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ryantate · 4 years

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The Tyranny of News

For centuries the cost of distributing information polarized publishing between books, which were comprehensive and timeless, and newspapers, which were essentially diffs of information in books. Centuries ago, as today, understanding a newspaper was impossible without a lot of background knowledge, although back then you were more likely to have this context, your leisure options and reading choices being quite constrained.

The cost of printing and distribution, and in particular the cost of books, constrained the availability of material that might bridge this gap and educate readers about topics that were both vital and complex — information that was a bit timely and a bit deep, with a medium shelf life, neither entirely fresh nor perfectly comprehensive. This sort of information, with the potential to quickly educate the citizenry, particularly as society grew ever more complicated, tended to get published only when there was a particularly strong political or commercial imperative to justify the cost. Revolutionary era pamphleteers, door to door encyclopedia salesmen, and independent product guides like the Whole Earth Catalog come to mind.

For some reason, 25 years into the age of widespread internet use, we have only begun to disrupt this paradigm. In fact, news has proliferated online, and in this medium tends to provide little to no additional background information as compared to print, offering an occasional hyperlink that provides precious little additional context, and mostly contemporaneous context at that (that is, news articles tend to link to other news articles or to press releases or the like). Many of the new information forms that have emerged online only serve to heighten the importance of news or even more ephemeral information: Aggregators like Reddit (adding only importance ranking and brief comments), social networks like Twitter and Facebook (heavy on opinion and personal moments), and the democratic cinema of YouTube (tending toward the viral and off-kilter). Books, meanwhile, seem to have changed very little online, although their digitization has made them more conveniently available, and, arguably, slightly widened the number of authors of which a given reader avails herself.

This state of affairs is odd, given that the web was created by a scientist with the specific complaint that “keeping a book up to date becomes impractical,” in particular when organiziing “general information about [nuclear] accelerators and experiments,” which would seem to envision a platform that accomplishes quite a bit more than circulating newspaper articles.

But if you’re attentive you can start to see examples of how the web can foster new forms of information that go further than news in educating citizens, providing a deeper understanding on a range of topics before, or in the absence of, relevant books. To wit:

Wikipedia - A resource that is both criminally underfunded and routinely underestimated but which nevertheless dominates both the Google results and reader mindshare for any given topic. Why? Because it takes the time to go deeper (and thus more educational) than news; because it organizes by topic rather than by what recently happened; and because it has relentlessly honed a useful system for harnessing the work of a distributed team of volunteers (the sort of work news organizations would be wise to engage in more often).

StackOverflow - A network of sites that has brought about nothing short of a revolution in how software engineering knowledge is exchanged. The site was consciously designed (per the podcast made by its creators as they created it) to foster knowledge with a considerable shelf life, information that for months or years would surface on Google to help programmers looking for solutions to their challenges. The system of software, rules, and human moderators used to make this happen is so consciously attuned to this goal that it is routinely criticized for being so strict as to border on unwelcoming. And at times the site fails to keep pace with the rapidly churning world of software libraries that have become central to applied computer science. But no one has argued that StackOverflow failed to achieve its primary goal. Its business model, the last time I checked, revolved around helping tech companies hire engineers.

Wirecutter - A site that creates product guides with a shelf life of approximately one year and which has changed how many people buy things online. Wirecutter has become so widely used and imitated that it’s easy to forget that this format had to be invented, and invented at that by Brian Lam, who as editor of Gizmodo had overseen the production of a great many reviews with much narrower scope and a much shorter shelf life. After he retired from Gizmodo to Hawaii he made a site with a much more laid back pace and, relatedly, with more depth and educational value per article.

I think we are going to see more sites that fit this general mold — medium shelf life, between books and articles; greater depth and educational value than news articles, but less than books; relying more on expertise and less on reporting. This is the part of the web, and of publishing, and of the digital world, that really excites me right now. It is where we as a society are going to heal some real systemic weaknesses and build some real strengths. And how we will finally end the tyranny of news.

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ccarmona77 · 4 years

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Week 1

How to Design with Intention

In order to solve the difficult design decisions without making assumptions on our own aesthetic preferences is in the Intention. (Elena Gkoga)

The first question that we need to ask ourselves is: “What is our goal?”-- we need to define the intention and come up with a plan. It can help unravel hidden walls, traps; but not necessarily solve the problem.

Process for designing with intention:

Define: Describe the goal and its challenges

-Question everything; the brief, audience, and the goal. It will help to describe and visualize the intention and explore possible blockers and challenges.

Simplify: Take the challenge and break into pieces

-Breakdown into small manageable and measurable goals. It will take away pressure and help us understand the project on a much deeper level.

Minimize: Throw away all the unnecessary stuff

- Tackle one problem at a time, pick quick wins, the safe bets, and those first.

Focus: Pay attention to who you are designing for

-Be aware of our biases and be conscious that we do design for a specific group of people. It’s all about THEM! Our design decision should always point back to people.

Learn: Search the hell out of the industry and competition

-Learn from other designers, we shouldn’t rush to reinvent the wheel, but instead refine, improve and adjust the wheel to out particular vehicle.

Get inspired: Keep an open eye, mouth, and mind

-We need to critically observe and evaluate. Be open to explore the diff. Directions, solutions, or trends.

Evaluate: Do a regular reality check

-Take a step back to see the full picture. Re-evaluate and repeat.

Team Human

In this reading talks about how humans have interacted with different kinds of mediums in order to see and communicate with one another. One thing that I found interesting was that we use one way mediums very often such as articles, books and television to witness what it’s happening to people across the globe, and how it creates new intimacy as it lets us see the world through another person’s eyes. Humans have been social beings since the beginning of time, and now with our evolution we’re trying to improve our communication skills by adapting it to our newest advanced tech. As new medium surges, it affects our communication with one another and instead of creating social platforms for all of us it turns these platforms into isolating ones. However, everyone is so focused on what kind of advanced tech we will have in the future and don’t appreciate the relationships we have between people and the easy access of even initiating conversations with the tool that’s in our hands 24/7,our cellphones.

Design Matters- Podcast

Interview of Robert Fabricant and Cliff Kuang by Debbie Millman.

-Build a portfolio, build your work overtime, try new projects, try new mediums, and new fields, in order to gain confidence and knowledge in every medium possible and get more connections.

-Always challenge yourself!

-Fabricant and Cliff Kuang wrote a book about user experience and design.

Computer’s are a tool for a designer, to help tackle their design’s with facilitation. Sometimes these tasks can be easy and other’s not so much.

-Always ask yourself “Why am I doing this?’ and “for who is it for?”, instead of doubting yourself “can I do this?”.

Create with clear and informative intent, and basing it off of the audience.

-Don’t be too set on a design, be open to change

-Start with marginalized groups of people that you primarily wouldn’t go to, you’d be amazed by their feedback and their opinions.

The Type Bible

Chapter 1

Typography exists to honor content. One of the principles of durable typography is always legibility; another is something more than legibility. It takes more on various forms and goes by various names, including serenity, liveliness, laughter, grace and joy. (These principles apply, in different ways to the typography mediums). The original purpose of typography was simply copying, and imitate the scribal hand in a form that permitted exact and fast replication. The task of a typographer is to interpret the text and be able to help inform the reader to analyze, and read it with no trouble.

Chapter 2

This chapter went over the rules of kerning, spacing, ledding, and measurements. Although, these rules are small they create huge differences in typography work. I never knew the amount of precision put into typography. I basically learned the basics in the first typography class, and really was blown away by the amount of precision typography has and how it can be inconsistent by a small error. Having words with little spacing between them can be hard to read. The measurements behind spacing are usually measured by picas, points, and ems. Another rule discussed in this chapter is hyphenation, used better than to use inconsistent spacing.

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bing-suho · 7 years

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VOLTRON COLLEGE!AU KEEF (KOREAN!KEITH) - moody art major with focus on mural arts + art as restorative medium - keith as low income who used to do graffiti but then saw how mural arts actually change communities - KEITH WHO VOLUNTEERS AT PUBLIC SCHOOL AFTERSCHOOL ARTS PEOGRAM - KEITH WHO WILL FORGET TO EAT SOMETIMES WHEN HES RLY CONCENTRATING ON HIS WORK UNTIL EITHER SHIRO OR HUNK (later lance) REMINDS HIM TO EAT AND FORCES HIM AWAY FROM HIS ART TO TAKE CARE OF HIMSELF - keith who is SICK OF CULTURAL APPROPRIATION BULLSHIT IN ART COMMUNITY - keith as hellllla gayyyYyYy - KEITH IN DIRTY DOCS AND RIPPED BLACK JEANS + RED SHIRT THATS BEEN STRETCHED AT THE NECK AND HIS HAIR IN A PONY TAIL USUALLY (but he still had a mullet!!!!!!!) - KEITH FROM TEXAS - KEITH WHO LIVES WITH HIS COUSIN SHIRO AFTER HIS PARENTS DISOWNED HIM AFTER BEING OUTED - KEITH WHO DECIDES ITS BETTER NOT TO OPEN UP BC OF THAT(until ppl HIS SUPPORTIVE AF FRIENDS change his mind) - AWKWARD BB KEITH WHO NEVER??? HAD REAL FRIENDS??? - KEITHS BEEN WORKING SINCE HES BEEN IN HS SAVING UP FOR COLLEGE/ADULTHOOD - Keith who also works at campus bookstore across the street from lance and likes TO READ?????? - KEITH WITH HEADPHONES AND STILL LISTENS TO ANGSTY EMO/SCREAMO MUSIC - KEITH WHO ALSO LISTENS TO PODCASTS ESP ABT S P A C E - KEITH WHO DID TRACK AND FIELD IN HS AND CONTINUES TO RUN LONG DISTANCE TO KEEP IN SHAPE + ZONE OUT/MEDITATE/DESTRESS (think that one taekook fic i gave yall but less angst or the same lvl) - KEITH AS A CAT PERSON AND LOVES SOFT PLUSHIE THINGS BC THEY C O M F O R T HIM - keith who hates lance's guts/attitude when he initially meets him and makes assumptions abt him as a "typical frat bro" and complains to shiro one day and shiro fuckin defends lance by telling keith abt how lance is the one who doesnt tolerate toxic masculinity practices at ALL and is the one who brings it up during meetings AND THEN KEITH KEEPS LEARNING DIFF DIMENSIONS OF LANCE AND WELL SHIT - KEITH AS ULTIMATE LIGHTWEIGHT WITH PIDGE - KEITH WHO IS NATURALLY GIFTED ATHLETICALLY AND ARTISTICALLY (that doesnt mean he works FUCKING hard) - keith who sort of fumes into the library and tries to burn down the math section BC FUCK MATH WHO THE FUCK CREATED THIS BULLSHIT ALL U NEED IN LIFE IS ADDITION SUBTRACTION MULTI AND DIV until hunk + lance + pidge try to stop him and help him with his math hw and shiro will be there for moral support bc shiro is just as clueless abt math as keith is 😀 - keith who is gets caught up in everyone's competition during monopoly but is a p okay player - keith who bumps into lance after volunteering at the afterschool program and begrudgingly says hell treat lance to boba as payback for math tutoring bc pidge and hunk both arent the best at explaining concepts sometimes and lance's were the easiest to understand I JUST DONT WANT TO BE IN DEBT TO YOU OKAY? (lance offers indiv tutoring and keith initally REFUSES until he sees the practice midterm and ???? what the fuck are these symbols FUCK) LANCEEEE MA BOOIII (CUBAN!LANCE) - lance as marxist econ major who DOES MAJOR RESEARCH ON #FIGHTFOR15 AND CUBAN/LATIN AM ECON POLICY ESP DURING US IMPERIALISM AND HOW THISE AFFECTS HAVE LASTING EFFECTS ON LABOR + ECON - LANCE AS BISEXUAL AS HELL - lance who TUTORS AT SAME PUBLIC SCHOOL AFTERSCHOOL PROGRAM EXCEPT MATH - LANCE WHO's FROM FLORIDA AND IS FIRST IN THE FAMILY FOR COLLEGE - LANCE WHO SEES HIS FAMILY GO THRU WAGE THEFT FUELING HIS WORK IN UNDOCU LABOR RIGHTS AND ECON POLICIES - lance who joins latinx affinity club with hunk (whos half filipinx) and while hunk is the master chef taste+recipe wise NO ONE MAKES _______ LIKE LANCE CAN BC HIS ABUELITA TAUGHT HIM THE FAMILY RECIPE - LANCE AS A FRAT BOI WHO FUCKIN SERVES AT BEER PONG AND FLIP CUP - lance as vp of said frat and wont let shiro pick the music at parties bc shiro only listens to old 80's classics, shiro we live in the 21ST CENTURY THESE PPL WANT BEYONCE AND NICKI OKAH (lance who listens to hella pop music) - lance who KNOWS HOW TO DANCE AND RELIGIOUSLY GOES TO ZUMBA CLASS WITH ALLURA WHO DRAGS PIDGE's LAZY ASS AS CARDIO BEFORE DOING HIS MUSCLE WORKOUT WITH HUNK AND SHIRO - lance who works at the campus hip coffeeshop/cafe and fucking snapchats the shit out of his shift - LANCE WHO LEARNS ABT HOW DRAWING/DOODLING CAN HELP WITH ANXIETY FROM KEITH AND STARTS TO CARRY AROUND A SKETCH NOTEBOOK - LANCE WHO IS EQUALLY AS GOOD WITH KIDS AS KEITH IS BC HELLO? SIBLINGS??? - LANCE AS AN ANIMAL PERSON BUT LEANS TOWARDS DOGS - lance who needs to be alone at the library when studying and mutters to himself softly a lot when thinking but is on top of his group project/study game with HELLA STUDY GUIDES + tutor tips - lance who chews on pen tips 😭 - LANCE WHO HAS ANXIETY THAT HE ISNT GOOD ENOUGH/SMART ENOUGH AT SCHOOL AND CONSTANTLY THINKS ABT THE SACRIFICE HIS PARENTS AND SIBLINGS MADE FOR HIM TO GO TO SCHOOL AND HIDES HIS ANXIETY+LOW SELF-ESTEEM BY TRYING TO BE RLY EXTROVERTED AND FUN AND FLIPPANT LANCE WHO OVERCOMPENSATES - lance who is initially jealous of keith's "easy" art degree until he fuckin sees the work that keith puts into his art AND THEN APOLOGIZES FOR UNDERESTIMATING KEITH - LANCE WHO ALWAYS LOSES AT MONOPOLY AND STARTS RANTING ABT DECAYING FORMS OF CAPITALISM SHEEREROOOOOOH - shiro as a senior after taking a gap year from a life-threatening injury on his arm FROM A CAR ACCIDENT (SHIRO WITH A PROSTHETIC LIMB??) - SHIRO WHO IS SCARED OF CARS IN RELATION TO INJURY WILL TAKE PUBLIC TRANSPORT UNLESS HE HAS TO TAKE A CAR - SHIRO AS A POLI SCI MAJOR BUT HES NOT A BRO AND INTERSECTIONAL AF - SHIRO WHO IS STARSTRUCK WITH ALLURA's BRILLIANCE IN A CLASS THEY TOOK TOGETHER ONE TIME - Shiro who gets approached by allura for his insightful comment about aapi's for blm during a blm meeting AND THEY CONNECT - SHIRO AS FRAT PREZ AND STARTS CHANGING FRAT CULTURE TO BE LESS TOXIC/PATRIARCHAL/FUCKEDUP - Shiro who has to do rehab for his arm but also works out!!!!!!!!!!! HUNK WHO SPOTS HIM AND MAKES SURE SHIRO ISNT RUINING HIMSELF - SHIRO WHO ALWAYS CONSIDERED KEITH A LITTLE BROTHER SINCE THEY WERE KIDS AND RLY WORRIES FOR HIM SHIRO BEING AWARE OF KEITH's HURT AROUND BEING DISOWNED - SHIRO WHO WANTS TO BE AN IMMIGRATION LAWYER????? - SHIRO WHO GREW UP NORMAL MIDDLE CLASS (will think of family tree later) - shiro who listens to classic 80's pop and rock HE IS A REAL DAD - SHIRO WHO MAKES SURE EVERYONE IS SAFE WHEN PARTYING AND DRINKING ENOUGH WATER (ESP LANCE AND KEITH WHEN HE DOES COME TO PARTIES) - SHIRO WHO GETS ACTUALLY HELLA TACTICAL WHEN GAMING WITH HUNK LANCE AND PIDGE TO THEIR SURPRISE (the unknowlingly competitive type) - shiro who is merciless at monopoly/settlers of catan - DEMISEXUAL SHIRO B Y E PIDGE - GENDERQUEER!pidge - White!pidge (is this even, like a thing or do we already assume pidge is white?) - aromantic!pidge - Pidge as compsci/math slave major who always ends up doing their allnighters to finish their labs - pidge who lives off caffeine - PIDGE WHO IS SICK OF SHITT CISMEN IN GENERAL + MALE DOMINATED TECH INDUSTRY AND WANTS TO EMPOWER WOC/QTPOC IN TECH - pidge who is MORE ruthless during monopoly than shiro - pidge who is a fuckin genius at video games will whoop anyone's ass - PIDGE WHO IS AFRAID NO ONE RLY LIKES THEM AND USES SARCASM AS A DEFENSE MECHANISM - PIDGE FROM A DIVORCED FAMILY AND ADDS TO THEIR GENERAL DISTRUST IN ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS - PIDGE WHO HASNT MET THEIR BROTHER IN 10 YEARS BC OF THE DIVORCE - Pidge who met lance and hunk in compsci 101 when lance accidentally stepped on pidge's toe when they hadnt had their morning coffee yet (pidge hisses extremely loudly at lance and hunk giving them death glares) - pidge who forgives lance (and in extension hunk) and started hangin after lance got them an aesthetic avocado toast on the house the next day at the cafe - pidge who actually has a hella basic instagram + PIDGE WHO IS OBSESSED WITH GETTING THE PERFECT FOOD SHOT FOR THE INSTA - pidge and lance's snapchat streak is over 9000 - PIDGE WHO CANT EAT SPICY FOOD (i'm FUCKIN WHITE STOP LAUGHING GUYS) - pidge who studies with hunk in the library bc they need background noise/study partners until lance emerges from the quiet floor and they all do a study break leave to get fruit snacks - PIDGE AS LIGHTWEIGHT - PIDGE WHO IS ALSO COERCED INTO BIRD CLUB AT FIRST AND STAYS FOR THE MEMES WAIT HUNKKKKKKKK - hunk as PREMED/VETERNIARY TRACT - HUNK WHO VOLUNTEERS AT ANIMAL SHELTERS AND IS ALSO A ENV JUSTICE ACTIVIST - HUNK WHO LOVES ALL ANIMALS AND IS THE FAIRY OF ANIMALS IS GOOD WITH ALL OF THEM - HUNK AND LANCE AS FIRST YR ROOMMATES TURNED BFFS - HUNK WHO DESTRESSES BY COOKING/BAKING OBVS - Hunk who is actually p insecure abt his body type and isnt comfortable with showing a lot of skin - HUNK WHO WAS BULLIED FOR BEING "GIRLY" AS A CHILD AND WILL NOT STAND FOR THAT KIND OF SHIT AT ALL HE IS INTERSECTIONAL FEMINIST AF BC FUCK GENDER EXPECTATIONS AND MACHISMO - HUNK WHO IS THE BEST SPOTTER FOR WORKOUTS - hunk who cant touch HIS TOES BB - HUNK AS HALF FILIPINX/LATINX - hunk who comes from the east coast but cant stand the cold at all and wears 50 layers - HUNK WHO RUSHES FRATS WITH LANCE BC HE WAS WORRIED ABT LANCE GETTING TOO FUCKED UP AND KINDA ENDS UP IN A FRAT I GUESS BUT HE LIKES SHIRO's LEADERSHIP AROUND GENDER EXPECTATIONS - Hunk who'll be the realest with anyone being an asshole, even if its his friends - HUNK WHO IS PERCEPTIVE AF ESP WITH LANCE WHO TRIES TO HIDE HIS ANXIETY/LOW-SELF ESTEEM - HUNK WHO FUCKIN KILLS AT KNITTING - HUNK IS IN BIRD CLUB BC ACTUAL INTEREST W A I T - Hunk who gets regular morning coffee check-ins with allura and buys coffe for pidge when they come crawling into the cafe - HUNK WHO ACTUALLY RLY LIKES THE BACHELORETTE AND WATTES WITH ALLURA - HUNK WHO MEETS SHAY WHO ALSO VOLUNTEERS AT THE SHELTER AND HAVE A WARM SHY BUDDING RELATIONSHIP ALLURAAAAA MY QUEEEN - Black!Allura - allura who was adopted after living in foster care for so long (Corran adopts her) - Ethnic studies and polisci double major allura who DOES NOT tolerate polisci bros/toxic af bros in general - ALLURA WHO WANTS TO BE A CRIMINAL JUSTICE LAWYER - ALLURA GOES TO ZUMBA WITH LANCE AND FUCKIN KILLS THE ROUTINE BOTH BOND OVER DANCING - fierce sorority queen who believes greek life shud be accessible to all fuck this elitist bullshit - ALLURA IS AS OBSESSED WITH INSTAPERFECT SHOTS AS PIDGE IS - allura who meets shiro at a #blacklivesmatter meeting and hits it off - ALLURA WHO HAS A RLY STRONG SENSE OF JUSTICE but sometimes it makes her rigid when it comes to giving ppl the benefit of the doubt which she did with keith+lance until she gets to know them better + apologizes for making assumptions - CORRAN's NICK NAME FOR ALLURA IS PRINCESS OFC - allura who sees a father figure in corran b l e s s - ALLURA WHO IS AFRAID OF COMMITMENT DUE TO EXP IN FOSTER HOMES AND SHIRO BEING UNDERSTANDING OF THAT - allura who gets competitive at all games MOST ESP with monopoly - allura who works at the cafe with lance - ALLURA ASKS HUNK TO TEACH HER HOW TO KNIT (SHE KINDA SUCKS BUT PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT!!!!) AND THEY BOTH WATCH THE BACHELORETTE TOGETHER - ALLURA WHO KNOWS MARTIAL ARTS - allura who drinks tea instead of coffee - allura who will join hunk and pidge at the library bc she also needs background noise to work - allura who teaches shiro math bc shiro is actually useless at math - allura who is actually heavy weight af when it comes to alcohol - ALLURA JOINS BIRD CLUB BC THEY ARE JUST FLUFF BALLS OF SOFTNESS (hunk: what bird is that allura: A GOOD BERB) - ALLURA HAS 3 HAMSTERS AS PETS OFC???? CORAN - your eccentric ass prof in the soci/anth dept with an INSANE mustache - teaches intro to soci/anth which a lot of students take for requirement credits - fuckin speaks 7 languages (two of them are coding lang to pidge's surprise) - loves puns + trivia - invites allura's study group for dinner and burns the pasta so hunk and him end up collaborating with the crew making dinner fest - your favorite uncle - always gives wise ass advice in times if need but will usually give out badly translated sayings (he speaks 7 lang give a break) - rigorous activist scholar - is mistaken for "easy prof" bc of his air-headed nature but actually doesnt take bullshit papers esp for a course that introduces race theory to a lot of privileged straight cismen (who underestimate coran) - will fuck u up with knowledge - asks lance for skin care tips and they bond over latinx music (lance hella impressed with coran's dancing actually) - cooks with hunk - pidge exasperately tries to teach coran abt sns: what is this chat that snaps??????? and these instant grams???? - shiro allura and him with have deep ass convos about systems of oppression + lance sometimes when he gets a chance to join + keith who will quietly absorb their convo if he's nearby (but pretend to read a book) - everyone needs to REST BC SELF CARE IS IMPT DONT KILL YOURSELVES BC OF THESE UNREASONABLE DEADLINES - voltron crew all take coran's class for variety of reasons and meet each other when they all rush to office hours and only to find coran's mess of trying to throw popcorn into his mouth - will stop by library during midterms and finals to give out encouraging messages + snacky snacks (will sneak extra for voltron crew's table) some moments id like to consider (klance and otherwise): - LANCE SEEING THE GWIYOMI VIDEO AND FORCING KEITH TO DO IT IN A GAME OF TRUTH AND DARE AND KEITH DOES IT A GLARE THAT FUCKIN BURNS UNIVERSES AND LANCE AND PIDGE RECORDS THAT SHIT shiro sigh-laughs hunk laughs nervously next to keith allura laughs brightly corran does not know what the fuck keith is doing - Keith and Lance find out they listen to the same NASA podcast when lance annoyingly takes out keith's headphones while abt to enter the school for afterschool program - Keith searches out soft things when he's drunk like hunk's hair or pidges sweater or lance's skin-WHATINTHEFUCK - lance teaches keith how to REALLY dance when he brings voltron crew to a latinx heritage month party (and keith secretly enjoys it) - keith had a big ol crush on lance the minute he saw him until he started acting like a "frat bro" and was turned off (but not rly?) - SHIRO AND KEITH GO HAVE BROTHER BONDING DATES AT SHIRO's INSTANCE BUT KEITH LOVES IT INSIDE - lance and hunk both cry when they watch titanic together - pidge lance and hunk become better friends over avocado toast and rly annoying debugging procedures during lab in compsci101 - they also bond over video games - the voltron crew have board game bight which usually ends up being monopoly and things get fuckin ruthless - the crew once tried to play mario party wii but people broke windows when their remotes went flying off their wrists and they vowed to never play again - they all meet each other (like ALL of them) in corab's intro to socianth class and create a study group-ish thing for it - lance and hunk rush shiro's frat thinking its gna be rly shit but shiro genuinely wants to do teamwork bullding exercises and talk abt feelings and lance and hunk are fuckin set on a frat if shiro's gna lead it - hunk will secretly let keith play with the cats in the shelter - hunk will also secretly let lance play with the dogs - pidge starts to memorize the zumba moves unconsciously and their body will move automatically when they hear the musIC FUCK - they all go out for kbbq on keith's bday bc keith loves korean food bc its home before his home abandoned him and voltron fam try to repaint those memories of hurt with memories of love and NEW family B Y E keith is kinda speechless - keith shows lance how to make ssam with lettuce garlic kimchi meat and miso paste and laughs as lance stuffs it into his mouth - allura fuckin kills at meat grilling - pidge refuses to eat veggies until hunk gives them the mom look - corran is vegetarian but loves seeing his students sated and full - shiro and allura keep their pinkies intertwined the entire bbq when they can under the table - keith and lance hook up once after a frat party one night and the morning after they kinda ??????? oh?kay????? thishappened???? at the memory until they fuckin realize theyre attracted to each other - keith gets slurs thrown at him by other frat fuckbois and lance goes fuckin livid until hunk is there to stop an imminent fight and hunk gives off some p threatening vibes to fuckbois - voltron crew help pidge try to reconnect with their brother by calling diff numbers going thru yellow pages - keith recommends books for lance to read and lance makes keith playlists and tells him to "listen to smth bubblegum happy for one" (keith kinda likes it?) - the art kids start to recognize lance when he drops by to pick keith up to go home together after the program js over - they all do secret santa at coran's house for christmas - coran gives shiro some salad tongs that are decorated with rhinestones he found in a vintage store and shiro is just ??? okay?? (he uses it when they all have dinner at shiro's place a few weeks later) jk coran also gives him some hella effective medicine for muscle and bone ache for his injury hes not that insensitive - shiro gives hunk a rly nice apron that says youre a FINEapple and baking mittens and hunk almost cries - hunk gets allura like new knitting needles and yarn as well as hand-knit cap. allura squeals bc FLUFFY - allura gets keith some good books both nonfiction and fiction + live podcast tix (she got from a raffle) and keith's eyes glows a little brighter - keith gets pidge some yellow tinted glasses bc "pidge your eyes are gna get worse and youre basically already blind" and a fisheye camera lense for smartphones and pidge yeLLS AESTHETIC PHOTOOOOOOOS YESSSSS - pidge gets lance some face masks and a customized snapback that says QUIZNAK on it and lance's eyes go all sparkly ✨✨ - lance gets corran some bombass latinx music cds from his favorite artists and a mustache care kit that coran just "✨✨"'s at - for dem romance: keith invites lance to the podcast with him and lance just smiles his lopsided truly happy smile while handing keith some cute hair-ties ("??? what am i supposed to do with these????" "wear them so that u can look even cuter than u already are????" keith goes beet red and punches lance in the shoulder as lance laughs. lance finds keith wearing them the next day) - shiro gives allura a note planner with her favorite quote on the front and allura gives shiro a handknit scarf its zSo fuckin SWEEET - hunk and shay go in their first dare - pidge and coran have rly fuckin good hot chocolate on the kitchen island and revel in their friends' happiness and recount good memories of the past year - they then bring out the wine and the karaoke machine - pidge gets p drunk and both them and lance sing one of the zumba songs pidge can somehow remember all the lyrics to hoW THE FUCK do I RMEMmber this?!?! (allura laughs evilily) - allura fuckin perfectly raps superbass - lance sings taylor swift ironically but not rly - corran tries to sing a thai song and its gets like awk quiet as ppl are like ?? okay ?? - HUNK STARTS TO BELT OUT BONJOVI AND SHIROS LIKE HELL YE AND JOINS IN - shiro then tries to sing country music but everyone reaches for the cancel button - shiro and allura sing Lucky (jason mraz and colbie caliat or smth) - pidge starts to sing linkin park's numb and gets rly into it. everyone is hype esp keith - keith tries to sing screamo song next but lance cancels before he can start and instead turn on the tune of gwiyomi from his phone and keith chases after lance with intent to kill lance cackling he runs away everyone else shrugs and continues as if nothing happened (keith and lance later return looking a little disheveled and everyone gives them knowing looks: lance averts his eyes and starts to whistle while keith just goes rly red and face palms) - everyone gets spectacularly drunk and decide to all sing bohemian rhapsody together. it kinda works. - They all go to the beach one summer

#voltron #fuck me was awake until 3 am writimg this after ONE stupid post #mine

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mattgrayspenis · 2 months

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If you have not listened to the original Technical Difficulties podcast, I think the number one selling point I can give you is that in episode two, they call Gary Brannan's wife. I will not say any more than that, but it is ridiculous and hilarious and I love her dearly

#tech dif #tech diff #the technical difficulties #mattgrayspenis #gary brannan #tech diff podcast #reverse trivia

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dorothydelgadillo · 5 years

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Tech 101: Content Marketing Versus Content Strategy—What’s the Diff?

If you’ve read our article What is Digital Marketing, you know digital marketing refers to all the online strategies used to sell products and services (whether you’re targeting potential audiences via computer, iPad, or app). But that’s a pretty broad definition.

Under this big umbrella, you’ll also come across more specific terms related to marketing roles, concepts, and methodologies. Probably the two most common among them are “content marketing” and “content strategy.”

Are these two ways of describing the same thing? And are they crucial concepts in the grand scheme of digital marketing?

The answers are:

no, not really

yes, very!

Content marketing and content strategy are two distinct (though related) digital marketing approaches, and each plays a role in selling products and services online.

So without further ado, let’s talk content marketing versus content strategy, get a sense of what’s different about the two concepts, learn how they work together, and start to see why they’re so important to the work of digital marketing.

Table of Contents

What is Content Marketing?

Content Marketing Examples

What is Content Strategy?

Content Strategy Examples

1. What is Content Marketing?

The marketing software company Hubspot defines content marketing as:

“a marketing program that centers on creating, publishing, and distributing content for your target audience—usually online—the goal of which is to attract new customers.”

In other words, content marketing (like the name suggests) is literally the practice of creating content to use for digital marketing purposes.

So does that mean it’s the same thing as creating print advertisements, radio spots, and television commercials in traditional marketing?

Well, not exactly.

While print, radio, and TV ads ARE content (and that content is used for marketing purposes), they’re not technically “content marketing.” That’s because the term “content marketing” refers specifically to digital strategies in which marketers use proactive campaigns to reach new visitors. In the simplest terms: content marketing is how marketers are using dynamic storytelling to attract new audiences.

In order to really understand what content marketing is, it also helps to take a brief detour and understand a term called “inbound marketing.”

Inbound Marketing—A Brief Detour

Inbound marketing is a term first coined by Hubspot co-founder Brian Halligan. Today, Hubspot defines inbound marketing as:

“[a method of] creating valuable experiences that have a positive impact on people and your business [by attracting] prospects and customers to your website and blog through relevant and helpful content.”

This definition of inbound marketing illustrates how significantly different digital content is from more traditional marketing content.

Traditional marketing (print, radio, television, etc.) is generally a passive experience—an advertisement appears in the print or visual medium a customer is viewing and makes an appeal for a product or service.

Digital marketing, inspired by Hubspot’s “inbound” definition, is a more dynamic and interactive experience. Online, customers are likely to encounter content by searching for it themselves. Rather than watching their favorite TV show and incidentally seeing an advertisement for a car, for instance, digital consumers are searching Google for terms related to cars and actively finding car-related content.

With this inbound model in mind, you can see why digital marketing content needs to be more than a static advertisement asking customers to buy. The potential customer searching Google for cars isn’t looking for car advertisements, they’re looking for useful articles about “the best cars of 2019,” or “how to get a good deal when shopping for new cars.”

Content marketing is the practice of creating that kind of helpful content and using its value proposition to guide customers down a sales funnel, building a long term relationship with your company or brand en route to an eventual purchase.

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2. Content Marketing Examples

Here are some of the core types of digital content used in a content marketing campaign:

Blog Posts and Articles

Blogs and blog posts are at the heart of content marketing and lead generation. Quality blog content that’s relevant to your customer base and written per best SEO (search engine optimization) practices makes your site (and content) “findable” by consumers on Google and other search engines (and keeps them on your site once they’ve found you).

Real life example: I buy a new coffee grinder and need help figuring out how to set it up. I search Google for the right grind setting and end up on a blog for a coffee roasting company. Their article is helpful, I go down a rabbit hole and read a few more articles while I’m there, and I return to their site the next few times I have coffee questions.

The roasting company’s brand creates value in my mind, and eventually—while on their site—I end up ordering some of the coffee-related hardware they have for sale. This is content marketing in action by way of the humble blog post.

To think of it in terms of stats, Hubspot reports that:

Companies that published 16+ blog posts per month got almost 3.5 times more traffic and 4.5 times more leads than companies that published zero to four monthly posts.

B2C companies that blogged 11+ times per month got more than four times as many leads than those that blog only four to five times per month.

Social Media

If blog posts are the heart of content marketing, social media is its circulatory system.

While most clear-cut lead generation and customer conversion takes place on your blog as you funnel customers toward premium content like ebooks, guides, and webinars (see below), social media marketing serves as an amplification of those lead generation efforts.

In order to make your site content “findable” by search engines, you need to do things like use relevant keywords and thoroughly answer user questions on the topic at hand. But it also helps search rankings if you can demonstrate an influx of traffic to your content. Social media is the vehicle for doing so.

A well-crafted Instagram story or Facebook post that spotlights a blog article you’re trying to promote will bring additional traffic to your site and article, giving a bump to your search rankings which will then bring more traffic to your site, rinse and repeat.

For more on how social media content plays a role in boosting the rest of your content’s visibility by way of SEO, check out this article from Forbes, and this article from NeilPatel.com.

Video Content and Podcasts

As big a part as blog articles and social media posts play in content marketing, don’t forget about videos and podcasts.

Video and audio content—whether it’s recaps of the material covered on your blog or separate informative takes on similarly relevant topics—is another way to connect with customers and communicate the value proposition of your brand.

In fact, while the written word is still a key player in getting people to your site via search engine queries, audio and visual content is even more likely to keep them there.

Per Hubspot:

Including a video in a post increases organic traffic from search results by 157%.

20% of people will read the text on a page, but 80% of people will watch a video.

Monthly podcast listeners grew from 24% of Americans to 26% year over year.

Premium Content—eBooks, Guides, and Webinars

While the content mentioned above will bring visitors to your website (and ideally keep them coming back for repeat visits), at some point you need a concrete way of converting these visitors into leads who can eventually be funneled toward purchasing products and services.

This is where premium content comes into the picture. Content like a blog article is designed to be accessible with no barrier to entry—you want as many people as possible to read your blog articles without anything standing in their way.

Once those articles have established a significant value proposition, however, it’s time offer a deeper dive into subjects relevant to your audience by way of content like eBooks, guides, and webinars.

Each of these premium forms of content can be seen as expanded versions of things like blog posts, videos, and podcasts. Where a blog post might cover a single topic about digital marketing (something like…I don’t know, content marketing versus content strategy?), a digital marketing guide will cover everything from digital marketing definitions, to the skills digital marketers need to get hired, to lists of job boards specializing in digital marketing positions.

Speaking of, don’t forget to download our Beginner’s Guide to Digital Marketing from the forms at the top or bottom of this page.

Unlike blog posts, videos, or podcasts that can be accessible directly from your site, premium content is gated behind a form requiring an email address or some other identifying action in order to access it.

By collecting the email or contact information of a visitor who’s interested enough in your brand to go further than your basic content, you’ll have secured a quality lead who may be interested in purchasing from you in the future (and who you can now contact with sales emails and other targeted offers in an attempt to convert them into a paying customer).

For more on the topic of premium content, check out this article from Hubspot.

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3. What is Content Strategy?

So with a general understand of content marketing out of the way, what exactly is content strategy?

Returning to Hubspot, their definition of content strategy is:

“the management of pretty much any tangible media that you create and own: written, visual, downloadable … you name it. It is the piece of your marketing plan that continuously demonstrates who you are and the expertise you bring to your industry.”

In other words—you guessed it—content strategy is the planning and implementation of all that value-rich digital content listed above.

It’s probably not a surprise that quality content alone doesn’t make a successful content marketing campaign. Content marketing without content strategy is like that proverbial tree in the forest that no one hears.

There needs to be a method to your madness in order to connect with visitors and convert leads in an effective way. Content strategy is the process of developing and executing that method, but what does it look like?

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4. Content Strategy Examples

Here are some examples of content strategy in action:

Competitive Analysis

Conducting a competitive analysis is a foundational step in content strategy. It means identifying your competitors and analyzing their businesses with a fine tooth comb. This lets you learn from their successes and mistakes, understand their strengths and weaknesses, and find gaps in the market that other businesses aren’t covering.

Once you understand similarities and differences between your business and competitors in your field, you’ll learn how to occupy the best market niche for your company and attract your own target audience.

The core steps of a competitive analysis include:

Identifying competitors—which business are truly direct competitors and represent a threat to your market share?

Choosing parameters—decide which parts of a competitor’s business should be studied comparatively with your own. This can include core products, pricing structures, websites, blogs, social media presence, etc.

Tracking and sharing—the results of your analysis should be tracked through a simple spreadsheet, which you can transfer to a slide deck and share internally with your company or client.

For more about each of these steps, be sure to download our Beginner’s Guide to Digital Marketing from the forms at the top or bottom of this page.

Style Guides

Another important component of content strategy is a brand or content style guide. A style guide is a document with guidelines for making marketing content conform to your brand’s look and voice. In terms of visual content, this includes things like:

color palettes

font sets

logos

When it comes to written or scripted content, style guides cover details like:

voice and tone

preferred terms

standard conventions for capitalization, punctuation, attribution, etc.

Since style guides are designed to appeal to your company or client’s particular market niche (see competitive analysis above) they help present a consistent look, tone, and message that your audience will recognize and trust across your entire digital platform.

Consistency (as defined by a style guide) ensures that your content delivers on what Hubspot calls the “delight” phase of inbound marketing—delivering the right information to the right person at the right time, every time. Without a style guide, your content runs the risk of losing a cohesive identity and confusing your audience.

Pillar Pages

Pillar pages are a great illustration of content strategy versus content marketing.

Let’s say, sans strategy, you’ve written 20 different blog articles about different parts of the same core topic. If the topic is digital marketing, then maybe you’ve written about entry level digital marketing jobs, the best tech skills to have for digital marketing, free digital marketing resources, how to find a job in digital marketing, etc.

If all this similarly themed content is sitting disconnected on your site without a plan, it’s going to compete with itself when it comes to Google ranking and searches. Your “entry level digital marketing jobs” article might rank well, for instance, but it might rank at the expense of your “best tech skills for digital marketing” piece.

Which means the segment of your audience who’s interested in a list of tech skills and not looking for entry level marketing jobs will gloss over the post that shows up in their results and move on to something else.

However, if you can aggregate your content in a cluster (the aim of a pillar page), Google can recognize that all of your articles are related to the same general topic, giving your site increased authority on said topic and improving the ranking for each of your individual articles.

Meanwhile, your pillar pages themselves become a way of funneling your audience from a general topic of interest and into subtopics that meet their specific needs (increasing time spent on your site, which is a win for digital marketing).

So what does a pillar page look like? It’s really just a blog post or landing page that superserves a topic. If you’re writing a pillar page for digital marketing, you’ll want it to cover ALL THE THINGS digital marketing—but at a surface level. Each subtopic you cover will link to content you’ve written that tackles the subtopic in detail.

By creating pillar pages and clustering your content, you’re actively participating in content strategy (and, really, content marketing as well, since the two are never completely separate).

For bonus reads on pillar pages, check out these articles from Hubspot and Neil Patel.

Testing

While content marketing is a creative job in a lot of ways (remember, every piece of content you see online had to be created by someone), content always needs to be informed by data, which is another critical way content strategy compliments content creation and marketing.

Business owners, digital marketers, and content creators will all have their own hunches and feelings about what resonates best with an audience, but what matters most is direct evidence from the audience themselves.

Testing is a clear way to gauge your content’s performance and inform your overall content strategy moving forward. This testing looks similar to what you might see in the user experience (UX) research field, with one of the simplest and most effective ways to test content being A/B testing.

A/B Testing is the process of user testing two versions (A and B) of digital content with a target audience and learning which one the audience prefers. When it comes to digital content, this preference is usually measured through by conversion rate—the number of visitors to a website or app who take a desired action during their visit (things like signing up for an email list, purchasing a product or service, or subscribing for a paid membership).

Marketing platforms like Hubspot have options for A/B testing built into their infrastructure, but you can also manually test content based on the steps laid out in this Hubspot article.

Website Audits

Along with the data you collect from testing, a solid content strategy also includes periodic website audits. Site audits are exactly what they sound like—systematic reviews of your website’s performance in terms of benchmarks like search ranking, traffic numbers, time users spend on each page, external links viewers are using to get to your site, links visitors are clicking once they get to your site, etc.

When you track, collect, and record this data, you establish a clear, numbers-driven sense of your site’s performance. This allows you to implement site changes, additions, and improvements from a strategic vantage point. For more on what a site audit actually looks like, Hubspot lays it out in detail in this guide.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

A content strategy won’t ultimately be useful unless you know whether and how it’s working. Testing and site audits are two big pieces of that puzzle, but how do you track and assess bigger picture marketing goals? The answer? KPIs.

KPIs (or key performance indicators) are quantitative benchmarks you can set as part of a content marketing campaign to track how much progress you’re making towards your marketing goals. Simply put, content marketers aim to hit their KPI numbers in order to show that a content strategy is on track, growing, and adding to the company’s bottom line.

Randle Browning breaks down digital marketing KPIs in depth in her article How to Define Digital Marketing KPIs, but the following is a snapshot from the article:

The best KPIs follow the SMART framework, a system often used in management consulting. KPIs should be:

Specific Measurable Achievable Relevant Time-Bound

Let’s say you want to hit 20,000 Instagram followers on your company account. To convert that to a SMART KPI, here’s the context you’d need to think about:

In order to influence Instagram sales (relevant), I want to grow my company’s Instagram following (specific) from 10k to 20k (measurable) this quarter (time-bound), using a social media agency (achievable).

As another example, let’s say you want to get more website traffic. To make this KPI smart, you’d break it down like this:

I want more people to visit our website and become customers (relevant), so this month (time-bound), I want to boost our organic search traffic (specific) from 70,000 visitors per month to 80,000 visitors per month (measurable), which I’ll do primarily through link-building and improved keyword ranking (achievable).

In practice, you’d probably list these KPIs on a spreadsheet like this:

20,000 Instagram followers 80,000 site visits from organic search traffic

Of course, these numbers should be informed by other aspects of your content strategy (like the testing described earlier) so that they’re data driven and you’re not simply seeing what sticks on the wall.

If content creation and strategizing sounds like a perfect fit for you, your next step should be signing up for our Skillcrush Digital Marketing Blueprint. This online course is designed to be completed in just 3 months by spending only an hour a day on the materials.

It covers all the skills you’ll need to be familiar with to break into the lucrative and growing world of digital marketing, whether that’s through content or any other role under the digital marketing umbrella.

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from Web Developers World https://skillcrush.com/2019/02/25/content-marketing-versus-content-strategy/

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jodyedgarus · 5 years

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Ja Morant Would Like Your Attention

With fewer than 15 seconds to go in a November game, Ja Morant received an inbounds pass, dribbled the length of the court with his left hand, slipped past a would-be double team, skied over two defenders, pulled the ball back as far as his right shoulder would allow and threw down a ferocious tomahawk dunk. Moments later, the Murray State guard corralled an errant 3-pointer by a teammate in midair and jammed in his 37th and 38th points of the night.

The Racers ultimately lost on the road to Alabama, but Morant earned a standing ovation at Coleman Coliseum.

Afterward, Alabama coach Avery Johnson compared the skill set of the 6-foot-3 sophomore, who scored more points against Alabama than all but two players had since 2010, to that of Isaiah Thomas, John Stockton and Russell Westbrook.

“I saw flashbacks of a lot of guys I played against,” Johnson said.

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Morant is months away from possibly making mid-major history in the NBA draft. While plenty of players have been drafted out of mid-major programs, few have been lottery picks — and fewer still came from conferences that have made fewer than 100 tournament appearances.1 Morant will likely become the first player this century from such a school to be selected in the top 5 of the NBA draft. Some mocks have him going as high as second. As the chart below demonstrates, there haven’t been many NBA lottery picks from mid-major conferences lately. But some of these picks have gone on to dominate: Stephen Curry, Damian Lillard, C.J. McCollum, Paul George.

Players who got their start at small schools

Expected career win shares based on draft position and actual win shares to date for NBA draft lottery picks from mid-major and low-major schools, 2000-2018

Total Win Shares Year Pick Player School Conf. Exp Actual Diff 2015 14 C. Payne Murray St. OVC 27.3 2.3 -25.0 2014 10 E. Payton La. Lafayette Sun Belt 33.6 12.2 -21.4 2013 10 C.J. McCollum Lehigh Patriot 33.6 26.3 -7.3 2012 6 D. Lillard Weber St. Big Sky 43.2 66.3 +23.1 2010 10 P. George Fresno St. WAC 33.6 63.1 +29.5 2009 7 S. Curry Davidson Southern 40.3 100.5 +60.2 2008 12 J. Thompson Rider MAAC 30.2 23.8 -6.4 2006 9 P. O’Bryant Bradley MVC 35.6 0.5 -35.1 2003 6 C. Kaman C. Michigan MAC 43.2 24.6 -18.6 2002 12 M. Ely Fresno St. WAC 30.2 4.0 -26.2 2000 13 C. Alexander Fresno St. WAC 28.7 4.1 -24.6 Total 379.5 327.7 -51.8

Includes only schools from conferences with fewer than 100 NCAA men’s tournament appearances; based on conference alignment at the time.

Win shares through Feb. 14, 2019.

Source: Sports-Reference.com

When he’s inevitably drafted, Morant will be the third Murray State guard taken since 2013. Isaiah Canaan and Cameron Payne have struggled to secure a foothold in the league. But Neal Bradley, a Hall of Fame broadcaster who has spent nearly three decades covering the Racers, told me that he doesn’t think the upgraded competition will flatline Morant, pointing to his strong outings against Auburn and Alabama, two teams projected to appear in the NCAA Tournament. Morant earned a co-sign from Kevin Durant on The Bill Simmons Podcast. Missouri State coach Dana Ford, who coached against Morant and his Racer predecessors, didn’t mince words: “He is by far the best prospect of the three. … He’s a little bit of John Wall mixed with Chris Paul. He’s special.”

Morant’s ascension is the stuff screenwriters dream up. He was a mostly overlooked kid from rural South Carolina who landed at an out-of-state university after a coach almost literally stumbled upon him. A year ago, he wasn’t even named the top freshman in the Ohio Valley Conference. Now, he’s a bonafide star and budding internet sensation.

But those YouTube clips are the extent of Morant’s exposure. While Zion Williamson, who almost certainly will be the first name called by Adam Silver, effectively plays only on major networks, the Racers have yet to appear on ESPN, ESPN2, Fox, FS1 or CBS. Murray State’s tilt Thursday against Austin Peay is slated to be televised on ESPN2, but that’s the only remaining game scheduled for the aforementioned networks.2 During an interview on the ESPN show “Get Up!,” one of Morant’s questions was even about Williamson.

Morant’s second triple-double in less than a year — and the school’s third ever — came in front of a crowd of 2,701. When he became the first Division 1 player in 20 years to put up 40 points, 11 assists and five steals in a game,3 fewer than 2,200 people were there. A viral leapfrog dunk over 6-foot-8 Quintin Dove was seen in person by 3,114.

However, within the OVC, the interest bump created by Morant’s presence is evident. Each of the six conference teams that have hosted Murray State drew their largest home crowds of the conference season when Morant came to town.

Morant is a hot ticket

Attendance this season in the Ohio Valley Conference for teams hosting Murray State vs. their other home conference games

Home Team Non-Murray State Avg. Vs. Murray % Change Tennessee Tech 2,007 5,250 +161.6 UT Martin 1,253 3,114 +148.5 SE Missouri St. 1,391 3,143 +126.0 Eastern Illinois 1,211 2,410 +99.0 SIU Edwardsville 1,127 2,178 +93.3 Jacksonville State 2,232 3,718 +66.6

Sources: Sports-Reference.com, ESPN

Compared with its other conference home games, Eastern Illinois brought in nearly twice as many fans when it played Murray State. Jacksonville State sold out Pete Mathews Coliseum for the first time since the program turned Division 1. Bradley said he’s seen a noticeable attendance bump wherever Morant goes. About 50 Tennessee Tech fans lined up after their game in the hopes of taking a photo with the soon-to-be pro, according to Bradley. Morant obliged.

It seems that a stat line can only stay quiet for so long.

Morant is putting up unprecedented numbers: 23.9 points, 10.2 assists and 5.4 rebounds per game, with a true shooting percentage of 61.1. Nobody at the college level has come close to hitting those benchmarks,4 and only James Harden has done it in the pros. Morant is vying to become the first player since assist leaders were recognized to average 20 points and 10 assists over a season. Only 10 players in the past 25 years have even averaged 16 and 8.

Morant’s high-flying heroics give off the impression of a trapeze artist. But he’s more of a tactician, capable of diagnosing a defense in a split second and shredding it.

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There has perhaps never been a better facilitating season than the one Morant is producing, which includes, but isn’t limited to, half-court lobs, off-handed flicks and peek-a-boo bullets to the baseline. “I’ve never seen anyone, ever, able to pass like him,” Bradley said. “He’s stunning and seems to be a couple steps ahead of everybody.”

Morant’s 53.3 percent assist rate is projected to be the top mark ever measured5 and is 6.1 percentage points higher than this year’s second-place mark.6 In total, Morant is projected to finish the regular season with 296 dimes, which would be the sixth most over the past 25 years in a single season.

As his talent suggests, Morant is heavily relied upon. Only five players have logged a higher percentage of minutes played than Morant’s 93.1, and coach Matt McMahon is using his star on 35.8 percent of possessions, the fifth-highest rate in the country. Turnovers have come easily for Morant, but it would tough to blame the kid for coughing it up when he’s tasked with operating the offense each time down the court.

Morant’s scoring acumen often manifests in transition, where he spends more time (6.8 possessions per game) and pours in more points (8.4) than any player in the country. With the dexterity to finish with either hand, around or over defenders, he doesn’t lack efficiency, scoring 1.24 points per possession on the break with an adjusted field-goal percentage of 74.7, according to data provided by Synergy Sports.

Morant lives at the rim, where he attempts more than half of his shots, according to Hoop-Math.com. Every player this season7 with a better field-goal percentage at the rim than Morant’s 61.6 percent is at least 4 inches taller than he is.

Defensively, Morant has work to do. But his long arms make him a nuisance for opposing ball handlers, and he’s tied for second in the OVC in steals per contest (2.0). Despite his thin frame, Morant has been particularly efficient in isolation and against screens, where he’s allowed a combined 19 points on 29 possessions, according to data provided by Synergy Sports.

It isn’t all that uncommon for NBA teams to take a flier on a mid-major player in the draft. But Morant hardly has the typical backstory of an under-the-radar prospect, nor the skill set. With abnormal athleticism and uncanny court vision, Morant will be playing on national television sooner rather than later.

“It’s been a lot of fun,” Bradley said of Morant’s rise. “It’s the craziest stuff I’ve ever seen.”

from News About Sports https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ja-morant-would-like-your-attention/

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