But Debbi won't go down without a fight. Who's going to face emote more? Who's smarmier? Who marvels the most? Who will shrug more, smile most wisely, sprinkle more spoon-sized portions of pedestrian platitudes hacked from the largest blocks of mind-numbing banality? Whose cloying self-satisfaction will smog up the frame first? We'll just see!
Well let's be real - Sandra had this won going in.
But just look at that symphony of competitive passive aggressive upstaging. The beams of wry, well-earned worldly wisdom, the turning to and fro to us, the viewer. Sandra smiles, Debbi smiles, Sandra laughs lightly, Debbi laughs lightly, Sandra's eyes widen, Debbi's eyes narrow then widen, they both swivel towards us then back towards each other, dear God.
You almost figure that Sandra is who Debbi would want to be and Debbi is who Sandra thinks about when she gets down on her metaphorical knees and thanks God for good-looking parents.
Not that Debbi isn't lovely, but the difference between her and Sandra is genetics.
This must be a dream sequence I watched on netflix from the makers of The Hangover. It's too good to be real.
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*And that's a LOT of filter, gotta say. Kudos for finding meadow calibre sunshine in a Canadian January.*
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* Or did the sunshine find her?
P.S.
On a non-snark basis, below is a link to the basic responsibilities of a business development department. Just adapt the model to an organization like Skate Canada, and remember that Debbi is the so-called Director of this department. Remember that Canadian competitions are the showcase for SC's business development department - SC's business development department should be up to its ears in networking, hospitality and access initiatives for existing and potential sponsors - and a director of business development ought to be on task nurturing and developing relationships all year long. It requires research, targeted outreach, strategic planning, project management, review, short and long-term goal setting, budgeting, analysis, etc.
Instead during the Vancouver Olympics Debbi was up in the star figure skaters' grill as usual, overseeing a public hoax, and team freaking leader. At every Canadian competition, domestic or international, there's her mug on Skatebuzz and there's her face at practices. When there's no competition, she finds filler to get her face on Skatebuzz. And on a "runs itself" event like HPC, she's making sure she's the only background with an unobstructed, face forward camera lens sightline. Not to mention Debbi popping up "in line" at a book signing no actual fan apparently attended at Western Challenge 2010 in order to stick her gigantic mike in Scott and Tessa's faces and inform them what she needs them to say.
What she does on camera takes a lot of prep.
No way Debbi is doing this
So Debbi is doing no business development. I don't know what you'd call her creepy Minister of Information/in-house goodwill ambassador/ media personality gig, but that's what she does.
See all the white space on the boards at Canadians? No business development. I suspect Debbi is owed in some way as there seems no limit to the on camera opportunities she's free to create for herself on Channel Debbi, such as the Bezic interview here. We don't see Sandra enough, we needed Debbi to be our window.
It's not as if Debbi is pitching in with the camera stuff because Skate Canada is run by volunteers and she has to wear a media hat in addition to her business development hat. There is no business development hat, and Skatebuzz promotes Debbi versus promoting figure skating.
Who is doing business development?
Last point- I'm seriously mystified by Skate Canada's obsession with its own logo. Yes, that's the brand image but the brand itself has to be developed before you obsess over the graphics. The graphic itself is not going to do anything to get people interested in Skate Canada.
You are so exactly right about Debbi's title vs what Debbi actually does.
ReplyDeleteI'd say the obsession with the logo is symptomatic of Skate Canada's ineptness. They think having "the" logo = "Business Development."
It is beyond weird that they feature an album of logos on their facebook. But the skaters? The skating events? Hell, there was even a Winter Olympics in Canada recently. Where are all those pictures? Oh yeah, one here, one there. Randomly. Tiny pictures. The same ones featured in the local newspaper (The podium pictures). That's it.
Oh yeah, someone is really really busy over there at Skate Canada making sure it's a viable, fan/public/business friendly organization - it shows on their official media sites (Not!)
It's funny how at the end, Sandra gushes about how much she likes Debbi. Is this genuine friendliness or fake on Sandra's part?
ReplyDelete"the star figure skaters' grill as usual, overseeing a public hoax, and team freaking leader."
Haha! Sounds like Debbi loves schmoozing with celebrities, or pretending that skaters are celebrities and then surrounding herself with them! Don't other federations typically have a coach as a team leader? How can one person do so much? Marketing, advertising, social media, schmoozing, interviewing... She's like a one-man band!
Funny about the SC logo, and so much effort put into the image but not what is behind it. It's like when people make a myspace page for their band and talk about how great their band is, but have no songs to go on it.
They shrunk that album of logos on facebook down to three pics, I believe shortly after the fact of its existence had a cameo on this blog. That is hilarious that they stalk this website.
ReplyDeleteThe logos kill me. Even the medals at Canadians were logo-shaped. What do they think that accomplishes? SC has to represent something that is then reinforced by the logo for that to work. They think it's backwards. Just blitz the public with the logo and it'll have some kind of Pavlovian response. WHAT though? What are they expecting from this saturation? That when people see the logo, they'll - what? It's not associated with anything because SC hasn't associated itself with very much, media-wise, except for Debbi, PJ, Bill Thompson, etc. Those people aren't as much of a draw as they seem to believe.
ReplyDeleteAnd the interview - isn't it normal for the interview subject to compliment the interviewer? That's what these things are all about, am I right Debbi?