This is the first post on the new NDCA blog. One of the reasons we moved to a new host was to get the blog from dominating the content of the site. But having a blog, and various other modes of communication, remains important, if not paramount. The goal of the NDCA is to help out coaches in every way possible, and free and open discussion of issues that we are facing is one of the best ways to do that.
The blog is not intended as “official” statements from the organization, and should not be interpreted as such unless so stated in the post. Any member of the NDCA can submit a posting. Comments will be turned on, but will be moderated. We expect that it will be free-flowing conversation about all sorts of interesting subjects. And a nice thing about blogs is that threads can be traced back and kept together, so that if you’re following a particular subject, you won’t get lost in it, and it won’t get lost on its own.
In addition to the blog, we’re also trying to invigorate the Twitter feed, @DebateCoaches. We’ll retweet postings linking to real content, and add postings of our own with other links of interest to the debate community. Primarily this will be articles relevant to current topics. If you're a Twitter person doing such postings, let us know so that we can follow you and help propagate your material.
We also have a Facebook page and a listserver (the latter of which is down at the moment as we continue working on the back end of the switch to the new host). These are entirely open, and are good ways to communicate with the debate community as a whole with items such as upcoming tournaments and the like. And shortly we intend to launch a broadcast/podcast, where we can talk directly and share the conversations.
I’m looking forward to seeing where we go with this new commitment to communications.
-- Jim Menick