I took the opportunity of waiting in the long lines of the lobby Starbucks to ask a dozen collegiate athletics directors their thoughts about the top three areas their communications staff should strive to improve in the next 12 months.

In this Q&A for Bullpen, Clint Vojdinoski asks Caley Wilson about why Blinder got started and how it’s changing the landscape for high-performance communications teams.

I didn’t need a job, but when Ross McConnell’s number illuminated my screen, I secretly hoped he might ask me to join the company he co-founded.

There’s extra responsibility to respect both the time and privacy of student-athletes. As the name suggests, they’re juggling two very significant roles – and those competing elements can put them under plenty of pressure. The same applies to the communications staff that represent them.

The Blinder team took great pride in winning the Game Changers startup pitch competition at the USA Sports Analytics & Technology Conference in Dallas, Texas, yesterday.

Need to schedule calls while you’re courtside after training? Or on the tour bus between gigs?

The Blinder mobile app might soon be your new best friend. It’s just been released into the App Store and Google Play and it makes booking a call through Blinder even easier.

The thoughts of a number of our clients – who represent Olympic champions to Grammy winners – take centre stage on the all-new Blinder website. The site is heavily sporting in flavour, with a healthy rock ‘n’ roll swagger, too.

In 1978, when The Buggles wrote Video Killed The Radio Star, they would have been pretty confident about their crystal ball. The launch of MTV in 1981 was seen as a further nail in radio’s coffin.

“Back in line, please, Hadlee.”

“Shelford, I’d really appreciate if you’d stay beside your teammates just a little longer.”

Yep, that was Richard and Buck. And it was me – just out of university – trying to keep the greatest ever assembly of New Zealand’s athletes in the correct order as they were welcomed, by announcers and TV cameras, into the New Zealand Sports Champion of the Century awards.

The London-based Music Ally is one of the big players in the music/tech space. They work with all the major record labels, as well as the likes of Spotify and Google. Their Sandbox digital music marketing report recently shone a spotlight on Blinder.

While publicists are mostly using Blinder to provide phone access to the media, fans are now getting in on the act. With audio of these conversations able to be captured, and shared with other fans on social media, it’s changing the rules around fan engagement.

I had a birthday in October, which a few of my mates described as “half-time”. It’s a sporting reference apparently (soccer to be specific), and a fairly sobering one to boot. It’s left me quietly hoping that I get to play the full 90, but also focused on playing really well in the first part of the second half.

When Kevin Durant announced he was leaving the Oklahoma City Thunder to join the Golden State Warriors, he didn’t do so via a press conference or ESPN or the Golden State Warriors.

As a former director of Sony Music Australia – following roles at Warner Music, Festival Mushroom Records and EMI – Frank Varasso knows music publicity well. He’s worked with artists from Prince to Usher, and Armin van Buuren to Sia. 

When music and sport combine, powerful things can happen – as those at both the AFL and NRL grand finals found out over the weekend.

At the Big Sound music conference in Brisbane last month, 150 hot young acts were strutting their stuff by night and hoping to catch attention and step into brighter lights. Tash Sultana – who is currently on a sold-out US tour – is one who had done just that after performing at Big Sound last year.

The best player in the NRL right now started the season as, perhaps, the fourth-best player at his club.

Being open and honest is always the best policy – except when it isn’t. And when it comes to media management in professional sport, that can be quite often.

Checking back through old emails this morning, after Emirates Team New Zealand had won the America’s Cup, I was reminded that I reached out to their communications manager, Hamish Hooper, on March 24 last year.