FAQ at Carolinahurricanes.com

Assignment:  Create an interactive FAQ help page for your entity (publication, company or organization). This frequently asked question section should anticipate common problems and questions users might have. The page should have:
•  Clear, comprehensible instructions
•  Clear organization
•  Thorough consideration and anticipation of user questions
•  Informative, helpful answers to FAQ questions
•  Design that promotes, rather than impedes, page usability

CAROLINA HURRICANES FAQ

1. How do I sign-up for season tickets?

2. How do I get single-game tickets?

3. Do you have anything between single-game and season-tickets?

4. Where do the Canes play their home games?

5. How do I get to the arena?

6. Are there message boards and blogs for fans?

7. Who is on the team roster?

8. What are the players stats this year?

9. Do you offer any special benefits to season ticket holders?

1. Season tickets are still available for the 2006-2007 season, prorated for the remaining games this season. A detailed brochure is available. Email your ticket request, or call 1-800-NHL-CANES.   

  2. Single game tickets are available through ticketmaster.com, through ticketmaster charge-by phone at 919-834-4000, or at the RBC center box office.  Box office hours are M-F and Saturday 10-4. The box office is also open on Sunday game days. Tickets for December and January games are available now, tickets for February, March, and April games will be available January 2, 2007.

 3. Yes, we offer 10-game and 24-game mini-plans.  There are three different packages within the 10-game plan. Per game ticket prices within these plans are between the single-game price and season ticket discounted prices.
 
 4. The Carolina Hurricanes play all  home games at the RBC Center, 1400 Edwards Mill Road, Raleigh.  The state-of-the-art RBC Center opened in 1999. It was funded as a joint venture between the State of North Carolina, Wake County, the City of Raleigh, and the Wolfpack Club at North Carolina State University.

 5. The RBC Center is located at 1400 Edwards Mill Road in Raleigh, NC. Maps and directions are available online and below: 

From Greensboro, Durham, Chapel Hill
I-40 East into Raleigh
Exit Wade Avenue,  Exit #289
First Exit Edwards Mill Road

From Fayetteville, Lumberton, South Carolina
I-95 North to I-40 West
Exit Wade Avenue, Exit #289
First Exit Edwards Mill Road

From Goldsboro, Kinston
US 70 West to I-40 West
Exit I-440 Inner Beltline
Exit #4; left at top of ramp
First Exit Edwards Mill Road

From Rocky Mount
US 64 West to Raleigh
Exit I-440 Outer Beltline
Exit #4-B
Second Exit Edwards Mill Road

From Wilmington, Jacksonville
I-40 West to Raleigh
Exit Wade Avenue, Exit #289
First Exit Edwards Mill Road

From Wilson, Greenville
US 264 West to 64 West to Raleigh
I-440 Outer Beltline
Exit #4-B
Second Exit Edwards Mill Road

From Charlotte, Kannapolis, Salisbury
I-85 North to I-40 East to Raleigh
Exit Wade Avenue, Exit #289
First Exit Edwards Mill Road

From Richmond, Petersburgh, Virginia Area
I-95 South to I-85 South to US 1 South to Raleigh
I-440 Outer Beltline
Exit #4-B
Second Exit Edwards Mill Road

6. There are numerous message boards and blogs for fans to interact  and keep up with news from a fan perspective. The team’s official message border is “Caniac Corner“.

7. The team has a 25-man roster. This includes Cory Stillman and Frank Kaberle who are on injured reserve.

8. Up-to-date player statistics in numerous categories are maintained by the team, by the NHL, and by ESPN.

9. Season ticket holders receive numerous special benefits, including the option to buy extra single-game seats at a discount before public on-sale, the ability to buy multi-game parking passes, priority in sale of playoff tickets, a discount at the team store, and the ability to e-mail tickets to friends. The team has a special FAQ on this subject.

My Canes all-star game voting blog: marketing

I’ve got a blog covering online voting for the NHL All-Star game, focusing on the Carolina Hurricanes nominees. Voting goes through January 2. I’ve been posting every day. I’ve been trying to incorporate ideas from this class.

I’m running a guerilla marketing campaign, using some of the tools suggested by the marketing component of this course. The assigned press release announced the campaign. I used the list of message boards and blogs in my original writing and posted voting information and links to my blog on all the message boards and blogs I found in the research for my original writing.  I next decided to embark on a viral marketing campaign. I went to Myspace and found two different Carolina Hurricanes groups with several hundred members each, and posted info on voting on the discussion thread for each group, and used my member’s privilege to send a bulletin to all the members of one of the groups. I used my unc facebook.com account and found a dozen Canes fan clubs there as well, varying from 50 to 500 members. I posted info on voting and a link to my blog on the wall on each of those groups. Yesterday, I wrote to the admins of each of those groups, asking them to message all of the members with the information.  One admin has already messaged her 250 members, I hope others will follow along when they return from Thanksgiving break.  I’ve also written to the Canes marketing department and talked stragegy with them.

 I’ve linked a graphic from the Canes website to the ballot itself:

 

My N&O Op-Ed on redistricting

I have an op-ed on redistricting in the Sunday 11/26/2006 N&O (page 27A in the print edition). Interestingly, after they accepted my writing, I had to FAX separate releases to two different people at the N&O, one for the print version, one for the online. (Don’t the two divisions speak to each other? The releases were identical) My initial writing was 1,700 words, I cut it to 890 before submitting it, they edited it to 872. Interestingly, they edited down the next to the last paragraph, leaving it beginning with the word “And” (my version did NOT start with “And”)

 I’ll post a version here later this week that has links to my sources.

CanesAllStars blog to Assist All-Star Game Voting

Assignment: Draft a press release on behalf of your organization or publication. You choose the topic or purpose. Post to your blog.

For More Information Contact:

Gerry F. Cohen

(919)247-xxxx

CanesAllStars@gmail.com

CAROLINA HURRICANES FAN BLOG

TO HELP COORDINATE NHL ALL-STAR GAME VOTING

Will help fans vote for Canes players Ward, Brind’Amour, Cole and Staal

in online balloting beginning November 15; hanging chads gone

Raleigh, NC, November 12 – A website that helps Carolina Hurricanes hockey fans to connect with each other on message board and blogs has announced plans to launch the “CanesAllStars” blog, devoted to Canes fan online balloting for the 2007 NHL All-Star game to be held January 24 in Dallas. The blog, http://canesallstars.wordpress.com will link the online ballot for Canes hockey fans, and have sections for fans to comment on the Canes nominees and encourage others to get involved. According to the National Hockey League, fan balloting begins November 15 and ends January 2, 2007.

The National Hockey League released the official 100-player ballot list on Friday, which includes Carolina Hurricanes forwards Rod Brind’Amour, Erik Cole, and Eric Staal, as well as goalie Cam Ward. For the first time, all fan voting will be online.  For Ward and Staal, this is their first time on the All-Star ballot. Brind’Amour played in the 1992 All-Star game while a member of the Philadelphia Flyers. Cole has been on the All-Star ballot.

Fans Sound Off: Carolina Hurricanes Message Boards and Blogs (revised)

New Assignment: Revise your online writing presentation based on feedback from the instructor. Solicit feedback also from your writing workshop partner(s) from modules 1 & 2. I’ve received comments from the instructor and writing partner, as well as from one of the bloogers I catalogued, and have incorporated all the comments. I’ve also updated some of the stats and information.  

Original assignment: Original writing piece for an organization, the Carolina Hurricanes NHL hockey team (with which I have no affiliation). Site visitors may be those who regularly frequent message boards and are familiar with the written and unwritten rules, or they may be new to the genre and will welcome a FAQ on etiquette. Users might just come once or twice to the site, or may revisit to see updated resources and news about the fan message board universe.

You may be in the capacity crowd when 18,730 fans converge on the RBC Center for home dates for the 2006 NHL Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes, a fan from afar, a former Raleigh area resident, or even a resident of another country, perhaps the native land of one of the Canes’ European-born players. With the internet, the fun doesn’t have to end when the game is over.  This guide to online fan sites, such as message boards and blogs, can keep you involved.

MESSAGE BOARDS

Hundreds of Canes fans are using online message boards to share their experiences, commenting on the team and individual players. Tickets are traded, photos posted and shared, and stories told and retold. Here’s how to get in on the action.

Anyone with an internet connection can join the online Carolina Hurricanes world. Message board users can make up their own screen names and stay relatively anonymous, or post with their real names, and even upload avatars like that of Scoreboards message board moderator Jeffbear.

BLOGS

In addition to message boards, blogs allow individual fans to set up their own individualized weblogs and post commentary, with most allowing readers of the blog to chime in with their comments. A good blog will also have a blogroll, linking the reader to similar sites or resources.

AN ONLINE FAN COMMUNITY

Online fan communities have largely developed on their own, but both national media and the team itself have also hosted message boards or set up blogs. This article catalogues numerous message boards and blogs that focus on the Canes, as well as gives casual fans pointers on using those boards. Message boards are be of two varieties, moderated, and those with standards. Scoreboards moderator Jeffbear discusses differences:

“I think it’s important to deal with the stance regarding moderation and Standards up front. There’s a huge difference between an actively moderated board and a loosely moderated board in terms of what posters can get away with in terms of behavior, and it’s good to make people aware of the rules up front … and then enforce them. All message boards generate their own conventions in terms of slang terms, user handles, avatar pictures and the like. Those things need to be explained in a good FAQ”

GAME DAY THREAD
Fans seem to enjoy the message board game-day thread, where the moderator posts an introduction to the game a day or two in advance, fans make predictions and talk about injuries, and during the game fans listening on the radio or watching on TV post commentary. Fans returning from the game also chime in later. A regular season game might see 100+ postings, while a playoff game might have over 300.