Tell them we sent you. 

SCITUATE, MA—

A girls soccer coach who told parents of his 6- and 7-year-old charges that he expected his players to “kick ass” has resigned.

Click here to read Kinahan’s controversial original e-mail and click here to read his resignation.

Michael Kinahan says he “meant to give parents a chuckle” but that people took his message on a the team he dubbed “Green Death” the wrong way.

In an e-mail message to parents last week, Kinahan wrote that the girls on his team would “fall, get bumps, bruises and even bleed a little. Big deal, it’s good for them (but I do hope the other team is the one bleeding).

“The political correctness police are not welcome on my sidelines,” he added.

Kinahan resigned after parents protested to league officials. Other parents have said they support his approach, said Chris Park, the registrar for the Scituate Youth Soccer League.

“He’s got a wry, sarcastic sense of humor. I think this whole thing just blew up on him,” Park said.

Kinahan also wrote that he expected “that the ladies be put on a diet of fish, undercooked red meat and lots of veggies … Protein shakes are encouraged, and while blood doping and HGH use is frowned upon, there is no testing policy.”

Kinahan’s email had some good competitive, coaching nuggets delivered in a funny, tongue-in-cheek manner.  His views on criticizing referees, however,  are absolutely wrong.   It’s unfortunate that his league wasn’t able to educate him properly on the value of “zero tolerance”.

Based on the age group he was coaching it seems he might have been new to coaching as well.   The issue is that his “competitive” message only applies to about 20% of his team and parents.  The rest just want to play with their friends and have a good time.  I think in time he would have figured that out.  It’s unfortunate he might not be given the chance.

Email Excerpts:

“The political correctness police are not welcome on my sidelines. America’s youth is becoming fat, lazy and non-competitive because competition is viewed as “bad”…

These are my views and not necessarily the views of the league (but they should be). I recognize that my school of thought may be an ideological shift from conventional norms. But it is imperative that we all fight the good fight, get involved now and resist the urge to become sweat-xedo-wearing yuppies who sit on the sidelines in their LL Bean chairs sipping mocha-latte-half-caf-chinos while discussing reality TV and home decorating with other feeble-minded folks. I want to hear cheering, I want to hear encouragement, I want to get the team pumped up at each and every game and know they are playing for something.”

What do you think?

The Peekskill (NY) Fire Department shared some interesting links and video with me last week. Thanks for all you do!

Newspaper Distribution Monopoly

will shut down or undergo drastic change  in 2009 and 2010.

The value proposition for most newspaper companies today is  “news and information”:  Content.   Journalists used to have  days or even a week to prepare stories.  Today,  they don’t have that kind of time and a large percentage of content is produced reactively,  through requests and press releases from people in their communities.

With print, newspapers had a monopoly on the information delivered to peoples homes:  the distribution channel.    There was both a high cost to distributing newspapers and a high value as newspapers served as the middlemen and central point of collection, filtering and dissemination of news and information.   The Internet made print obsolete and reduced the distribution cost to near zero, eroding the value of the newspaper monopoly.

When newspaper companies go completely online who will provide local news?  Reporters turned blogger/entrepreneurs?  Citizens in the community?  How will the economics of advertising support those people?

Just as the Internet eroded the value of print distribution, social media will supplant what we know as newspaper content.   Content is a by-product of people and when the network is established the people can communicate and interact without intermediaries.

Newspaper companies will not be able to compete in a model where news is created and distributed by everyone and anyone.   The community will still value journalists and personalities for their opinions and writing.  Their popularity will be based on their value and interactivity with their network.  Those people can still do their jobs albeit funded by different sources and with new means of operation.

So what should newspaper companies do?  Where is the future opportunity?

In a model where everyone and anyone can publish there will be chaos and information overload.   Companies that can organize and connect people in their community will provide a valuable service whether it be by niche or locale.

1. First, find the people and make sure you know who they are.  Names, addresses, emails, links, sites.
2. Second, make sure they know who you are.  Help them find you.
3. Third, help them connect with each other.

People Management over Content Management

Local news sites will  need people in those communities with the largest social networks.  People will subscribe to others not because they are social network “friends” but because people will generate content of interest to them.

Writers like Chris Brogan already have over 40,000 people following them on Twitter.   This is half the population of Newton, MA  - the town the New York Times Co. and GateHouse Media sparred over.

At first glance, these sites seems like a joke to most executives as the revenues have not arrived.   What they fail to see is that the social, economic and geographic barriers between people has been reduced and normal, private communications are now available to anyone.  Real time search, real time word of mouth, live Q&A and instant news reporting are the result.

The warning signs are the same as before:  Google search, Craigslist classifieds, Monster.com job ads.  Facebook is already cozying up with the Washington Post.  The Twitter founders are joining their local, neighborhood committees.   What do you think that means for the future of local media?

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