by Bob Carson

Editor’s Note: The USTA website is pleased to present freelance writer Bob Carson and his popular “Outside the Box” features. This monthly series is a menu of outlandish proposals presented with a wink — but the purpose behind them is serious. The views contained in this column are that of the author alone, and do not necessarily represent the opinions or views of the United States Trotting Association.

Bob Carson

My first submission for publication was mailed to a harness racing magazine in 2003. A self-addressed stamped envelope, two articles and a cover letter were addressed to Dean Hoffman, editor of Hoof Beats magazine. The contents were slipped into a 9 x 12 brown envelope because folding your manuscript was taboo. Postage stamps were licked and attached. My friendly mail carrier dropped the hopeful parcel into his sack.

The enclosed stories were not traditional fare, nor was my cover letter. Boldly and satirically, I ended with — “Think carefully, I have relatives in New Jersey that are connected and I do not take rejection well. Oh, and please send $1,000 for the enclosed two articles.”

Three days later Dean’s reply was delivered in the slightly crinkled, self-addressed stamped envelope. Excitedly, I opened it. Inside, slightly crinkled, was my cover letter. Mr. Hoffman had crossed out every zero in $1,000, stapled a dollar bill, and wrote, “Let’s talk.”

The date of this banter is relevant. To many of us, 2003 is yesterday; to youthful readers (let us hope a few are tuned in) this date is easily confused with the Pleistocene era.

When I sent those submissions to Dean, the United States Postal System was my only option; today (with rare exceptions like Weyfarers, a literary compilation of a poetry society in Guildford/Surrey, United Kingdom) print publications rarely consider hard copy submissions.

Somehow, while we blinked, the vast majority of the printed word is no longer printed. Words like these never touch paper. Looking through the long lens, this is borderline science fiction to anyone over the age of 40.

The new metrics in business are clicks and hits. Members of the younger generation click, hit, text and tweet; use Facebook, Instagram and Skype like blue-faced savants. In harness racing, due to our demographics, clickers and hitters are not the dominant species.

It’s not that people over the age of 20 are computer illiterate, or computer adverse — most of us have quickly adapted to our cell phones, I-pads and devices; we could not do without them and realize we are not going back. Yet for some of us, adaptation to the social media/interaction world has been uncomfortable.

When you grew up with Mad Magazine in your book bag and Nancy Drew and the Mystery of the Clock Tower on your nightstand, there is a modicum of fear in sending out a tweet to a thousand recipients or latching onto a flash mob. We grew up as receivers not as senders.

A portion of us find it difficult to post in the social media world; heck it is even difficult for some of us to accept invitations for social media platforms from perfectly nice people. Unlike the new generation, we do not publicly opine and broadcast; we use the internet but do not immerse ourselves into the Web. We are connected but still disconnected. What is wrong with some of us? What are we afraid of?

For the good of our sport, we (the mid-level techies and anti-social media people) must push ourselves forward. An upward trending of social media players can only help harness racing; a few in our sport are making the leap.

I may be the only person in harness racing who has yet to meet Murray Brown, but somehow he wound up on my skimpy Facebook page. Murray is not in the Taylor Swift demographics — allegedly he is a retiree — but he has adapted very well to the Facebook world. Murray posts almost every day, usually on a harness race topic, and plenty of people post back. Dean Hoffman has hung up his stapler and taken to social media like a pacer to hobbles. His photography is phenomenal and his connections to the European harness racing scene are great.

As a faithful lurker, I have been entertained and educated by these and other folks. Murray and Dean are helping. Our young drivers who are active in social media help. Lurking does not. We need help; we need all hands in harness racing to report for social media duty.

Many believe that finding harness race fans via social media is like looking for needles in haystacks. They are probably correct. But in the modern world, you better start building haystacks or you won’t find any customers. The good news is that if you build these haystacks, modern data mining can offer clever magnets to find the needles.

If social media still befuddles you, consider this:

When the USTA launched this website, a segment of our membership howled and growled. Some wondered why in the world we needed a computer website. Many members did not even have a computer and had no intention of participating in such nonsense. This crazy idea of the computer was a waste of money and time. What was the value?

Thankfully, enough people at the USTA had the foresight to plunge forward. Today, for the life of me, I cannot imagine how harness racing was possible before the computer. Simply stated — the computer and this site led me into the game and kept me in the game. I buy horses, bet horses, research horses, and follow horses — everything from my I-pad and laptop.

Today, social media is in much the same position that this website was in a few short years ago. Many people who love harness racing look at social media and wonder, where is the revenue? What is the use? This is a logical question. Who knows where this social media business will go, but it is not going backwards.

Folks in our sport are trying to bridge the gap between the past and the future. The USTA has smart people at the helm, they realized social media was mandatory and began laying a foundation. It may be difficult to fathom, but common sense indicates that the efforts of Rob Key need support for the good of harness racing. Social media will be good business.

Want a chuckle? Want to see a concrete example of the importance of adapting to change? Want to see how failing to having a social media presence can retard business?

Recently, a young editor (not associated with harness racing) who will be running a few of my stories on his site fired three questions at me. “What is your social media footprint? How many on your Twitter account? Do you have a hashtag?”

Merely 12 years ago, 12 short years, those questions would have been indecipherable gibberish to you and to me. We were looking for stamps and the postman. Unless harness racing gets up to speed in a world of hashtags, tweets and new exotic creations we will be wayfarers in a strange new world.

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