A Month of Insights...

It's been a long month since I've been away and a lot has happened.


1. Google+ release (at least to beta) - well Google has taken yet another stab at the social side of the world-wide-web and this time, I think they have gotten it right.  I was lucky enough to gain access to G+ over the weekend and have had some time to play around.  While a lot of the functionality reminds me of Facebook (which is a great idea), the major enhancement that I feel is key is the addition of "circles".  It's Google's way of grouping your contacts together so you can message, huddle (text chat) or hangout (video chat) with a more targeted group of friends or contacts.  What does this mean?  You can keep your business friends and contacts separate, message them separate, share info separate, all from the same page (I have two Twitter @'s for just that reason).  The major negative so far (I was lucky enough to not be included in their SPAM issue on Saturday) is that it is only in beta and there aren't too many people (only 4.5 million) on the platform.  What does this mean?  It is difficult to find friends/contacts.  Over time, this will undoubtedly be corrected, and with a few minor enhancements, this could be a true player in the social space.  (I can be found at gplus.to/AndersonJason81 - gplus.to is a great vanity URL site already created for the platform).


2. Kentucky Speedway parking debacle - anytime you can host an "Inaugural Event" with a potential 107,000 fans you are going to run into your share of hiccups and miscues.  This past weekend at Kentucky Speedway, however, was anything but a hiccup.  A 5-hour, 20 mile traffic jam marred a great NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race.  Denny Hamlin almost didn't make the official Driver's Meeting due to the jam; many fans parked on the highway and pulled out the grill's, corn-hole boxes and law-chairs and set up shop for the day.  The problem?  It wasn't that there is one major in-road to the facility, although it is a problem; it was the fact that the track was allowing fans to park and use additional spaces to tailgate!  Fan experience is key at a NASCAR event, it's a long day followed by a long race, but Fan experience doesn't only include their ability to tailgate and party pre-race.  A major part of Fan experience is traffic flow, how long does it take to get in and out of a facility (and can they even get to the facility).  The facility that I work for knows all too well about the issues you can face with limited parking/in-roads... our facility only had one point of entry/exit until about 10 years ago.  Many fans missed the pre-race ceremonies, many fans missed the green flag, and most importantly, many fans missed the race all together; either turning around in frustration or being turned around by law enforcement officials.  The Speedway made it worse by not addressing the situation publicly until late Sunday night (it was a Saturday race) and will still wait another week to announce what they will do for those ticket holders that could not attend the event.  To make matters worse, this wasn't the first issue with parking (they have had many others at IRL events in past years) and it wasn't their first headline grabbing run-in with ticket holders.  Two weeks before the race, the track openly offered discounted tickets on their website, stating that they were acting like any other business (they mentioned Macy's specifically) trying to move it's final inventory.  Um, from every other ticket office in NASCAR, I want to say thanks Kentucky Speedway.  That is exactly THE OPPOSITE of what every facility is trying to do right now.  Why reward those that wait until the last minute to choose to attend your event?  Why hurt the fans that guaranteed that they would support you months, maybe even a year, in advance?  I hope Kentucky Speedway can get this figured out, they had a great race on the track, but the black eye(s) left by these incidents hurt everyone in the long run.  


3. Sales rep training - for the first time in a year, I had the opportunity to train five (5) new sales reps for our company.  We took a week and tried to install a "basic offense" and base knowledge of our facility.  I learned something this week, I love training new reps.  They want to learn, they want to become not just sales reps, but great sales reps.  They ask questions, they want to impress, they don't want to screw up (but they do...).  That got me going; I came into work every day ready to get to our meeting room.  While I'm not the end all-be all of sales training, and I don't know everything, I do enjoy imparting what knowledge I have to these eager new hires.  I look forward to seeing how well they produce for us over the next few months, and, with any luck, hope that they can become successful in their careers.  At the end of the day, that's the goal, to hire, train and produce qualified and successful sales representatives that can go on to become successful in this industry.


That's about all I've got right now, the MLB Home Run Derby is starting and my attention has officially be diverted.  I look forward to feedback on this, and any other blog posts.  Find me on Twitter (@JAndersonTix, Google+ http://gplus.to/andersonjason81 and on LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonanderson81.  Follow/Friend/Request to connect with me and please send me feedback (or comment directly on this post).


Cheers!