88 Illini: #24-#21
I don't think I've sent this many emails in 48 hours since the very first day we launched the subscription website in 2020. Back then it was new subscribers, but now it's existing subscribers who just found out that there's a lot of information on Slack (like practice reports) that they haven't been reading because they thought Slack was just a message board.
Why did they think that? Because I've been TERRIBLE about communicating that Slack is more than just gamethreads. And I've been terrible at that for FOUR YEARS AND ELEVEN MONTHS.
I'm fixing it now. Last week, there were still 200-some subscribers at those upper two tiers who had never clicked on the Slack link they received. The rest of us are all laughing and riding and cornholing on Slack this whole time and they never joined. Well, in the last 48 hours, 71 of those 200+ never-Slackers have emailed me to say some form of "I didn't know you were putting content on Slack - can you send that link again?" For a great writer, I'm a terrible communicator.
Here, I'll say it again in this post just in case you skipped over the last two. For people with subscriptions on those levels (Grange and Seventeen Club), you get a login for Slack. Over there, using the Slack workflow platform, I'll share stuff that I don't want to put here. PJ Fleck could get a one month subscription over here and read whatever he wanted. But he'd have to pay a lot more (and email me for access) to get on to Slack. So any practice notes I write go over there. If you're one of those subscribers and you've never joined us, just email me (robert@illiniboard.com). People pay more for those levels and those are the benefits they get.
ALSO, if you've emailed me in the last 48 hours and didn't hear back, please note that I've responded to every one of those so far (well, besides the ones coming in right now on Thursday morning). If you didn't hear back from me, check your other folders. With the Slack invite link inside that email, Outlook sends it to the "Other" folder. Gmail might send it to "Promotions". It doesn't always land back in your inbox.
For Yahoo emails, I actually started getting flat-out rejections. I had to have Brumby set something up with them last night so that my IlliniBoard email address would no longer bounce back as undeliverable. And it's happening with SBCGlobal email addresses as well. Apparently, those services think that IlliniBoard dot com is emailing people to say that their uncle is a prince in a foreign country and has $4 million to send to you.
So if you're not hearing back from me, email me again. I'm sending a lot of links from my personal Gmail account now just to make sure everyone receives what they've requested. It's... frustrating not being able to communicate directly. I swear, Yahoo, I'm not a spammer.
Speaking of Brumby, I just want to show you this real quick. Our platform (Ghost) has a major update to install (MAJOR UPDATE!). And even Ghost knows to not let me do it:
Yes he will. Don't allow me anywhere near a conversation centered around how the site updates.
I'm a very poor communicator.
24. Brandon Henderson
Offensive Lineman
Uniform number: #75
Year in school: Junior (3 years to play 2)
Height: 6'-5" – Weight: 335 lbs.
Hometown: East St. Louis, Illinois
High School: East St. Louis Senior HS
Background
