Thursday, July 28, 2005

How did you find out about the Club?

Please check one:

__ Mentioned by a fellow chess player
__ Flyer at a local tournament
__ Everyone in the blogosphere knows about the Boylston Chess Club!

As BCC Weblog began to build a readership in the chess blogosphere, it occurred to me that over the long term it might provide branding and marketing benefits for the club. While the club is certainly well known in the New England chess community, I doubt chess players in other parts of the country (or other countries, for that matter) knew much, if anything, about it. It wasn't that long before I received comments and e-mails along the lines of "Next time I'm in Boston, I'll try to stop by." Of course to date, we haven't seen a great influx of blog readers in our tournaments -- though I suspect that Howard Goldowsky's recent appearance was in some way motivated by his occasional participation in this enterprise.

Anyway, I received an e-mail from Chessdad64 of The 64 Square Jungle fame. It turns out that he and his son, Chessdude64, are traveling to Sturbridge, Massachusetts for this weekend's 35th Annual Continental Open. After the tournament they will be staying in the Boston area for a few days and have decided to stop by the club for the Tuesday Night Blitz. I'm looking forward to meeting them.

This will be the first tangible marketing benefit of the blog. It will be interesting to see if this turns out to be a one-time event or the beginning of a trend.

As an aside, Chessdad64's visit means that I will be at the club for three nights in a row (Mon - Reubens-Landey Rd. 4; Tue - Blitz; Wed - Adjourned game from Reubens-Landey Rd. 3). Needless to say, my wife doesn't view this as consistent with my usual one-night a week chess habit. After eighteen wonderful years, I hope she shows me some compassion and leniency during the court proceedings :)

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