This newsletter's xG
What to expect from Asking For Directions
If you made it to this post, I’ll assume you’ve read my introduction, and I want to thank you for your time and attention. Once we get past these first couple posts, I plan to write “I”, “me” and “my” as little as possible, because this newsletter is about exploring and promoting other people’s thoughts and the journeys those individuals went through to arrive at their conclusions.
I’ll keep this post short and straightforward.
Format and frequency
Posts will probably always include a Q&A section with the individual featured, but I aim to do more than publish long conversation transcripts.
Asking For Directions will not turn into a podcast. I like writing, and I can’t keep up with the podcasts I follow, let alone find the will to create my own. I won’t rule out multimedia in posts, but no podcast!
I anticipate publishing no more than two feature interviews/profiles a month. Shorter posts with a different format might come along at a later point, but I want to concentrate on getting the interview format in a good place first.
People
As I mentioned in the intro post, I don’t envision Asking For Directions becoming a place to break news or book sit-downs with front office personnel. Unless I hack Craig Custance’s cell phone contacts or acquire Dimitri Filipovic’s energy and work ethic, I’ll be sliding into the DMs of Hockey Twitter’s favorite analytics accounts for a while.
All sorts of people contribute to the public conversation about hockey analytics and strategy, so there are very few individuals I’d rule out as potential interviewees. Anyone developing a statistical model, manually tracking games, analyzing video, creating a database, imagining better ways to use pro hockey’s marketing and financial resources, or spreading the gospel of critical thinking in sports sounds like an intriguing person to me.
If you’re interested in chatting with me, or if you know of someone who has great hockey ideas and needs a little help getting their message out, hit me up on Twitter @Just_BWest.
That’s all for now, but be on the lookout for features to start appearing in September.