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Bridging the Gap
 

Re: Bridging the Gap
 

Just adding my 2c for others that want a little more insight.

Baldie is putting in a momentous amount of effort to try and pull off this very ambitious plan. We will be doing what we can from a resource point of view to help, particularly in relation to live streamed content closer to mid-year.

In relation to the 'bridging the gap' sentiment and under delivering on expectations last year, I would like to remind people that we need more assistance in putting together our live events this year. We are a volunteer organisation - period. We give back what is put in. There wasn't much put in last year, and the result spoke for itself.

It will be my duty to organise a very structured, transparent volunteer program prior to our big events this year. It will be well known exactly what is required and when to help deliver ACL's July event. You can expect further information in this regard closer to April/May.

Still love this game and how passionate the community for it is. Respect.

Re: Bridging the Gap
 

Great post, Baldie. This is the sort of communication from ACL (and yourself) that is good to have.

ACL has always lacked content surrounding their events, which is a real shame, not just for the community, but for all ACL events themselves. There's several thousands of sc2 players in this country we haven't been able to reach yet. Continuing to rely ONLY on sc2sea for exposure will only see less interest as players and community members move on from time to time. Articles posted to TL are a good start, but as I'm sure you have noticed, simply doing so doesn't have much impact. This is why I pushed all x5 articles on reddit to give it more attention. I'm sure there are other ways to improve our scene's exposure as well.

Team Exile5 will be happy to help out with content as we did for WCS S1. As you are the organising body for all these events, it would be good try to coordinate with you to ensure there's no overlapping content, etc so let us (me) know when things are coming up! And the same goes for anyone else thinking of lending a hand to create content and exposure for the scene.

Given the resurgence of sc2 interest (compared to last year's) I would dearly love this streak to continue and for us to use it to grow the scene even more.


TLDR: Communication between ACL and other content creators required. Need to think carefully about pushing content for maximum exposure.

Re: Bridging the Gap
 

First off this kind of communication is fantastic Brad. It's not easy to say "I’ll be here to celebrate with you all when it goes well and to be accountable and responsible when it doesn't." and actually mean it. Honestly I feel that ACL overall is a very positive experience. We didn't have the biggest stage at Melbourne and there were some minor issues, but overall it was still a great event. I think the real key area to improve on is accessibility. It doesn't matter how much you hype something, if its too far out of the way people wont be able to get to it!

In all honesty the viewer experience at LAN's is fantastic, once I settled down from running around after players I really enjoyed myself. Having a screen/stage 3 times larger doesn't really impact that experience. There have been some cool things attached to ACL's over last year. For instance having a barcraft within an ACL is perfect, while I can understand there are issues with underage players it is still a big draw for someone like me. Hyping this aspect up may involve more people than simply hyping up the players.

While this is completely my opinion I feel that you should be focusing on making sure that events are easily accessible and really make an enjoyable experience for the spectators. As players who fall early generally become spectators and players who play all day generally win money. So this way everyone wins!

This means players as well. I think most people have seen the effort dot, Stormz and Potter have put in to making interviews of late. So far, most players and community members have been very willing to help out when it comes to providing interviews and content. However we have had one particular player who simply couldn't be bothered after they won a tournament to do a simple interview. I think this sends a really shit message. "Hey I just won your tournament, I'll take your money, but I cant be fucked giving an interview for you to put up". This kind of selfish behaviour makes it hard to quantify putting time and money into the scene. If you are a player, remember that people put alot of their own unpaid time into organising events. Without these people you wouldn't have these events. You wouldn't have prizes. You wouldn't have things organised for you on a silver platter. Don't be a spoilt brat, help out those who help you.

TLDR players need to step up for content as well. Content producers can't just make it out of thin air.

Re: Bridging the Gap
 

Good to hear from you Brad. You seem to have a lot on your plate and I want to warn you might be promising something that will drain the crap out of you and make your passion for SC2 wane. If it ever gets even close to this feeling I strongly urge you to seek to invest your time not in creating content yourself but as a content-manager. Hell, even from the get-go this might be the more efficient path for you.

What I mean by this is basically just building on what Dot said before, liase with other content creators and try to make sure they don't overlap and you help motivate them to do content and bring new content creators into the scene, or existing content creators into promoting our competitive circuit.

A few things you should do in that sort of role:

1) Organise content to minimise overlap

2) Make use of forums/social-media to promote the content that is created, as well as call for new content creators.

3) Notify content creators well ahead of time of event-plans so that as ACL announces things or events happen, content-creators can already have a plan in place to cover the events whilst a hot-topic.

4) Brainstorm new ideas and gather feedback from the community and your own insights on what sort of new content is needed, or how existing content can be pushed.

5) Learn the ART of pushing content:

a) Hooks: a tag-line that pulls people into clicking on a tweet/fb post/forum-post or article heading.

b) Reddit and other larger communities: Wider exposure in terms of using all social media to link towards something like reddit where a successful initial promotion of X upvotes can expose your content to tens of thousands more viewers.

c) Quality of content: What do people WANT to see? This usually is something that's more flashy or unique and grabs people's short attention spans into clicking and reading/watching. It's more worthwhile to have 1 piece of quality content that grabs people's attention than 5 pieces which only circulate in a single forum. Basically you want to create virality in your content so that people share them on social media and they are constantly bumped/upvoted to the top of larger websites.

I hope these are some useful starting points for you to think about in terms of your new goals. I wish you great success!

Re: Bridging the Gap
 

I knew this when I said I would do it. It's why I created a yearly content calendar so I had a structure in place around my other commitments to operate.

In all honestly ultimately I want to drive content to inspire and ignite others to do the same. My job will be done when I can do what you just said and manage content as opposed to create it all. However I don't think I can just jump straight into a content manager role.

In my opinion there is not enough content out there (I hear you on ensuring quality over quality but the point still stands) at the moment and that likely wont change if I put a title in front of my name that says I will manage content. It requires me taking it on myself before I rely on others to do it.

It's also a good test of my ability to juggle multiple things. If I want to progress in this industry to be involved with the biggest eSports event in the world, I need to be able to handle the good and bad tasks and have the discipline to do what I said I would.

There's a part of me which believes if I can lead by example, others will follow. If this turns out not to be the case I wont drive it as much next year, simple as that. I'm willing to bust my balls this year at a chance of leaving something behind I helped to create.

It doesn't surprise me that the first three community based responses are from x5 members who already produce a lot of content. It's now having that reach out to others.

Re: Bridging the Gap
 

whens ACL gona start supporting dota?

Re: Bridging the Gap
 

Baldie and VaNzR you guys are ******* heroes.

I'm super happy just to have the ACL circuit exist, if there is extra content on top of that it would be amazing! I hope WCS and ACL can work together to create a good environment for 2014.

Re: Bridging the Gap
 

If you want it give us reasons why we should support it, how you suggest we support it, where the competitive community is etc and we will consider it.

That's the best I can give you.

Re: Bridging the Gap
 

Love the dedication! Baldie does an amazing job for ACL.

Hope 2014 is a big year for you guys

I always look forward to checking out content. There's a few talented writers around, who i'm sure would be happy to help out if asked.

Re: Bridging the Gap
 

i'll be there to help baldie and Vanzer

Re: Bridging the Gap
 

Hey man, loving this. More communication and transparency between organization and community the better.

Videos are always more impactful than text interviews. Please drop me a line on Skype re: content I'm more than happy to put some hours in to help in any way possible.