We’re Not Calling it Team Building

So, it has been about three months that we’ve all been working here at TXT-TV. A few faces have disappeared off the face of the planet, while those that remain become more and more familiar, friendly. 

Bonds are being formed and we’re even getting to know one another more intimately; after all, we’re in it to win it, and we’re in it together too.

Example – we’re all getting a good idea about each other’s relationship status, gossiping about one person’s annoying boyfriend and getting all excited about another moving in with their long-term girlfriend. It’s a kind of local currency, one you’ll find in just about any work environment. If you’re doing it right, people open up to you, let loose and discuss what it is that makes them who they are – problems and all.

So, what do we do for each other to cultivate our bonds of friendship? 

Well, a few weeks back, one of the moderators had the brilliant idea to get a pool going so we could treat one of the team leaders to a fancy supper on his birthday. His hard work and dedication are inspiring to say the least, and we all thought getting him and his girl a night on the town was an ideal present. Suffice it to say it was definitely well appreciated and they both had an excellent time. It’s the little things like this that keep the bonds of the team strong. 

This isn’t your typical corporate team building exercise – believe me I’ve been through those before, they’re terrible, and I can’t imagine anyone at TXT-TV wants to do that idiotic exercise where you fall into another person’s arms. 

Quick sidebar – given my weight and height, when I fall, very few people are running to catch me, prepared or not...

See, good team building has to be organic. A solid team working to accomplish any given task or goal has to bond together for its own reasons, not because they feel obliged to.

The Luck of the Carefully Thought Out Draw

So what are we interested in here at TXT-TV you may ask? Well, I can tell you what we're interested in: your happiness. 

I know, I know, schmaltz right? But it’s true, and a few days back we made one lucky TXT-TV viewer a whole lot happier. That’s right. Neil L. of Scarborough, Ontario is the winner of the inaugural Lowest Bid Standing reverse auction contest, Touchdown Chowdown! 

He and a friend have won tickets to see the Argonauts take on the Alouettes at the newly renovated Molson Stadium in beautiful downtown Montreal. They will stay at the luxurious Hotel du Fort and, of course, not have to worry about transportation or food and drinks - we're also covering that.

It’s just a little way for us to say thank you to our wonderful viewers.

Now if you’re starting to get all teary eyed because you think you’ve somehow missed the boat on TXT-TV contests,  Lowest Bid Standing, or LBS as we have hiply called it, is in development as a whole new regular program on TXT-TV. As a reverse auction, the winner is the individual with the lowest unique bid on any given item.  Strange? Yes! Financially tenable? Maybe! Waste of time? Absolutely not, just ask Neil Ledger, the first winner of our innaugural Lowest Bid Standing reverse auction contest!

Lowest Bid Standing will be coming to the TXT-TV airwaves soon enough in a whole new format, allowing all of our loyal viewers the opportunity to win cold, hard cash!

Think of LBS as yet another way to win, simply by watching and participating in TXT-TV, Canada’s most interactive television network.

Where the Vuvuzelas Won’t Work

If you’re a red blooded Canadian like myself, a connoisseur of hockey, beavers, great open expanses of raw natural beauty and, of course, poutine, double-doubles and bison burgers, then you know one thing with absolute certainty – the Vuvuzela is an African knock off of the Hockey Horn.

That’s right, I’m claiming the Vuvuzela for Canada folks – if you’ve ever played peewee hockey in Canada, you know what a Hockey Horn is – it’s usually accompanied by shrieking mothers, rattles and as many video cameras as the trembling hands of the parents gathered can hold on to. But alas, what with Chicago’s beautiful Curse of Muldoon (look it up) ending Stanley Cup victory a few weeks back, there’s no hockey to watch, and little to play.

So then what do we do with a show like Road to the Cup, one of our best, and most watched, programs ever? D’uh – we re-formulate it for the purposes of the World Cup!

That’s right – we have soccer (football) fever – and we’re going to be tearing up the virtual pitch by offering you Road to the Cup; the World Cup edition - the fastest paced, lowest scoring, passing-intensive specialty sports chat show we’ve ever had!

But will there be any Vuvuzelas you might be asking?

Absolutely not! Considering that we can’t hear you, and no one’s going to bother spending a quarter texting in ‘bahzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz’, we can offer you all the excitement of a Mexican sports-caster without the annoying cacophony of a stadium filled with proto-trumpet players!

And wait – if that’s not awesome enough – I can personally guarantee you we will stop all other programming for MOD messages that read: gooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllllllllll!

The world’s sport is now in its cup mode, and no one cares about cups like us. 

 We don’t just use them as containers for various liquids, we also enjoy hoisting them up over our heads! The whole wide world is watching the elegant ballet of the third most important sporting event of the year, and you can get in on the ground-floor with all the soccer related chatting and texting you can imagine. The awesome number of lazy-boy refs and couch-surfing soccer jocks will make your eyes tear up in utter joy as you discover just how little you actually know about this amazing, death defying sport!

Road to the Cup (Soccer Edition) premiers Wednesday June 23^rd 2010 at 6:30 pm, and will air nightly at this time until the end of the competition. Enjoy watching TXT-TV!

Mood Altering & Mind Bending

So, yesterday, after over three months of work here at TXT-TV, I found myself working with another moderator with whom I’ve never worked. 

We had a good time, and as always I learned even more about how this place works, what the concerns are, what other mods think etc. There’s been a lot of buzz going on in the office.

The last few weeks seem to have seen a real upsurge in use, and a decent back and forth conversation has taken place more often than I can count. It’s odd comparing it to way back in the day when we just started out, since everything was a little stilted back then. People didn’t even seem to try to make that much sense y’know? Now we’re breaking usage records, and from what my moderation associates tell me, the overnight stretch is exactly where you want to be. Polite conversation prevents me from delving too deeply into its content, perhaps the teaser could be simply this; TXT-TV – after 11, it’s not polite!

Ahhh, in a previous life I was an ad executive at a high-powered Madison Avenue advertising agency; I was Dick Whitman…

What else to report on?

Well, as far as the program Road to the Cup is concerned, we’re still on the road, but we’re going after a different cup. That’s right, scream "Goal!" as long and as loud as you can, because we are taking it to the streets and looking for your hot, tempting opinions and ideas to help us get through the cosmic ballet that is international football competitions. Get out your Vuvuzela and blare it at your TV screen for maximum effect!

And on the note of international football competitions and their effect on Canadians, the following was related to me by a relative who works in a very cosmopolitan university: “You see, in the first week of competition, everyone is happy that they can participate in this great international equalizer – a similar sentiment as you’d have with the Olympics during the opening ceremonies. The second week, people start getting a tad defensive, a few off the cuff remarks, jokes etc. By the third week, people begin talking about how superior their nations are in relation to other countries. Everything is polite up until the final week, up until the point when it becomes obvious who’s going to battle it out for the big win. At that point, all you hear is one group calling the other ‘fascists’”.

Talk about hitting the nail on the head eh?

The First Rule of TXT-TV

So, we had an interesting last few days I can report on.

There’s been a whole new buzz here. 

We launched a bunch of revamped commercials and interstitials (the station call-sign, usually only a few milliseconds, now in glorious full-screen action), quickly followed by the deliveries of the first round of TXT-TV swag – stickers and Technicolor t-shirts; a must for any fashionista this summer!

Next came an interesting moderator-wide email reminding us to exercise a bit of caution (or at least some rudimentary research skills) when handling topic and issue suggestions from our loyal viewers. Turns out one of the subjects recently sent in to an episode of My Life Sux was in fact posted to another website recently. 

But it wasn't one of our intrepid leaders who caught this - it was one of you - our loyal viewers.

Some of us have been trying to see what the limits are with regards to what we can post as topics, say to the public etc. It’s not in-house boundary pushing either – our myriad of bosses have made it abundantly clear what the boundaries are from within. No, what I’m talking about is more like whether or not you guys buy what we’re talking about. Clearly some of you do, since many of our topics elicit quite a fair bit of response. 

But some of you are super sharp, eyes like eagles etc. 

In my experience, I’ve had three unique texters tell me my facts were slightly off, or that a news story has changed since when I read it, and how something that may have been objectionable has in fact become acceptable due to new developments. 

Long story short, we’re all learning quite a bit from you guys.So keep it coming....