Digital Sport Summit: Harry O’Brien
Harry O’Brien; Footballer, Collingwood Magpies
This was a presentation I enjoyed even as I boggled. Part of me is an extremely cynical American who on the face of it took parts of his talk to be: I’m all about promoting myself above anything. The other part of me found him very genuine and thinking he probably did a lot of good work, promoted a lot of worthy causes and didn’t flaunt his efforts to make those charities about himself. There was a RMIT journalism student sitting at my table who was a huge fan of O’Brien. He asked O’Brien for his autograph and O’Brien was really nice about it. If you get the chance to hear O’Brien speak on this topic, it is worth it. He was asked to speak about social media from the athlete perspective.
- Denying social media is denying the multitude. Social media is a vehicle for sharing the message that you want to share.
- Why should athletes use social media? To share the message that you have. Harry was asked by Web Guru to contribute to the Collingwood site. This developed into his website, Harry’s World.
- Social media can effect positive change.
- If social media is good enough for Barack Obama and Julia Gillard, then it is good enough for him.
- Harry did his first interview in December 2004 after he was drafted. He used the interview with The Age to share is ideas and beliefs. He stands for sharing hope through positivity.
- Players complained to him about their privacy being violated. He thinks fans just want insight, glimpses into his life in a controlled manner.
- People started uploading pictures of him all over Facebook. He ran out of friends. He was overwhelemed. Then he moved to Twitter. He now loves Twitter. Then he started his own website, which was his dream: Having people here what he has to say.
- Social media is unfiltered. It gives you the essence of a person. He’ll always have insight into the Collingwood Football Club. He can share pictures, videos and eventually merchandise.
- People want Harry to speak! Social media allows him to share his message.
- Harry O’Brien doesn’t really follow sport stars on Twitter, but is aware of what they are doing. He has his own style and doew what he feels is right based on guidelines and a path.
- People are made u of energy. Science has proven it.
- Some one dated $50,000 to one of his charities after hearing about his work. He uses social media but he is not always aware of the real world impact of it.
- Harry O’Brien doesn’t care about other players ranting about service they get. O’Brien studied sociology. Just because you’re a sport person and society values that, it doesn’t mean you should be treated special. You should be proactive, not negatively complaining about bad service.
- O’Brien says football is his profession. Football is like the bait, so he can share his message. His football comments are so general that the club doesn’t have a problem with his activities. If the club wanted to use him more for inspiration, good luck to them as motivation should come from with in.
And that’s it. Those are all the presentations.