These past months have been spent pursuing a dream to qualify for the Olympics. To quote Brad Pitt in the Devil’s Own.

“Don’t look for a happy ending. It’s not an American story. It’s an Irish one”

You could say it began when I was 8 years old but for the sake of currency it started in August 2007, when my good friend Gordon Kennedy and I sat down and discussed what was our best chance of getting to the Olympics in Beijing. As 400m runners the choice was obvious - the 4*400m relay. On a global level, Ireland has greater depth in the 400m sprint than probably any other sporting discipline, but the public are not aware of this at all. We wanted to inform the Irish audience about this and get our team to the Olympics.

So we got all the 400m runners on the same page, including our superstars, David Gillick and Paul McKee and branded our efforts as Project 400. We needed an event to get all the guys in the one spot, so with the help of the Sunday Independent we organised a photoshoot in Dublin with their photographer David Conachy, while sportswriter John O’Brien documented our efforts in a 2 page spread before Christmas.

Athletics does not pay the bills unless you are a megastar so if you want to pursue the dream you need a source of funding. For me it was my business so I structured my working day according to my training, and tried to get the balance just right. Throughout the summer I managed to keep on top of both work and training, but the Blog was the obvious casualty.

Having signed off on a bunch of work in late March, I fled to the warmer climes of Portugal where I put in a month’s training with the other 400m guys. Portugal was fantastic. Nice weather, great facilities and top class athletes to train with. All of us really progressed in Portugal and we were in great spirits for the forthcoming summer season.

Having put my body throught the wringer for 8 months I was in the shape of my life in early April. However as the season edged closer little niggles turned to injury in what would become a summer long battle with my own body. Strained tendons, Torn Muscles, Dislocated knees. I didn’t wnat to wallow in self pity, there was a ticket to Beijing available and nothing could distract me from the goal of getting the team to qualify. A qualified team would mean more time to prove I was in shape so I never felt the panic of an athlete forcing to get themself in shape.

Qualification for the Olympics involved ranking in the top 16 in the World for the years 2007-2008 based on the aggregate of your 2 best times. Having no time down on paper for 2007, meant that we had to do it all this year and that was going to be tough. Our first qualification race was in Namur Belgium. I didn’t get to even see myself as a hamstring tear meant I was spending most of my free time with needles in my leg. We finished 3rd in Namur in a time of 3:04.71, beaten by an inch by a South African team that would ultimately make the Olympics.

A week later we had to put in our second time. My leg had healed sufficiently to travel to Estonia with the team as the sub. Being the 5th man is not a pleasant role but it is necessary and at least I’d be able to roar encouragement from the stands. The odds were stacked against us in Estonia. The weather was poor, there was no competition and there wasn’t a big crowd. However the Irish supporters made themselves heard and the team produced an incredible performance given the circumstances - 3.04.43. We checked the Top 16 lists. We were in 17th missing out by 1/100th of a second.

We couldn’t miss the Olympics by so little.

We checked the IAAF list of races. There was one opportunity left in Salamanca in Spain in 2 weeks time. In between the 2 relay races David Gillick set a new Irish record and leading time in Europe this year. Everything was falling in to place. People were getting faster, we’d get to run in a warmer climate in a bigger race knowing that a good run would mean we’d be going to the Olympics. I had just shaken off my injuries so I was looking for a run out myself. And then it happened.

2 days before the race - we get a phone call. The race is cancelled. Not the entire event, just the 4*400m. I’d like to go into the details about what happened but suffice to say it was more than just a lack of beds that lead to the cancelling of our final Olympic qualification attempt. This article does a good job of explaining the situation.

We ended the season 15th in the World for the year but 18th on the aggregate list, 2/10ths of a second off of our dream. Less than the time it takes to clap your hands over a course of a mile in length. The hardest part of it all is not losing on your own terms and being denied the chance to prove yourself. We’ll always know we were good enough to go, but its scant consolation when the party is 5,000 miles away and you are at home.

So the Beijing Olympics will be spent cheering on our friends on the Irish team, in particular David Gillick who qualified individually. I’d rather be in the Crow’s nest than on the couch. I’m looking for the silver lining, but I think this story is more of a smog haze than cloud.

No Regrets.

Priorities

Of my favourite parts of the presentation is when Guy tells the story of a professor teaching his students about priorities. The professor takes an empty mayonaisse jar and fills it to the brim with big stones and asks the class “is the jar full?” To which they respond “Yes”. The professor proceeds to fill the spaces between the stones with gravel and asks the class again “is the jar full now?” The class once again say “Yes” and the professor then adds sand into the jar. He asks the class is it full for a third time and they realise where it’s going and say “No”. The professor then fills the jar with water and turns to the class and asks “What is the message I’m trying to communicate?”. A student naively answers “no matter how much you have on your plate you can always add a little more” .

The professor sagely turns to the class and says “No it’s not, if you want to put the big stones in then you have to put them in first!”.

Tourism Ireland

This story came to mind for a few reasons, firstly Damien was continuing the much need debate on Broadband in Ireland and secondly that I saw that Tourism Ireland were having a St. Patricks Day Parade in Second Life.

The logic for the St. Patricks Day Parade in Second Life appears to be more about column inches rather than business logic. For a semi-state agency to pursue such a strategy is reprehensible. The media coverage seems to be as concerned with Tourism Ireland’s Central Marketing Director Mark Henry as it they are about the event. “Mark Henry…will be represented at the Second Life Dublin parade by his online avatar. Meanwhile the real Mr Henry will be present at events in New York.”

We are very excited about the world’s first virtual St Patrick’s Day parade — it’s an innovative and interesting way to present the island of Ireland as an attractive holiday destination to a new audience,” “Once they have experienced the simulated Ireland, we hope these potential visitors will come and see the real thing”.

Mr. Henry’s strategy does not appear completely foolish at first glance. Get the people from the online version to the real version. We know they are on Second Life so they must have some spare time and some money. If we show them online Ireland maybe they’ll want to spend time and money here.

My gut instinct is that people who spend hours in a virtual world are not the biggest spenders in real world vacations. We know that this audience are very tech savvy people and they will be taking their laptops with them on holiday. My question is has Mr. Henry ever tried to get on the internet in an Irish hotel/guesthouse?

Broadband

I have tried to do so on several occasions and have been either unable to do so or charged through the nose for the privilege (Up to €20/day for Wifi!). I would love to know how much the spend on Second Life has been for Tourism Ireland and how many Wi-Fi hotspots that could have paid for in Irish Hotels/Guesthouses. If anyone actually visits Ireland as a result of this promotion surely we are just setting them up for disappointment.

One tech savvy person to be disappointed was none other than Mr. Kawasaki himself. Guy Kawasaki was in Dublin at end of last month for the Irish Software Association conference. “Been without Internet access in Dublin for the last 14 hours. It’s killing me.” - Guy Kawasaki, Dublin (February 26, 2008). For one of the top 50 bloggers to say that certainly doesn’t do Ireland’s reputation any favours and highlights the problems we have. If a technology evangelist can’t get Internet access when he is over for a Software Conference then surely our priorities are skewed.

Before Tourism Ireland are allowed to spend another penny on Second Life I would urge whoever is in charge to try and put the big stones in place. It may be outside the traditional role of marketing but free wi-fi in Irish hotels and hostels is an amenity that is becoming of a country that prides itself on it’s IT capability. A St. Patricks Day parade in Second Life looks like one man trying to make a name for himself.

{My problems with Tourism Ireland spending money in Second Life are admittedly based on opinion and I welcome any one with hard facts that agree or differ with my position. }

I reviewed the Beta version of the BBC Homepage last December and to be honest not much has changed. Noticing the differences is a Where’s Wally style game of looking for minute changes in colour and shape.

New BBC Homepage

Beta version of BBC Homepage (December, 2007)

Visually you can’t really knock the site too much. It is clear, elegant and tailored to individual taste with colour and content options. However I’m still unsure what is the objective of the their changes. Similar services already exist and the BBC version does not offer as much choice. For example if I wanted the Euro-Dollar exchange rate chart I still have to dig in through the Currency part of the Market Data section of the existing BBC website
.

Coming from Beta to production I expected to see greater customisability and perhaps the same look and feel coming to the News Homepage. Unfortunately that did not happen. The only change I can readily see is the removal of the search options above the search box. If you see other changes please leave a comment.

The problem with making one really good looking page is that it sets up the rest of the website for a fall. The visually splendor of the homepage looks nothing like any other page on the site and it makes you wonder why not change the whole thing or nothing at all. I can only imagine the difficulty in overhauling the BBC website with its millions of pages of linked to content. Any all out changes would need years of planning which is why I really respect the way they add new bits sensibly over time. Good examples of this would be their “related internet links” and “most popular stories now” sections.

Suggested Improvements

Better Personalisation Personalisation cannot be as a vague as a news category. Market data needs to be of top priority as an addition. Perhaps an API for users own content sources or at least the ability to add RSS feeds would be valuable.

Video We all know this one is coming. Why change the site for no good reason. The BBC’s Video facility (with the exception of iPlayer within the UK) is awful. An International News website needs quality Video for the International audience.

Overall

Visually it is a success and a nice addition. It is not world changing and currently does not offer much new to the market. I feel that the Ajax customisable content panels will be lost on a lot of users. The technologically savvy people who will comment on this redesign will be able to use them and mostly approve, but I can see older people not understanding the way it works and lamenting the old homepage. For an organisation like the BBC it really is about the overall audience reaction and as with the TV and Radio, only the viewer stats will tell the story there.

A bit of background first: NME or (New Musical Express) is a music magazine catering for the 16-30 age group. It has been around since 1952 and been going strong ever since. It is a controversial magazine, dividing music lovers opinions. Some say they seek to generate hype rather than publish balanced opinion while many people enjoy the sensationalism and energy in their journalism.

NME are quite famous for both their scathing and exalting reviews, with rumours of journalists “out to get” or “on the side of” certain bands. With this in mind it is quite refreshing that the NME be the subject of the review for a change. Any bands that want to get on board and add their 2 cents please feel free ;-).

Trebuchet MS

You can never have enough “Trebuchet MS” - or so seems to be the prevailing wisdom at the NME. I have to say I really like it as a font but I’ve never seen quite so much on one page. I should note that I use that font for the yellow panels you see illustrating certain points of information on the page. While the NME have probably gone over the top with the amount of headlines, mainly due to the oversized page length, the effect of the redesign is positive. The headlines are easier to read and the page sections are more clear than before.

Space

Older versions of the NME website featured almost criminal levels of red, yellow and black in the place of white space. This lead to a cluttered look that was very difficult to read. The new homepage makes up for this with sections divided by generous of portions of white space and dotted horizontal lines. This is supplemented by much larger headlines with mouseover underline effect, so you are left in no doubt that you are on a link. While space has been given so generously to nearly all the sections below the header, the main site navigation is too small. A lot of things stand out on this website but the navigation is not one of them.

Ads, Ads, Ads

The screenshot I have uploaded above does not illustrate the major flaw of the NME website. It is over reliant on advertising revenue. Sponsor’s ads appear in 3 major sections and are supplemented by Google Adwords advertisements, secondary sponsors advertisements and dedicated sections for eBay and Kelkoo.

Summary

The new effect of all this commercialism is that the homepage is just too long and no amount of design trickery can compensate for that. In band terminology the NME website has sold out, and the only path to redemption is to ditch the ads and reinvent themselves. But the NME are not a band and the ads do pay the bills. It is without doubt a compromised website but still a great improvement over the old website and a very good job by the web designers who undertook the work.

The key element here is the level you strive for. You can be a good tennis player and a good boxer, but you can’t be the best at both. The World is too competitive, they require different skills sets, and humans are limited by time, talent and resources.

So what has this got to do with Blogs? I realised early on that you can’t be all things to all men. If you choose to blog you have to choose only a few subject if you want to have something worthwhile to say. So with this mind, I stick to what I know best namely, web design, sport and the odd philosophic debate. Journalists for major papers rarely stray from their primary fields and I think this is the example we should follow. All of my favourite blogs have quite a tight focus from Veerle Pieters Graphic Design to Vern Gambetta’s coaching advice.

The big dilemma for me is the trade-off between a well written and researched blog entry and random thoughts merely thrown together onto the Internet. I know that services such as Twitter have a lot of friends in the tech world but I don’t see the attraction myself. I like to think of reading a blog entry as like being given advice. One piece of good advice is worth more than 10 pieces of average or poor advice.

So that’s the standard I want to aim for. It means that I post less often, that I don’t get as much traffic but at least I’m happy to stand over each post in isolation. Or maybe I am being too much of a perfectionist.

As any barista will tell you, Illy make excellent coffee. Whenever I’m in a foreign city I look for the Illy sign to dictate what coffee shop I should call to. Not only do I like the product but I also appreciate the way Illy handle their branding. Their logo is simple, distinctive and clear. Their packaging leads the way not just in terms of aesthetics but in functionality - those famous silver tins preserve coffee much better than highly stressed tinfoil.

The question today is whether they make excellent websites? In short the answer is yes. If there was any doubt they would let us down, it is removed as soon as the homepage loads (quickly). Immediately we can see that this is a no-nonsense, efficient website that scores high on usability.

Illy HomePage

The colour palette of this website is quite small with white and shades of grey being the dominant colour. This serves as the perfect contrast for Illy’s signature bright red to make an impression where necessary. The main homepage real estate is taken up by a selection of 3 main advertising-style section which show Illy’s 3 main product lines. Whereas most website use Flash for this task, Illy have wisely chosen to use javascript and images. This contributes to a cutterfree homepage that loads quickly and is easily navigable.

A Regular Page on the Illy Website

Beyond the homepage, the regular content webpages are laid out for functionality. There is little wasted space, and the text is clear and scannable as web text should be. The use of large fonts instead of header images is to be applauded. It is almost impossible to make a large font look as good as an image and it is good to see such a design conscious firm recognise why functionality is important on the web. The images that are used are high quality, striking and relevant. Too may corporate websites use irrelevant stock images but Illy use images that relate directly to their product and brand.

I really like the way Illy use white borders on small sections off a grey background. This is an underutilised design trick and suits this website well. The navigation is clear and easy to use. With breadcrumb trail navigation serving as a useful adjunct to the dropdown navigation at the top. All of this design quality would be of no use if the content was awful, but this is not the case. This website is a wealth of information for coffee lovers and aficionados.

Sometimes meeting your heroes exceeds your expectations and you are left wondering why you ever thought meeting them would be a bad idea. In the online and offline world, Illy continue to exceed our expectations.

When I think of a good example of lots of effort but not much success I think of “The Hippies”, a sitcom that was on BBC for one series in 1999. The series was about of clueless British Hippies who ran an underground magazine out of a basement in Notting Hill. The Hippies was created by Father Ted writing partners Arthur Matthews and Graham Linehan who were at the time riding the crest of a wave. The show had a great cast including Simon Pegg, Sally Phillips, Julian Rhind-Tutt and Darren Boyd who were the four main characters.

I remember watching it at the time and thinking it was genius, but it was panned by the critics and largely ignored by the public. Trawling Youtube only brings up a limited amount of film but it’s worth the effort.

The Hippies had the best writers in the business, with a fantastic cast, the support of the BBC and still failed. It wasn’t as if the show wasn’t funny, it was. Sometimes the public can be very fickle with regard to their taste and pleasing the critics is nearly always a game of guesswork. Pretty much everyone involved in this show found success elsewhere but this combination of talent did not garner much.

Always remember if someone does not like your work that it might not be your fault and might not be theirs. If this TV show can fail, anything can. All you can do is try your best to succeed.

Episode 1 (Part 1)

Episode 1 (Part 2)

Episode 1 (Part 3)

The first thing that I should highlight is that darts is not an easy sell. Darts is not the most dynamic of sports. The protagonists are not cut like Greek gods. Greek salads might be more appropriate but for 2 weeks the organisers made them look like sporting colossuses.

I’m going to have a run through the key elements that in my opinion made the championship succeed. Please feel free to add a comment add the end if you concur or disagree.

Audience Engagement
This was a tournament for the audience. One of the most entertaining parts of the championships for me was the match intervals where the 2,500 strong crowd got up and danced to the darts anthem “Chase the Sun“. They were encouraged to feel a part of the event and were given sponsored signs where people could flip between “180″ or write their own personal on the other side. This was a stroke of genius as the lulls in the match were filled in with performance from the audience themselves.

The TV coverage was excellent. The audience at home was treated to constant Sky Sports coverage, even with the option of High Definition. The commentators were entertaining in their own right. Sid Waddell and co. were witty urban wordsmiths who could have made even the most mundane game come to life while the studio panel stayed enthusiastic and upbeat throughout.

Showbiz
The setting of the Alexandra Palace had all the brooding atmosphere you could hope for and the organisers maximised the scale of the venue. The players were introduced like boxers, each having their own theme music, minders and appropriately themed glamorous girl for the long walk in. The announcers looked like they stepped out of a Vegas Fight as they introduced players with nicknames like “The Power”, “The Artist”, and “Hawaii 501″.

The players themselves were a sight to watch as the more experienced crowd favourites milked the crowd for all they were worth. The shirts were mad, the introductions were mad but they still got out there and threw their darts with brutal accuracy. It highlighted for me, the fact that the Showbiz element could add life while not dull the sporting performance.

Sportsmanship
By in large the darts players were a paragon of sportsmanship with no anger, needle or envy to the fore. The players shook hands beforehand, went out about their business in a dignified manner and shook hands (or hugged) after. The nature of the sport means that referee intervention is minimal and the culture of the sport does not allow for the taunting of ones opposition.

Conclusion
I mentioned in my Christmas post about my involvement with Project 400 and how we are trying to publicise Ireland’s 400m runners. I sat over Christmas enthralled by the darts and wondered how a pub sport could look amazing while athletics with its fit young men and women makes itself look drab and can’t capture the public imagination.

Athletics needs to highlight personalities - darts players have nicknames - athletes have prison style numbers. We need to engage the public, make meets social and personal and not distance the crowd from the performers. We can’t have people shout for number 528 from 100 feet away. We need names, we need proximity and we need excitement. While that is just the case of athletics, every other sport could learn something from darts such as TV scheduling, showbiz or sportsmanship.

Hats off to the marketing men for the PDC - The right event, at the right time of year, with the right sponsor and organisation.

I’m going to do a more complete review of 2007 in a few days time and maybe make a few predictions for who and what to watch in 2008.

I’d like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. While I’d like to take a complete break from the work I have a few on going things I have to keep on top off.

My current plaything is a bit of Self Promotion under my athletics hat. (In my spare time I’m a member of Ireland’s 4*400m relay squad). So if you would like to see our fledgling website and perhaps give some link love or add a comment - it’s http://www.project400.net