The Bills were playing the Tim Tebow led Denver Broncos at 1pm on Christmas Eve. Even though the miracle Broncos had been snuffed by the New England Patriots the week before, the consensus was that the hopeless and injured Bills would lose.

On top of that, the game would be blacked out in the Buffalo and Rochester areas because Ralph Wilson Stadium did not sell out. In some markets, an owner will buy out the remainder of the tickets to ensure a sold out game, but Bills owner Ralph Wilson (or whomever is acting on his behalf these days) did not. To add to that, the Bills had squandered a successful first half of the season to fall to a 5-9 record, with no chance of the playoffs in sight. Add to that the general pessimism surrounding the Bills’ brass after they signed shaky starting quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick to a long term contract but have yet to restructure key cog running back Fred Jackson’s deal (they have merely “assured” him of one, but haven’t inked anything official.)

Given all of that negativity, why would a social media manager ask such a question? You could expect at least eighty percent bitter responses. But the Bills’ asked, and here are some of the actual responses they received:

The Facebook comments section – several hundred deep – felt like a big group therapy session, or at least an extremely curmudgeonly family Christmas dinner. Surprisingly, the Bills pulled out the upset and used a strong day on defense to defeat the Broncos 40-14.

Was it harmless for the Bills to ask such a question via social media, or does it illustrate how out of touch they may be with their fan base?

DailyFeats' Skip Soda feat.

Keeping healthy can be a struggle, especially when you’re balancing work, a side gig and your everyday life. It can be easy to slip into bad habits, and those bad habits can add up to five unnecessary pounds in no time.

A new social media site called DailyFeats is looking to not only make healthy choices a part of your every day, but to make it fun while doing so. DailyFeats is like if your nutritionist or personal trainer jumped onto a location based service like Foursquare or SCVNGR to nag you (in a good way, of course!) Users earn points for positive lifestyle choices they make. For example, I just earned a point for choosing water over pop. Pop is one of my biggest temptations, and even the small accountability that DailyFeats gives me helps steer me in the right direction. Users can earn points by making vegetables a part of your meal, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, and getting safe sunlight. If you earn enough points, you can earn gift cards to online retailers or you can donate your points to worthy causes.

DailyFeats relaunched their website last week, and it is much easier to use than it’s previous interface. It’s colorful, and each feat looks like a postage stamp. Check ins are done through DailyFeats’ website or their mobile phone app. Using the app is a simple way to be reminded and rewarded to make good choices, instead of ones your body may regret later.

Want some extra healthy living accountability? Join me in using DailyFeats. Sign up now and use the bonus points code sportsgirlkat50 to collect 50 extra points right off the bat! I’m “sportsgirlkat” on the site, and you can add me as a teammate so we can see each others completed feats.

Thanks to Monique from DailyFeats for the outreach and special offer!

But an offline incident this past spring (that had no relation to social media) has me looking at this type of behavior in a new light. Even if the person “means well” and “just doesn’t know the boundaries,” they can still cause harm to you. How do you protect yourself? How does a woman be social on social media and be safe at the same time?

Here are some tips I’ve come up with – feel free to add your own in the comments:

The Buddy System - I don’t go to networking events without a friend or colleague who I know well. Not an acquaintance, not a Twitter follower that I’ve never met offline, but someone I know well. Sure, I miss out on some events this way, and it does limit some of the exploratory heart of networking. But knowing that I have someone to fall back on in the event that I get in a strange situation makes working the room that much easier.

Report Later - If I’m trying out a restaurant, coffee shop or other establishment by myself (which I often do), and I want to talk about it via social media, I do so after the fact. Instead of saying, “Trying out a latte at Cafe Coffee in Name Of Place right now,” it becomes, “Enjoyed a latte at Cafe Coffee today. Highly recommend.” Even if you are still at the establishment, change the tense of your statement so that you don’t open yourself up to being approached if you don’t want to be.

Check In As You Leave - If I am in the mood to use Foursquare and SCVNGR (which is not often, but occasionally I go on location based binges for work purposes), and I am alone, I check in to the establishment as I’m leaving, not when I immediately walk in the door. You can still gain your all important mayorships and finish treks, but you aren’t opening yourself up to being followed.

Don’t Be Afraid To Say Hey - If someone’s behavior is making you uneasy, call them out or block them. Tell them that you don’t feel comfortable with how they are acting. Most importantly, tell others, and if those people don’t take you seriously, get a second opinion. Don’t let anyone tell you that you shouldn’t feel uneasy. You can’t help your gut, and if your gut is giving you a good ol’ “Danger, Will Robinson,” then there is most likely a legit reason behind that.

Said Lefsetz:

“Despite the prevalence of prepubescents, our rock stars are going to be older and older, because not only does it take that long to get noticed, but it takes that long to be good.”

Is this the way writing – in particular sports writing – is going?

Is writing becoming something you need to dabble in part time before you can make a sustainable living doing it? Is the new sports journalist the 29 year old who has had a blog for years, balanced writing with a non-writing full-time career, and eventually cobbles together enough to fashion a full-time living from it?

That’s both the rub and the reward of the Internet, online media and the growth of blogging. It gives those of us who dreamed of writing for a living but were discouraged and confused a second chance. But it widens the pool of writers, making things difficult for those who devoted schooling, internships and low paying police/fire newspaper beats to their craft.

Who is the new sports media member? Is it the nearly-30 blogger who tries their best to emulate the writers who inspire him or her, or is it the writer with the print journalism degree who took a more traditional path? Who will be the sportswriter of the future?

In this new media world, are sportswriters going to be much older when they finally, to quote Lefsetz, “get noticed” and “be good”?

John Mayer at Berklee on July 11, 2011. (Photo: Berklee College of Music)

I recently read coverage of singer/songwriter John Mayer’s July 11th lecture at his alma mater, Berklee College of Music. Mayer returned to his Boston music school to share his ups and downs musically and with his celebrity.

Mayer touched upon his once obsessive use of Twitter, which he eventually had to abandon. Berklee Blogs reported from the lecture:

“(Mayer struggled) to curb using social media, which should have been an outlet for promotion but eventually became an outlet for artistic expression. Mayer shared that he found himself asking himself questions like ‘Is this a good blog? Is this a good tweet? Which used to be, is this a good song title? Is this a good bridge?’

And possibly more alarming, Mayer realized that pouring creativity into smaller, less important, promotional outlets like Twitter not only distracted him from focusing on more critical endeavors like his career, it also narrowed his mental capacity for music and writing intelligent songs.”

Most telling was this direct quote from Mayer:

“I stopped using Twitter as an outlet and I started using Twitter as the instrument to riff on, and it started to make my mind smaller and smaller and smaller. And I couldn’t write a song.”

Even though I’m tone deaf, Mayer’s insights regarding Twitter hit home for me as a sports writer. I devote so much of my time engaging my sports communities via Twitter, and having worthy and in-depth conversations there. I’m using ideas and thoughts on Twitter that might be better explored via my sports blog.

It is an easy rut for sports bloggers to get stuck in. You leave some of your best material – the discussion of a player’s role on a particular team, a discussion of how you would set hockey lines, who you would hire for a vacant coaching position – on Twitter. You might not even realize you are putting your creativity priority on Twitter, but step back and look at what discussions you’re spending a lot of time having on Twitter. You might be leaving a lot of topics there that you could be having on your blog.

Remember that even though Twitter has exploded with popularity, not all of your blog readers are there. Consider about expanding on topics you’re discussing on Twitter on your blog. Or write about a topic first on your blog, then share the blog post via Twitter and let the post generate the discussion. By putting your blog as creativity priority one over Twitter, you may not run into difficulty finding time to post or coming up with post ideas.

Start by asking yourself: Are you using your blog or Twitter to “riff” on sports? Is whatever one you’re using the one you want to be using?

Then I started going to sports networking events, and confident me came back. At the first Boston Sports Blogapalooza last spring, I was tentative at first, but lost the trepidation within ten minutes. I felt like I knew what I was talking about, and I was interested in hearing from my fellow attendees.

Confidence reinstated post-Blogapalooza, I started to sign up for networking events in higher ed and in general social media. Things quickly returned to the status quo: my glass of generic white wine in hand, I would stand in the corner after ten minutes of being intimidated by the discussion and attitudes around me. Or I would try to pitch in, even if they didn’t need the help. (I became really adept at unofficially filling in at registration tables and “admiring” scenic views out windows.)

Going into the third edition of the Blogapalooza on Saturday, I didn’t have high hopes. I had signed up to present during a panel, and was excited to do that, but I was so beaten down from my introversion that I didn’t know if I could work a room. Within a minute of walking in, I recognized three people. I turned the corner, and ran into more. Then I started talking to new people. Introvert? What introvert? I didn’t stop talking for five hours. I gave my panel, I did interviews with The Pulse Network and Comcast SportsNet New England, and I bounced from group to group.

Afterwards, it hit me: I’m not really an introvert. I just have been trying to fit in places I might not fit in. I might not be cut out for higher ed, much like some of my higher ed colleagues aren’t cut out to be a sports writer. You do best at what you’re passionate about, and I am more convinced than ever that I’m passionate about sports media.

Just a week and a half prior, I had remarked to a higher ed colleague that I felt like I am at a crossroads in my career: am I in higher ed technology or am I in sports media/social media? I need to choose one to throw all of my effort behind so that I don’t stagnate in either. At the time, I was leaning towards higher ed, and was entertaining thoughts of dropping sports writing all together.

But why would I dump the one field that is obviously the field that I am most comfortable with? There is a reason I can work a room at an event like Blogapalooza, and that I struggle in higher education events, that I feel like I’m welcome at one and feel like an outsider at another.

In some respects, Saturday’s event kept my career debate alive. It at least gave me more initiative to find at least a happy medium. And for that, I have to thank Joe Gill and his team for putting the event together and being such strong advocates for building a bustling Boston sports blog community; Chris Villani, Ken Fang, Kevin Paul, Kisha T, Ryan Durling, Amy Blue, Mike Riley, the BC Interruption crew, and the Days of Y’Orr crew for being so friendly and fun every time I see them; Kathy McDonnell for being my fellow social media panelist and someone that always makes me laugh; and Butch Stearns and Jess Camerato for interviewing me and being able to pronounce my last name.

I’ll write up more about the NHL’s presentation and overall conference later (I am in charge of technical support for a new student orientation this week, so time is tight), but there was one ironic and timely point in it that I must share. DiLorenzo mentioned that one of the things they have struggled with is responding via their NHL Twitter account in the wake of disciplinary news: “No matter what the discipline department decides, we’re going to get tons of tweets that say ‘You’re wrong.”

He mentioned that at 2:40. By 8:40, the NHL had another massive disciplinary situation on their hands: Vancouver Canucks Aaron Rome’s hit on puck-less Boston Bruin Nathan Horton that resulted in a severe concussion.

Rome was suspended four games by the league for the incident, effectively removing him for the remainder of the Stanley Cup Finals. On Twitter the reaction to the NHL’s decision varied immediately, ranging on the Goldilocks scale: some fans thought it was too much, some thought it was too little, and some thought it was just right.

Assume you are one of the two folks who man the @NHL Twitter account (yes, there are only two, mentioned DiLorenzo Monday.) How would you effectively use your Twitter account to respond to each type of fan? Do you not respond to one group? Do you respond to all? Because of the mass of Tweets, do you just not even try to respond to them at all? Do you focus on the negative ones first, where it sounds like you’re losing a fan?

And if you are a fan who Tweeted at @NHL about today’s disciplinary decision, what response were you hoping to get?

Flickr image by user alexkerhead

When I was trying to start working out more, a friend told me that the key to beating laziness was to work out everyday during an extremely busy week. That would provide the motivation I needed to do it everyday regardless.

Much like I had with working out, I have fallen off the wagon writing wise. I have let work consume me to the fact that I become stymied writing wise when I get home every night. Sure, you occasionally get uber-prolific posts like my gay marriage and hockey post and my “blogging is writing” manifesto, but nothing consistent. And frankly, it’s tanked the writing career I was developing.

As I preach to the student blog writers I advise at work, consistency and effort are key. You need not post a 1000 word essay everyday, but post something, anything, on a regular basis. So in an effort to get back on the wagon and practice what I preach, earlier this week I set a goal to post a blog post everyday during my busiest week of the year – Commencement Week. If I can find a way to work it into this week, then I’ll never have an excuse not to write again. (And what a Commencement Week to pick, since I am also dealing with a personal family issue on top of everything else.)

This is post 3 of 5. Two more and I will have met my goal. Since it’s the day of my biggest event of the week – Scarlet Key, the honor society induction I have fits with every year – I am not posting anything Earth shattering. To emulate my boss and his favorite type of blog post, I’ll give you the playlist that is keeping me going this week through everything. Let’s call it: “How To Keep Your Head Above Water.”

Coming For You, JoJo
The song my usually pop hating father calls the most underrated pop song of the past 15 years. “This should have been a hit!”

Aluminum, Barenaked Ladies
An underrated gem of a kiss-off song that foreshadowed the amazing Ed songs on “All In Good Time,” their 2010 post-Steve Page release.

I Want To Be There, Blessid Union of Souls
Who I saw play the Lilac Festival 11 years ago this week, and instantly turned me off with their hair metal version of “I Believe.”

What I Know, Parachute
The free iTunes download of the week is amazing. Download it now before it jumps to $1.29. This will be a huge song this summer.

Enchanted, Taylor Swift
Where was this song when I was dating in college? Honestly, this would have been a mucho repeated track while writing history papers on the ol’ purple iMac.

I had just two paragraphs left to write on Sunday night, but had a long week at work ahead of me, so decided to head to bed. I would polish the rest of it off on the train in the morning.

As I went to bed, President Obama announced that United States forces had killed Osama Bin Laden. No matter what you thought of the action, you had to acknowledge that it was a giant story, a monumental event, and one that deeply affected many people. It also changed a news cycle. Newspaper journalists and editors on Twitter were stating that they literally tearing up front pages of their Monday morning editions, moving other stories to other days or killing them all together.

It wasn’t just physical newspaper layouts that the event changed. It changed what an aware and smart online writer could post on Monday. I read a comment on Twitter that said, “If you’re Tweeting or posting about anything unrelated right now, you’ll come across looking stupid.”

To be honest, I’m an escapist. When big events happen, I internalize silently, and then look for something else to pay attention to. So as much as I was tempted to dive into the post I was working on, finish it off, and post it Monday or Tuesday morning, I knew two things:

1) No one would pay attention to it.

2) I could come across as being insensitive, since many equate escapism with insensitivity.

So, I put the blog post on hold. I’ll post it this week, barring unforeseen circumstances.

But it brought up a bigger issue that I think writers within this still-new sphere of independent sports writing might struggle with. How do you respond to world events – the Japan and Haiti earthquakes, the Bin Laden death – without appearing insensitive?

• Do you write about the intersection of the event and sports – like the perfect illustration of the power of smartphones and social media spreading important news last Sunday night during the New York Mets-Philadelphia Phillies game?
• Do you just go silent for a bit, because you know your readers may be focused elsewhere?
• Or do you go forward with what you planned to write and post, because it’s what keeps you grounded?

As a sports writer, is how you react to a major event much bigger than sports tied to how you view your writing? Do you write to express your own feelings, to tell a story, or as something fun? Do you write for other’s eyes, or just feel lucky that other’s may want to read at the end of the day? How you view the desired outcome of your writing will guide on how you handle writing and posting in the days following a giant world event.

However you decide to proceed is a personal choice, with no right or wrong answer. But in order to gain credibility as an independent sports writer, showing consideration of your reader’s attentions during an emotional time without being exploitative, is always the best direction.

I paused because I don’t believe that anyone is a blogger, especially here in April of 2011. We are all writers – even if you are on Blogspot writing grammatically incorrect ramblings about how much you hate the Montreal Canadiens, or on your own domain providing serious and detailed coverage of an emerging sport such as lacrosse. Everyone is writing. Why must we qualify the action by the medium in which it is taking place?

Writing independently of established media outlets and starting your own means to showcase your writing is nothing new. In the mid 1980s, my father and uncle saved money and created an independent music magazine called Rochester Rox. The first and only issue’s cover story was my Aunt Linda’s take on Bruce Springsteen’s influence on current rock music and his most recent concert in Rochester. Sure, she was a tad biased because I think she had a crush on him, but nevertheless. My father desired an outlet for his music writing, but couldn’t find one suitable. Faced with the same desire today, he would open a WordPress account and start writing within ten minutes. But back in 1985, he had to save up money, find a printing press and lay the whole thing out via an X-acto knife and our Sears electric typewriter.

Yes, Rochester Rox only lasted an issue. Dad and Uncle Rich were giving it away for free, and that lone House of Guitars (hop hop, hop hop – a joke all Rochestarians know well) ad didn’t pay all of their expenses. But would anyone describe what my father, uncle and aunt was doing was, “independent music magazining?” No. They were writing.

Thus why am I described as a blogger at times? Why does being a blogger have such a negative connotation? In 2003, just like my father 18 years before me, I sought a venue for my writing and none existed. Thus I started this sports blog. I always fancied myself a writer without a home, not a blogger. I wanted to use a blog – a website – to show what I could do, and hope that someone down the line would want to hire me to write.

Communication mediums have always changed over time. Cave paintings were replaced by books, which were supplemented with newspapers, which were supplemented by magazines, which were complimented with the radio, which evolved into television, all of which are currently being challenged by websites and social media. Blogs are a part of that evolution. But the blog is the noun, not the verb. Writing is writing, and while some writing still ends up on newsprint, other writing ends up online. Some of that online writing ends up on the sites of traditional media sources, while others end up on independent sites – many of which qualify as web logs, or blogs.

Like in any field, there are those who do their job well and those who do their job poorly. In any artistic pursuit, there are those who don’t get a point-of-view of the artist, or those who don’t agree with a style or presentation. Writing is no different. Some sports writers who use blogs as an outlet are awful. They spew rumors. They disparage other fans. They stalk athletes. In the case of Bleacher Report, they crassly build on a natural disaster to relate it to Japanese sports. Those are examples of bad writing. But bad sports writing isn’t limited to blogs. Look at the newspaper columnist who last week claimed the comatose San Francisco Giants fan who was brutally attacked by LA Dodgers fans “deserved it.” He is a writer, albeit a bad one. His medium was a newspaper, not a website. Bad writing, like good writing, can be found everywhere, and is not limited to the blog medium.

And some sports writers will choose to go about their craft in a different way than others. There are those among us who write game recaps and feature stories. There are others who tell personal stories about the sports they love. There are others who create humorous Photoshops to illustrate tall tales that are rooted in a factual basis. You don’t have to like the style they use, just, but you have to respect that they are creating. We are all writing. We all sought an independent outlet for writing. But unlike years past, there is a far easier way to find such an outlet.

I write because I couldn’t imagine my life without the written word. I write what I want to read myself. I write because I love it. If someone else is motivated to write, I can’t ever disparage them, even if I may personally disagree with their tone, methods or point of view. We share a commonality, no matter how grammatically incorrect or how strange that writing may be. No one gives anyone else a bad name as long as our desire to communicate via the written word is genuine.