The Cooperative Chess Coalition ( CCC )

[Jean Hébert]

Re: The Cooperative Chess Coalition ( CCC )

I'm sure CCN editor, Edward Porper would love to hear from anyone who has suggestions on improving the magazine.

To me it is not a question of "improving the magazine", it is a question of what does the CFC want to achieve with it and figuring how it should be designed to reach those goals.
If the goal is to remind every second month a thousand hard core tournament players that the CFC is still alive, then CCN is doing good. If on the other hand the aim is to reach as many potential chess player out there as possible in order to lure them into competitive chess and make chess and the CFC grow, if the aim is to provide an effective media for chess organizers and vendors of chess supplies to market theirs products and services to the largest audience possible, then the current format of CCN is totally inadequate.
Look at what E-Bay, Amazon, Barnes and Nobles and most big and no so big companies are doing on the internet. If your e-mail gets in their hands, you start getting "offers" on a weekly if not on a daily basis. What are we trying to achieve with a big, hard to digest e-magazine appearing only 6 times a year, made up for a small bunch of fanatical tournament players ? If chess wants to compete with other activities and pastimes, it just can't sit on its hands between those six times. You've got to reach people more often and more effectively. Some rethinking out of that box is needed.

[Fred McKim]

Re: The Cooperative Chess Coalition ( CCC )

To me it is not a question of "improving the magazine", it is a question of what does the CFC want to achieve with it and figuring how it should be designed to reach those goals.
If the goal is to remind every second month a thousand hard core tournament players that the CFC is still alive, then CCN is doing good. If on the other hand the aim is to reach as many potential chess player out there as possible in order to lure them into competitive chess and make chess and the CFC grow, if the aim is to provide an effective media for chess organizers and vendors of chess supplies to market theirs products and services to the largest audience possible, then the current format of CCN is totally inadequate.
Look at what E-Bay, Amazon, Barnes and Nobles and most big and no so big companies are doing on the internet. If your e-mail gets in their hands, you start getting "offers" on a weekly if not on a daily basis. What are we trying to achieve with a big, hard to digest e-magazine appearing only 6 times a year, made up for a small bunch of fanatical tournament players ? If chess wants to compete with other activities and pastimes, it just can't sit on its hands between those six times. You've got to reach people more often and more effectively. Some rethinking out of that box is needed.

Jean, thanks for your totally constructive ideas. You're correct, at the moment we are producing monthly a document for the "hardened" players (only CFC members) in Canada. Advertizing of other chess stores does not happen as we have our own "operation". In other words our business model is the same as 25 years ago, except that the media delivery and physical form have changed.

The bigger PR question becomes how can we properly position ourselves to take advantage of 21st century technology. I think this would be a good topic for the Governor's meeting, the 1st week of January, but I'm willing to listen to ideas, now.