Monthly Archives: May 2011

Talked Out

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In a batch of recent research, we asked our fans and customers how do they receive information about our teams.

The top five sources of information gathering were identified by more than a majority of fans in this order: Our team websites; Comcast SportsNet; The Washington Post; my blog Ted’s Take; and team emails and mailings and in-arena communications.

These five sites and media are the starting points for fans and most fans don’t go past this grouping of sites for information. The drop off is dramatic in terms of how far and deep fans will go to find information.

I remain committed to communicating far and wide and treating all media outlets with respect and with transparency. I believe in the long tail and believe in democracy of information flow. Social media is starting to creep up in the rankings but I was surprised to see that these sites such as Facebook and Twitter and some blogs are still in a smallish minority of how most people gather information about our teams. I would like to encourage more participation and the driving of traffic to more blogs and more individual Twitter feeds and will try to figure out a way to be more supportive.

Google remains high in terms of relevance and driving clicks and people to specific information.

Yesterday I went on our own website to do an hour and ten minute interview with Mike Vogel. I tried to answer many fan generated questions. I have received and read more than 1,000 emails since our season ended. I believe I have responded to more than half of those emails.

Here is the link to the video interview.

I also conducted a 60 plus minute season ticket holder telephonic session with Wizards season ticket holders yesterday. I answered questions live from our customers. I have also received and read more than 500 emails from fans of the Wizards since the season ended and we conducted the draft lottery and redesigned our look and feel and new uniforms.

I want to thank you all for listening; for caring; for communicating; and for participating. That is very nice of you.

Odds

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Math works. Math is real and beautiful.

When there is a draft lottery, odds are odds.

There is no lucky streak or hot hand or bad luck.

Story lines may be romantic and a belief in luck is sweet and nice but odds are odds and math is math and randomness occurs randomly.

It is about odds.

Odds may be random but they occur in a singular moment.

If you took a quarter and flipped it and it came up heads, that doesn’t mean that it is more likely to come up tails the next flip.

Each flip is a separate event. Each flip is a 50/50 chance of being heads or tails. I know that is hard to fathom but there is truth in odds.

Here is a link to a bunch of info on odds. Math majors rule. Math is the universal language. It is hard for English majors to internalize. There is no true good or bad luck in a lottery. It is all about odds and randomness.

There is no hot hand.

There is no destiny although it does make for nice stories and provocative ideas.

Gotta Go – The Cars

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Yep, they have reunited.

They play at the 9:30 Club next week. See details here.

I saw the Cars in concert many times while I lived in Boston during the 70′s.

I met several of them at a party and once shared a chat with Ric Ocasek on Newberry Street. Did you know he grew up in Baltimore?

This was a seminal and cool band.

An important new wave band that crossed over.

It will be great to see them reunited sans one important band member who passed away.

They are just what I needed. See you there.

Bitcoin Mania

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Here it comes.

Open source currency.

The community issues money not backed by gold or banks but by energy and computing bandwidth. No need for IMF. No need for central banks – peer to peer. Disintermediate the Treasury department.

Bold. Big. Brilliant.

Fairly impractical for mass consumption. Small details such as tax recordings; “know your customer”; and counterfeiting.

This is basically what governments do but a great big idea and one that is worth watching. One of those things that make you smile at the possibilities.

Awesome. Cool. Gigantic idea.

6th Pick

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We have to deal with the ping pong balls when they are good to us and not so good to us.

We finished the season with the 4th worst record in the league and we shall now draft in the 6th spot. Hence we fell two spots. Last year we leapt over many teams to get the first pick and the rights to John Wall.

I believe we will find a very good player to help us with this pick.

I also believe that our first round picks – #6 and #18 – offer us great potential to find players that can help us short and long term with our rebuild.

Who we draft will be dependant on who is drafted by the teams ahead of us. Stay tuned.

Congratulations to Cleveland and Dan Gilbert’s “lucky” son. They too will rebuild through the draft.

Wish Us Luck in Lottery

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Watch the lottery and wish us well.

It would be fantastic to get a high draft pick. We were quite fortunate last year to win the lottery. The lottery tonight is a separate event so all odds go to this year’s ping pong balls. Last year has nothing to do with this year. THAT is how math works.

Odds are odds.

The draft is important but as this article states everything is a “crap shoot.”

Big men, guards and forwards.

You named it.

But we believe having two first round picks is a good thing.

We need to add talent in many ways to our roster. The draft is paramount to our plan.

We will be able to find good prospects regardless of where we pick in the first round. That is what I believe.