nor continually-updated photo-galleries, such as are featured at icenetwork. But hey, how exciting to see the Event Director of Worlds in a photo with cameras in her face. *rolleyes*
I think Barb doesn't want to be upstaged by stuff fans are actually interested in, like figure skaters. You know the old bridezilla cliche about making the bridesmaids unattractive so the bride can shine? I think Barb uses most of her media outreach to promote herself. That's why, when Champs Camp charmed the internet with tweets from figure skaters, Barb imitated those tweets HERSELF. I believe Skate Canada tries to limit the media exposure of their figure skaters unless one of the directors can piggyback self-promotion on a figure skater media opportunity. It's easily accomplished because, IMO, the big name skaters aren't keen to put themselves out there, and the lower ranked skaters that might appreciate the exposure - Skate Canada couldn't be less interested. What do lower ranked skaters do for Skate Canada? Ask not what your federation can do for you ... that should be SC's motto. Barb loves to tweet these "I'm a real media person" crap pic-bites and info nuggets that interest nobody but her because she wants to promote herself as legit and she thinks making it all scrummy and serious looks high level. It may seem like that but this gig isn't going to last forever and it looks to me she wants to at least make a lateral move when it's over and not go back to One Way Ministry stuff. This is the big time to her. She's trying to make herself impressive. And it would be impressive - for 1982.
DeleteAfter all, a basic tech set-up for a sports event, banking some quotes during a training camp, and informing us that television cameras will be installed to broadcast a world championship - these things are not routine. Look at the very serious expressions on the faces of those journalists up there. This is SERIOUS. If they had regular facial expressions, like journalists do when the President of the United States has a press conference, we probably wouldn't appreciate how very big time all this is. So Barb has the invited media go all Aaron Sorkin on some event director. She's ridiculous.
"That's why, when Champs Camp charmed the internet with tweets from figure skaters, Barb imitated those tweets HERSELF."
DeleteWas this when a bunch of skaters all of a sudden began tweeting right after the Canada High Performance Camp and said they were told to start doing that?
And they still didn't tweet pictures, just comments saying they were now supposed to tweet. Barb's tweets of course were ridiculous. A few tiny group pictures, couldn't see anyone's face nor really understand what they were supposed to be doing. And of course, tweets about herself and the media "job." Lol. So lame.
God forbid they should actually share real pictures and relevant comments about the events taking place on the Skatebuzz site and/or facebook page. SC is so incredibly stingy when it comes to sharing pictures of its skating events. It hasn't escaped my notice how little we saw of anything going at Canadian Nationals.
Barb started tweeting mobile upload type photos, imitating the "fun" tone of the USFSA figure skaters - but it was coming from HER, not the figure skaters the way the USFSA did it, so she misses the point. She was trying to co-opt that appeal for herself, which made no sense. You couldn't really see the pictures either, and what photos there were were of contrived stuff like a contest to see which team drew the better Skate Canada logo (their logo fetish is inexplicable). It was horrible.
DeleteWe never see anything. They're not interested. You don't expect them to actually work at their job, do you?
Logo fetish - you don't see other feds tweaking their logo like this. It's not really good for branding. A marketing "expert" like her doesn't know this?
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