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See What You Say

July 31, 2012

Edward Morgan Forster is an English novelist who died as I was graduating as an English major at Dartmouth College in 1970.

Like many creative writers, E. M Forster traveled the world; and of his six novels (each of which was made into a film), it is A Passage to India, written in 1924, that was most popular.

He also wrote many short stories, plays, film scripts, essays, literary criticism, two biographies and even a libretto.  He was, to say the least, a prolific writer.

The secret of his productivity is probably the genius and tortured soul which drives so many great authors.  However, there is one quote from E. M. Forster that may be especially revealing.  He said:  “How do I know what I think until I see what I say?”  He was a writer in order to be a better thinker.

I have neither genius nor a tortured soul; but what has driven me to write throughout my administrative career – and what has kept me blogging twice a week for three full years as of today – is that I cannot be sure what I know – or what I believe and will stand behind – until I can see it in writing and know that it will be read by others.  That’s when I begin to know what I really think.

Story Power

January 12, 2015

I spend time every day surfing the MHSAA’s family of websites – MHSAA.com, Second Half and MHSAA.tv. My counterpart in another state was astounded that I do this, and incredulous that I could find the time to do this. But it makes perfect sense to me.

More people visit our websites on a typical day than visit our office in East Lansing during an entire year. We have more visitors to our websites during a typical month than attend all of our postseason tournaments combined during a typical year.

We have more opportunity to make first impressions through electronic entry than tournament turnstiles; and for the large majority of people who make contact with the MHSAA, electronic media may provide the only impression they will ever get of the MHSAA.

This is why we have styled the MHSAA’s websites in a manner that is visually pleasing and easy to navigate on both desktop and mobile devices. And this is why we have stuffed these websites not only with schedules, scores and stats but also with stories; and it’s why the stories are presented in text, audio, pictures and video streaming.

We know that those who share the stories of school sports most effectively will shape the message of school sports most persuasively.

Our job is not merely regulation of school sports, but communication about school sports – not merely event management, but content management – managing the message and meaning of school-sponsored sports.