Pro Bowl Backlash

This past Sunday Orlando, Florida hosted the Pro Bowl, a gathering of the year's best players from each conference. In the past the Pro Bowl was a fun, high-scoring game in which each player put out the best to prove who the better players were. However, things have definitely changed from the past games.

Throughout the game it was quite noticeable that player did not care about the game and showed a lackluster performance. This did not sit well with NFL fans and this topic exploded on Twitter. The defense of players is that they do not want the risk getting hurt for their next season for a game being played for a small prize. The prize being at most $64,000 dollars max is a small comparison to the money the make already. Another decline in recent years of the Pro Bowl's popularity is the switch of playing the game before the Super Bowl. The reason for this is now that the some of the season's best players are now unable to play in the Pro bowl because they cannot get injured before the Super Bowl.

Another big issue that happened after the game is that when Jason Witten broke the trophy in half when trying to pick it up. The reason that this happen is because it is only a plastic trophy. This caused NFL fans to add to their complaints about the Pro Bowl saying that the NFL does not care and is just interested in the money that they put into the sport.

It is very obvious that the NFL is going to need to find and implement some changes to the Pro Bowl in some capacity in order to keep their fans happy. As a football player and a fan of the NFL it is hard for me to watch a game where players do not show any passion and it seems to almost a joke.

How to Respond to Comments on Social Media

Commenting on social media is a large part of their popularity and knowing how to comment is crucial. Being able to correctly respond to these comments is important to the appearance of your professionalism.

We have all seen a thread of comments that we handled incorrectly by the original post account and made them appear unprofessional. Luckily for us Buy Kawasaki lays out a few steps for us to control our threads.

His first step is "use the right tool". Using the right tool involves finding a way to monitor comments on you social media platforms. Most platforms make this simple and supply thread that allows you to go back and view all of the comments on a post. However, as Guy says platforms like Twitter make this difficult and require you to search for the threads. To make this less of an issue they do implement advance searches to make this process easier and other platforms allow the setup of alerts to notify you.

Another step Guy has is to use "mentions," not hashtags. This is because hashtags are a different tool and are used for sharing a topic and does not notify the account. Using mentions allows the account to know that you have responded to their comment and lets them view it. Making sure that you make you comment appropriate for all possible viewers of the comment is very important. Just about everyone who wants to see it can so it is a good idea to keep it professional.

Finally, maybe not commenting is the best choice. we see examples of this all the time where someone responds to a comment that results in an argument that reflects negatively on the account. Winning an argument is not always the right answer.

Commenting is a great resource and should be used frequently. Just remember to always be aware of what is being talked about and to hold off on commenting on touchy subjects.

It's Not All About Fun

A recent article released by Harvard Business Review gives five tips on how leaders build trust with their teams really caught my eye and I want to discuss my feelings on the article. The first tip that is discussed is to be humble; not charismatic. Right off the bat they talk about one of the biggest flaws of leaders in my own opinion. Yes, charisma is a useful tool to have and can make you stand out of the crowd, however too much can lead to a person being self-centered or full of themselves which makes for an unattractive characteristic. Which takes us into the next tip which is to be steady and dependable. The way I see it is that someone who is humble and less unpredictable is also more likely to be more reliable and accountable. When handling power of others it is extremely important to exercise caution and be sure you are taking the right steps. Once you mess up the job, your reputation will be hurt.

This next tip is a very important one as it deals with modesty. Like the article says everyone wants to work in a relaxed and laid back environment, but that is not always the best environment for productivity. In the workplace there always needs to be an authoritative figure around in order to keep people on pace with their work. There is a fine line between being a good boss and being a fun boss. The fourth step talks about balancing analysis with action is important to being a good leader as it tells us about knowing when to think on a decision or when to make a quick call even if sacrificing the initial bottom line. However, the fifth step about being vigilant is very important to being "the fun boss" or not. The initial six months in a leadership role are crucial and it is important that you don't spend this time trying to impress your group. Spending too much time during this period can create negative tendencies that will affect your efficiency and success. A good way to handle this is to stay focused on your work, but keep vigilant of your surroundings while always accepting feedback.

If you can master these then your odds of being a successful leader will be increased and remember that it is alright be have some fun at work, but being a responsible leader comes first.

Feeding the Content Monster

This week’s reading of the book "The Art of Social Media" by Guy Kawasaki did a good job of drawing me into the read. One of the first points that I read from Guy was the importance of how your profile should look. He said that most people decide if they want to view or follow a page just be looking at the profile. This was really interesting to me because I find myself doing the exact same thing. Even just scrolling through Snapchat and Instagram I will catch myself following an account just based on the attractiveness of the profile or not following due to its boring name or look. There are a few things Guy Kawasaki talks about to help the effectiveness of your profile. One thing is how to set up your avatar and guy says it should be a smaller picture of your logo or something that confirms to people who you are. Your tag line is another important factor about your profile that Guy stressed. The reason for this is that your tag line informs people of who and what you or your organization are. This gives the viewer an idea of your profile is worth viewing and helps give a more professional look to it.

Guy tells us in his book a few pointers on how to always be coming up with new and fresh content for your page in a way called content curation. Content curation is a good and easy way to always be posting stuff on your page and is just the finding and summarizing in your own words and turning it into something for your viewers. Guy knows that creating new content for viewers can be tough so much so that he refers to it as "Feeding the monster". In order to do this you need to keep up on your post, creating new and interesting content. An easy way to do this is by watching news, social media, or just being a more creative thinker, giving you some constant resources for your post. That being said you might be writing a controversial post and according to Guy this is okay. Controversial post tend to reach viewers emotions and will make them want to comment and bring in new points of view on the topic.

Guy Kawasaki's first few chapters were a good read and proved be helpful to me. I am excited to see what else Guy has to offer in this book and how I learn some new lessons.

The Importance of Social Media

Social media is a large part of the success of many businesses and is a type of communication that grows every day, creating new ways for companies to communicate their message to their clients. One of the biggest industries using social media is Public Relations. In the past communication typically came through press releases and conferences but now social media has changed that. With a large part of both businesses and clients on social media it makes it easier for the businesses to reach their message out to their clients.

One of the top platform's today used for communication is Twitter. Twitter is used by people of all ages and allows for mass communication in a very short time. Consumers of a product can follow their business and will be able to receive day-to-day updates on their products. One of the best features of Twitter is the ability for followers to comment and share post. This allows them to show their friends and family about a product they like, causing it to be spread further. Commenting on post creates a way for followers to discuss a post with other followers or the business itself creating a diverse points of views. Another great aspect of Twitter is that it is completely free to use, making it a cost efficient way for both the business and client to communicate.


Public Relations has definitely changed for the best and social media is the reason for that, Twitter being a staple to this change. Twitter is not the only platform that takes advantage of free media however. Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, and even LinkedIn are all being used by due Public Relations being a free way to quickly share a message on a large scale. If you have not yet joined some of these platforms I strongly recommend doing so.

My Time at Northern

Hello, my name is Alex Eblin and I am a senior at Ohio Northern University. My hometown is Columbus, Ohio which is roughly an hour and an half drive from campus. I am studying Sport Management at Ohio Northern and the reason I choose this major is my because of my passion for sports and business. Even though Ohio Northern has a great Sport Management program, a big reason for coming here was to play football. I have grown up playing the sport and it has been an honor to play here. After school I want to move back to Columbus and attend Ohio State to get my Master's. However, I will miss the feeling of Ohio Northern that comes from it being a small tight-knit community.

With football taking up a large part of my life I have learned many lessons from playing. My first time playing was in elementary school, playing flag football and continued playing all the way up through high school. At first I was not sure if I would play in college so when the opportunity presented itself I was extremely excited. Football here introduced me to many new friends and I am very grateful to have met them. The best part was that it kept me busy and forced me to keep on top of my grades which is important and I will miss that.

Now that football is done I have a lot more time to pursue other interest such as basketball, video games and Netflix. Although these things are all fun activities, they will not compare to football.