#one of the hardest things about writing for museums and in general is using highly selective and accessible language

[battle-of-alberta]

just an update on why asks are taking so long, I have been planning this answer for weeks because I figured it was a good opportunity to do some traditional work and also apply some of the infographic/museum writing skills i started developing in my previous degree.

This is page 1 of probably 2, it took me ages to do the research and to outline the placement for the text and it takes me a long time to write out the text by hand without making mistakes or smudging it, so feel free to keep sending asks for the palette challenge to give my poor hand a break :')

[sasslightertm-a]

(...Let's not talk about how I've been reading your blog for the last two days and only just now figured out where the ask box is linked.) Not sure if it's still available since it's not Sunday anymore, but anyway you could answer 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20, 22, and 24 for the Sinday thing? (Sorry, I just love learning about your stuff on Chris and I'm also bored, so.)

Sinday Asks || Accepting

There’s no time limit on memes, so have at it! And thank you! I’m happy that you like the way I write him. This also got really long, so I’m putting it under the cut.

2.  Are they sexually active?

Yes? He’s grey-ace but he’ll have sex. (He doesn’t have a preference for his partner’s gender either.)

3. When was the last time they had sex?

… *looks at the thread with @valor-will-rise‘s Mon-El in the If I Can’t Save You, I Swear I’ll Stop You verse*

Canonically speaking, before he left Bianca to go on his time-traveling mission as a means of saying goodbye. (I guess technically that time with his charge Natalie would count, but that was in an alternate reality where Wyatt never existed, so… who knows???)

5. Do they masturbate often?

Not really. Chris’ sex drive is low enough that it’s easy for him to ignore it.

6. Tell us about their best and worst sex experience? 

Worst was his first time, bc he had absolutely no idea what he was doing (also, hey, grey-ace, low sex drive, partner was highly sexual and Chris was just kind of uncomfortable and nervous with the whole thing. His powers acting up sure didn’t help matters).

Best experience… ??? (Though Chris is definitely looking at valor-will-rise’s Mon-El for this one, so… I’m just gonna go with that.)

9. When was the last time they had a wet dream? Bonus if you can describe it as much as you can in detail.

Oh Goddess. Um… I don’t think he really ever has? But if he has, Chris isn’t talking about it.

12. Would you consider your muse to be kinky?

Eh… sort of? I guess? He likes what he likes, but he also’s concerned about whether or not his partner is enjoying themselves.

13. What’s their favorite sex position(s)?

I don’t think he has a specific favorite? Not yet, anyway.

14. What’s their least favorite sex position(s)?

Number 17: The Spread Eagle. I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist.

Anything where he’s on top, I guess? 69, too.

15. Tell us about their sex fantasy? Things they want to try and do, but haven’t yet.

Oooh boy. Let’s see.

Depending on who it is and if he’s comfortable enough with them, there’s times where he just wants to be slammed up against the closest wall (or hardest surface) and pinned there by his partner (have I mentioned that he’s a switch with sub tendencies?). He also wouldn’t mind being tied up or blindfolded—but again, it all depends on who he’s with. 

16. Describe the way your muse’s moan during sex. (Example: are they loud, are they quiet, etc.

It kind of depends on who his partner is and where they’re at, but for the most part Chris tends to be quiet. He’s not much of a screamer, either.

19. Give us a sexcanon about your muse that not many people knows about.

I did answer this one here, but have another one.

I just think it’s really interesting that whenever we see him with Bianca, she’s usually the one initiating intimate contact between the two of them—she leans in first to kiss him when she accepts his marriage proposal at their spot in the park, then is the first one to start undressing when they’re alone in the Manor’s basement (”What do we do now?” “We say good-bye.”).  (Ok, yeah, Chris, having sex with your fiancee in your dead family’s manor-turned-museum/tourist attraction as a way to say good-bye while the outside world is demolished isn’t weird at all. And I don’t think they ever shut the basement door so...)

20.  Are they proud of their kinks? Is there a kink they’re too ashamed to share?

I wouldn’t say he’s proud of them, exactly. Chris just likes what he likes. As for one he’s too ashamed to share... 

I’m not sure if sex magick would fall under this or not? Because it’s not really a kink for Chris per se as it is sometimes a subconscious thing if his powers are either fighting his control or too much for him to handle in the moment if his emotions are running high.

Then again... he doesn’t generally tell his partners he’s a witch or that it’s something he can do, given that, y’know, generally speaking one of their first reactions is to be afraid that he’s going to cast a spell on them.

22. How does their foreplay go down?

Answered here.

24. How does their afterglow look like?

Answered here.

[davewakeman]

If I Put Major League Baseball Through One Of My Strategy Workshops...

  I read an interesting article about baseball’s continued attendance challenges. The article got me thinking because while I am often thinking about what the challenges are, I never really put them in the context of the lowest announced attendance and the implication of that number.

For many years now, we’ve had to sit and watch as attendance numbers were inflated to the point of absurdity.

While our eyes were telling us one thing, our ears were hearing how healthy the game is and how robust revenues are.

While revenues are high in all sports right now, as we’ve seen with the recent reports of concert tickets being at an all-time high, $16 Budweiser products, and the continual increase in rights fees…this revenue isn’t necessarily coming because sports is doing a better job of attracting fans, it is coming because sports is doing a better job of squeezing every dollar out of the fans that are still sticking around.

Is that a wise or unwise decision?

In the short term, it is likely wise.

As much as I think it is unhealthy for the economy, for businesses, and, especially for sports, we live in a business environment, and a culture, where short-termism reigns.

We’ve seen the idea of stakeholder value refuted pretty consistently and publically by the Harvard Business School, which also pioneered the concept. We’ve seen how skyrocketing prices have led to fewer and fewer fans attending games. And, in my conversations, I’ve heard people that are devoted fans of sports telling me that they don’t attend games in person any longer because of the abusive nature of the relationship.

But the idea of lowest announced attendance really clarified a lot of the ideas that have been floating around in my head. And, it crystalized the challenge that Major League Baseball, specifically, but all sports are going to have maintaining their revenues, developing customers, and keeping people filling their venues.

So I’ve tried to think through what it would look like if I took Major League Baseball through one of my on-site strategy sessions. Which are designed to generate as many questions as answers so that the businesses involved can understand that there isn’t one path to success, but many.

What’s the value?

In organized strategy sessions that I lead for my clients, we always start by looking at the value of what we want to bring to the market.

Over the last week, I’ve been reading Ian Thomsen’s book about the NBA called The Soul of the Basketball. In his book, Ian writes about how football and baseball always had a feeling for what they meant to the American public.

Football was war and baseball was peace.

I thought that was a pretty eloquent description of the two games, but as I started thinking about some of the challenges that Major League Baseball is trying to overcome, I got to thinking about Ian’s description and asking myself, “Have they lost the thread of the story?”

In the past, I’ve written in a number of places about the need for storytelling to make its way back into marketing and sports marketing, specifically. The need for this is no more evident in the way that baseball has been throwing out ideas to attract “Millenials.”

Many of the changes suggested or made in the offseason were centered around this amorphous blob of people known as “Millenials.”

I think this misses a point.

In Baltimore and Birmingham, at INTIX and Ticketing Professionals, there were lots of conversations about “attracting Millenials.” (If history is any indicator, the talk will soon come down to Generation Next, or, whatever their name is settled upon.)

I feel like these kinds of conversations and questions are slightly misguided because they miss a huge point that Alan Weiss talked about in his recent book, Threescore and More. Which is that these kind of blanket groupings are false and used as tools to denigrate groups, instead of asking and thinking about the important issues.

The point that is missed in regard to MLB and the changes that they are making to speed up the game and draw more attention back to the sport is that they are making an assumption that the big challenge is just Millenials. But the reported information, combined with feedback from seeing games on TV or in-person where attendance is significantly lower, shows the fallacy of the “Millenial Myth.”

Which is that if we can just address what Millenials don’t like, we will be all set.

That’s wrong.

This goes back to value.

The reason that people aren’t paying attention to baseball at the same rate they have in the past is because they don’t see the value of paying attention to baseball.

Part of this is definitely due to changing tastes of consumers.

There is no doubt.

Part of this is also due to the fact that we’ve allowed the game to become considered a never-ending slog, where only a certain key dates matter, where we are just biding our time until the playoffs.

That’s on all of us that have ever been involved in tickets or entertainment.

We’ve failed the game because we lost touch with the beauty of the game.

Baseball is like a big, dense novel.

In fact, my favorite novel has baseball at the heart of it, Underworld by Don DeLillo.

You don’t read a super dense novel in one sitting.

That’s the same way baseball is.

While the simple reaction is to think that our on-demand lifestyle makes the ins and outs of baseball less important. The reality is that if you read the marketing analysis and the surveys of people’s views of the marketplace, two things really stand out that are definitively in baseball’s wheelhouse:

People value experiences more highly.

People want more connection.

Having a long-standing love of baseball, I can tell you that some of my formative experiences and most cherished memories are from the summers of 2000-2002 at Safeco Field in Seattle.

I hung out with all of my friends, watching the game, had a conversation, drank a beer, ate garlic fries, discovered who I was.

As I got more heavily involved in tickets and entertainment, the scene shifted, but the experiences and value of going to baseball games increased.

The first Opening Day at Yankee Stadium.

My Sunday afternoons in the centerfield bleachers at Shea Stadium.

Taking my son to his first baseball game at Nats Park.

Taking my lady to her first game at Fenway Park.

I’m belaboring the point a bit, but the fact is that these examples all highlight the two key things that people want more and more of experiences and connections.

This is the issue…if people don’t see the value of attending the games or watching, it isn’t their fault. It is ours.

Just like a marketing message, if your target market doesn’t react to the message…that’s your fault, not the consumers.

Understanding the customer

The second question I ask and we discuss in these strategy sessions is about the customer.

The question goes: “Who can use and buy this value?” Or some variation.

In the world of creating more customers and fans of Major League Baseball, this is a good question to ask.

Because over the last several years, we have seen the average age of a fan steadily increase by about a year every year.

This means that baseball’s fans are getting older…fine.

But more importantly, it means that they aren’t really renewing its fan base.

This is important because going to a baseball game for most of my life always meant that you’d see a wide diversity of people, ages, and backgrounds.

Anymore, that’s missing from most baseball games.

This is a huge missed opportunity.

Because the longer we wait to introduce people to the game, the more expensive and difficult it becomes to get people to care at all.

In sports, we’ve always heard the refrain, “Winning will solve everything.” But we have seen over and over that it won’t and it doesn’t.

Don’t believe me?

Look to the Nationals that have been struggling in the middle of the pack in attendance for years, despite having a team that is always competing for a title and that has some of the most exciting players in baseball.

Look at the Yankees who struggled last season to get fans to come back once they were filled with exciting, competitive young talent.

Or, go to the article linked at the top where the Red Sox are struggling to fill Fenway this year, even with rabid fans and a 1st place team.

My feeling from looking at the pricing of tickets, merchandise, and food and beverage is that baseball games have become like a Rolex or a Mercedes.

While there is a place for that if that is all you are selling, good luck. But you don’t need a 45,000 seat stadium for that. A high school sized stadium would likely be more appropriate.

The thing about the customer, or ideal customer, here is that you have to realize that you have any number of customers and appealing to them is a tightrope, at best.

Having been a part of opening a national nightclub chain, a museum funded by the 3rd richest man in the world, and creating the supply chain for the Centurion Card Members to buy tickets anywhere in the world, I can tell you definitively that creating offers that touch multiple communities and allow people to come together can be done.

But it is hard work.

My fear is that we’ve become so inured with management by spreadsheet that we have lost the ability to look at our fans and customers as people.

One of the core ideas that Tom Peters’ has talked about over the years is the idea that soft skills are the hardest thing is especially true when we are talking about throwing open the doors to our venues and our games.

We must keep in mind those two keys of modern consumers that they want connection and experiences.

Just look at Detroit where one of the most popular tickets to Comerica Park is a bar that has a little or no sightline to the field but people go to hang out.

Let’s go down memory lane for a moment to the times I spent at Safeco Field, I loved the bar next to the bullpen and a Thursday afternoon game in the centerfield cutout was the best.

Understanding the customer means more than just switching up the food and opening up a new SRO section, it means thinking about the entire experience and how you can improve it for everyone because you not only need one set of customers to come back, you need all kinds of customers to come back.

Where are these customers?

The final question we always discuss is: “How do I reach people?”

This is typically the most fun because it revolves around marketing.

In this case, MLB has one of the great marketing vehicles going…TV!

I was listening to Bob Lefsetz talk to Shep Gordon on his podcast yesterday and Shep talked about how he was able to break so many chefs into fame. He discussed the power of TV.

So before we dig any deeper into thinking about reaching new customers or lapsed ones, it pays to look at the relationship between TV and attracting fans.

Due to the large amounts of money invested by networks into being able to broadcast games, it can often feel like the tail is wagging the dog.

The important question to investigate is, “Are we doing enough to ensure that people aren’t just tuning into the games on TV, but are also incentivized to come out to the games?”

This is one of the pressing questions because you don’t want to bite the hand that feeds you, as the saying goes, but you also need to be cognizant that you have a responsibility to deepen the connection between the game and the consumer, viewer, fan.

So beginning with TV, we must demand more of our TV partners.

It isn’t just enough that they broadcast the games because we know that they need the content, but they must also take responsibility for making sure that the health of their investment is certain.

This may require pushing back on certain ideas and push for greater involvement in other areas like selling tickets, promoting stars with stories, etc.

Other than TV, there are numbers of ways that you can reach your target market and your potential consumers.

Obviously, we have the usual suspects in radio, TV, and digital.

They all play a role, but I do think that the emphasis is often on the wrong things like discounts, giveaways, and other sugar highs that spike demand but don’t help with the long-term stability of the game.

The better concept of reaching new and old consumers revolves around two ideas…reaching people in person and with stories.

As I wrote about above, baseball is a sport that is like a long novel. Which should indicate pretty clearly that one of the best advantages that baseball has is the ability to tell stories around the teams, the game, and the players.

If you go back to my childhood, my favorite player growing up was John Smoltz. This was at a time when TBS was the superstation and Braves games were pretty ubiquitous.

In this regard, John Smoltz’s story was one of promise. He was the hope that all long-suffering Braves fans held onto.

He was part of the young guns.

The thing was, there was a story that accumulated over time. The trade that brought him to the Braves from his hometown team’s farm system. The promise of his potential. The ups and downs of youth. The way he was clutch in the playoffs. Over time, a profile built up and a story was created.

You see the same sort of storytelling and myth-making in the Premier League where you know that if you are a Tottenham Hotspur supporter, you celebrate the day that you clinch finishing above Arsenal in the league table. This isn’t just one story either because there is the history of the club in the FA Cup, the underdog status that is likely akin to the way Mets’ fans feel towards Yankees’ fans, and the history of White Hart Lane.

Stories and sports go hand in hand because it isn’t just about entertainment, it is about identity.

One of the big concerns about the rise of fantasy sports at the expense of team focus is that it lessens that identity.

This is important because the history of baseball is really passed down from generation to generation in those stories that should be shared.

My son tells anyone that he follows the Mets and the Mariners because those are his dad’s teams.

That’s important, just like the first time you play catch with your child or you watch a game together. It is all a thread that connects families to the sports and teams.

That’s why the in-person aspect is so huge, or, the personal.

Last season, the Washington Capitals ran a partnership activation that gave every child born at their partner hospital a Caps’ giftpack at birth. I don’t remember everything about the promotion, but there was a onesie and a beanie and some other stuff.

This was a really cool promotion and one I am surprised isn’t used by everyone, everywhere because it connects people at a very emotional point.

Unless you are diehard Penguins fan, you likely dressed your kid up in a Caps’ onesie. You likely took a lot of pictures and you likely posted those pictures on social media, or, at the least, shared them with friends.

That story will live on, connecting the family to the team for the rest of their lives.

Now think about if MLB and the local teams came together around partnership activations that would get people into the stadium or engaged with the game?

Think about this:

If you are a sponsor of MLB, why wouldn’t you want to be a part of a Father’s Day promotion that said something like, “Bring your dad to the park!”

Maybe you don’t do it on the day of the game, but maybe you do it the week before or the week after.

Same thing with mothers.

Or, why wouldn’t a childcare focused company want to do an activation similar to the Caps?

The list of these ideas goes on and on.

What we do know is that interruption marketing doesn’t work nearly as well as it used to.

We aren’t even certain it works at all at this point.

But what we do know is that people want connection and experiences and that reaching new fans and lapsed fans through connections and experiences is likely a very powerful way to engage and convert people.

Especially as you consider how powerful stories are to us as humans.

Takeaways

Once we are done, I like to get some takeaways and action items on the table to codify learning.

Here are 3:

Let’s rethink the value of baseball in the context of all the people we are trying to reach and not allow our value to be defined by the revenues we are trying to generate or what our spreadsheet might tell us. Lead with people based insights.

Focus on connection and experiences as reasons to go out to the ballpark. We realize that we have been inundated with the idea that Millenials need things NOW. But what if that isn’t true? What if they were willing to offer their attention for something valuable? While we are at it, why don’t we just get rid of the idea that this is solely at the foot of Millenials and realize that it isn’t just a Millenial issue?

Be creative in how you connect people to the sport. Can you push further than just the way things have always been done? What creative ideas can you come up with to get people to engage or connect with your sport or your teams? What are other sports or teams doing well that you want to do better?

What do you think?

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If I Put Major League Baseball Through One Of My Strategy Workshops… was originally published on Wakeman Consulting Group

[type2diabetestreatments-blog]

Interview With Ana Muñoz, An Artist Who Lets Her Art Talk About Diabetes

New Post has been published on http://type2diabetestreatment.net/healthy-tips/interview-with-ana-munoz-an-artist-who-lets-her-art-talk-about-diabetes/

Interview With Ana Muñoz, An Artist Who Lets Her Art Talk About Diabetes

My youngest sister Ana was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age 3 (the same year I was diagnosed at age 11). I have always admired the peaceful way in which she deals with diabetes. When I think of her though, I remember the kid who was seemingly always quietly drawing or doodling something, somewhere. I’m happy that despite diabetes she has continued to do what she loves.

Ana got her BFA in Studio Art with a concentration in painting, drawing and art education from James Madison University and just received her MFA in Studio Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She also just got married. She now works as the Education and Design Coordinator at the Taubman Museum of Art, is their in-house graphic designer, and teachers weekly classes for kids and helps with year-round programming and tours. (Yep, she has been busy!)

I went to an art show that featured her recently. I had been feeling a weight on my chest for a few weeks. It was even hard to breathe. I walked over to one of her paintings that had to do with a diabetes complication and stared at it. I ran off to the bathroom and cried like a baby. The weight on my chest lifted and I realized that I hadn’t noticed this underlying worry about diabetes I was having. Sometimes a visual can speak to us in ways that helps us identify a feeling and either let it go or act on it. Then I saw Ana answering many questions about diabetes and realized her art was helping to advocate for us.

Her art has centered so much on the topic of diabetes and so I interviewed her to tell us about it.

DD: You have focused much of your art on the subject of diabetes. Why is that and how did it start?

Ana: I started making work about diabetes in 2010 for Diabetes Art Day, which was started by Lee Ann Thill. I’d been making art since I was a kid, but I rarely thought about making art that commented on my life as a diabetic. I think I either wanted to keep those two things separate or I really didn’t consider using diabetes as a subject. Either way, I decided to participate in the first Diabetes Art Day and I received some responses that made me change my mind about the role of art in my life as a diabetic and vice versa.

About a year after that initial experience, I was taking a painting class in college and we were instructed to complete 6 paintings tied together by a theme over the course of the semester. I decided to use diabetes as a theme. I’ve continued the work since then and of course it has taken many different forms.

You don’t talk much about diabetes (in my experience). Do you let your art do some of the talking for you?

You’re right about that. One of the reasons I’ve continued making art about diabetes is because it revealed itself as a way for me to talk about it through visuals, and over time it helped me find the courage and words I needed to verbally speak about it. I spent most of my life keeping my diabetes fairly private partially because I didn’t want to feel different among my peers, partially because I was shy, and partially because I didn’t often think about discussing it with people.

I was diagnosed at age 3 so it was a part of my life that somehow felt normal, like accepting that I had brown hair and that my name was Ana. Letting my art speak for me can be tricky, though, since most people interpret visuals in various ways. That became kind of frustrating when I was first making work about diabetes—I really wanted people to understand what I was saying, but as an artist you can only guide the viewer, you can’t control what they think. I’ve slowly come to terms with that and now I rely on using multiple sources to reveal my message—photos, writing, paintings and drawings, source/research material, etc. I aim to make it all accessible to anyone who is interested. If you’re not interested, then you probably won’t understand what I’m saying and that’s okay.

What do you hope people get from your art?

I hope people get a sense of complexity from my art. This body of work often makes me feel both vulnerable and incredibly strong. It is built from years of living with diabetes and working with my hands. I hope in some way to raise awareness about diabetes—and not just about the major complications, but also what it’s like to live with it day-to-day, in between the high highs, the low lows, the hospital visits, the middle-of-the-night scares, well after the moments when the people in our lives express their concern or their sympathy and then forget about what we’re dealing with until the next scare or the next mistake because it’s not something they need to think about 24/7, but we do. We think about it when we shower, when we drive to work, when we fight with our partners. It affects everything and anything.

On a different note, I hope my work also inspires someone else living with the disease. Even though millions of people have diabetes, and I have two siblings with it, it’s easy to feel alone. Community and support play a big part in maintaining a positive attitude about something quite terrible that we are forced to live with. I hope the work I make reminds a fellow diabetic or someone suffering from another chronic illness that they’re not alone, that their losses and victories are all our losses and victories.

What is the hardest thing about living with diabetes, in your opinion?

I think the hardest thing about living with diabetes is that I never get a break and optimism is often fleeting. I might have perfect numbers all day and feel empowered and then I’ll have two days with terrible numbers and I have to work that much harder to find the strength to feel like I’m in control again. And it never ends.

I think about having children soon and it terrifies me because I need those good days all the time—during the months leading up to getting pregnant and during the 9 months of pregnancy and hopefully afterwards too, when a little person will be relying on me to be around and care for them. Sometimes it sounds impossible. Every number outside of my target range is a reminder of all the health issues I’m at a higher risk for and for some reason it takes like 5 good blood sugar readings for me to get over a high one. Those are difficult odds to work with.

Growing up, you always seemed to calmly take the challenges related to diabetes in stride. What is your secret?

I think it stemmed from both my early diagnosis and my generally calm personality. Even now, when sometimes I think I suffer from anxiety more than I ever have in my life, I still tend to appear calm. But when I was a child, like I mentioned earlier, I think I accepted diabetes as a part of my life that I couldn’t change. Plus I didn’t know anything different so that kind of saved me from being bitter about it or dwelling too much on what my life could have been.

Do you think that artwork about diabetes can help create more awareness?

Definitely—art is a language. People absorb information in different ways and I think it’s strategic to attempt to raise awareness through a variety of methods. People also communicate in different ways. I don’t think anyone should feel ashamed of not being highly skilled at communicating his or her thoughts and opinions verbally. As a society, we should support and foster different forms of communication.

As a recent college grad, what advice can you give a college student about managing diabetes while on campus?

Meal plan when you can, keep something on hand for lows at all times, know where the vending machines are on campus, tell your professors that you have diabetes, tell your roommate(s) that you have diabetes, have at least one person that you can call in an emergency (someone that’s on campus or in the same building as you), limit the late night pizza, drinking, etc., don’t rely on anyone to take care of you if you drink—have a plan.

Is there anything else you are working on lately?

I’m also writing and illustrating a children’s book about diabetes, which has turned out to be more massive an undertaking than I anticipated. I’ve been working on it for over a year and hope to finish it by the end of this year. The book is called “Sweet Pee” and it features basic info about diabetes, personal anecdotes, and words of encouragement. I intend for it to be a useful resource for both children with diabetes and their parents.

If Carmen SanDiego had diabetes, where in the world would she be?

She would be lying on a sandy beach, almost physically feeling the stress leave her body with every wave that broke on the shore. Her insulin and meter would be next to her in a small cooler to keep out the sun’s heat. Her numbers would be perfect because she’s so relaxed and has all the time in the world and the clarity required to back up a failed pancreas. All of her worries and concerns would look so small against the backdrop of a massive ocean.

To see more of her art go to More Art Please.

Twitter: @moreartpleaseInstagram: @anamoralesartFacebook: Artwork by Ana Maria Morales

Photo Credit: Ana Muñoz

Diabetes Type 2 Tips Diabetes Escape Plan Does Diabetes Destroyer Really Work? Original Article