Let the Madness Begin … March Madness That Is …
By Denise Best | Related entries in SportsYup, it’s that time of year again, when leprechauns (and bookies) make merry while bracket spots are agonized over as the office pool $ grows — yes, it’s March and let the NCAA March Madness begin!
The NCAA men’s basketball tournament begins today, and for the first time, every game of the 19-day ritual known as March Madness will be available live — and free — over the Internet.
Free? Did you say free?
Well, maybe there’s a cost somewhere along the line …
The federal government has 1.8 million civilian employees, raising the prospect of the government’s business slowing to a crawl — or its computer systems doing so — if workers click to the Webcasts from their cubicles. Michael Orenstein, a spokesman for the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees federal workplace matters, said each agency sets its own policy on personal Internet use at work.
Howard Tipton, a spokesman for the Department of the Interior, said the department permits its 77,000 employees to have “limited use” of the Internet, so long as it doesn’t interfere with their jobs. Only in rare instances — often because of a disability or other special need — are employees allowed to view streaming video, he said.
I wonder what kind of special need one has to have for streaming video rights?
Note to self … check ACLU guidelines for “special needs” listing.
“It’s a phenomenon that businesses have to live with forever now,” said Raul Fernandez, co-owner of the Washington Capitals and chairman of ObjectVideo, a security video software company that employs 85 at its headquarters in Reston. “We are living in a world where it’s not just the NCAA, but you can watch ‘Desperate Housewives’ or other games remotely through the Internet. For me, it falls into the category under trusting the employees to get their work done.”
“We have a workforce that is Web savvy and knows how to get to what they want to get to, and we don’t stop them,” said John Buckley, executive vice president for corporate communications at Dulles-based America Online Inc. “We have a big belief that people will use the Web appropriately over the course of the day and get their jobs done.”
Second note to self … download AOL employment application!
But CBS SportsLine will offer one escape hatch for workers whose bosses might frown on them spending too much time watching the games. Riethmiller said the Web site will display a “boss button” in addition to the action on the court. Click on it, he said, and the sound will shut off and the screen will switch from basketball to a spreadsheet.
Last note for the night … develop “multi-task” boss button :)
Ok, so who did you all pick?
My respective picks for the final two … Texas and Villanova.
This entry was posted on Thursday, March 16th, 2006 and is filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
March 16th, 2006 at 10:50 pm
At one newsroom where I worked, when the annual pool came around, a little old Italian lady reporter who, as far as we could tell, had no interest whatsoever in sports, joined in. When it was all over, her picks were in the top three. Astonished, we asked her her secret:
“It’s easy,” she said. “I looked at the team nicknames. Here’s the Lions vs. the Owls. Well, a Lion would eat an owl, so I picked the lions,” and so forth.
She was also the woman who discovered an amazing secret to journalism. When she’d call up some official or person in the news and they’d tell her, “no comment,” she’d reply with, “well, if you did have a comment, what would it be?” And half the time, I swear to God, they’d answer.
March 17th, 2006 at 12:48 am
Awesome. I’ll try that in the future.
March 17th, 2006 at 2:49 am
I lived in a seedy old apartment house called Bryn Mawr Gables, full of Nova upperclassmen, in ’85 when Villanova beat Georgetown and won it all. It was unforgettable. I’m rooting for them again.
March 22nd, 2008 at 7:44 am
Villanova had a big comeback last night over Clemson.I don’t know about making it to the finals tho. I know North Carolina is goin to make it to the big game.They’re pretty much flawless!