The piece of string

Here's a useful analogy that I'm borrowing from a book called "Gut Feeling", by Peter Urs Bender...

Take a 3 inch piece of string, lay it out on a table in front of you. Then PULL it along the table by one end. You can make it go anywhere and it will follow you. Now try PUSHING it. The string piles up on itself and nothing happens.

The same can be said for a website. You cannot push a person into a vacation, but you can pull them along a journey with great photos and narrative. You can influence them into wanting to take the same journey by outlining the whole thing from start to finish.

Flashing red buttons that say "Come Here, Come Here" simply aren't going to work. Putting your brochure (verbatium) on your site isn't going to work.

A steady tempting of what awaits them in your little corner of the world is a much better approach.

Nudge, encourage, listen and empathize.

Underperforming web tools (like your website or blog) are a reflection of the organizational objectives rather then the tools or technologies them selves. It really is about the organizational culture and the approach.

Later gators,
Beth

Twitter among the stars...

Recently Kevin Spacey, one of my favorite actors, and David Letterman had a conversation about Twitter.

When I saw it, I felt that a lot of my readers would be having the same kind of conversation, and be able to relate to the interaction between Kevin and David.

So here is the embedded video.

You'll notice that this is my second embedded video on my blog, and unlike the first one (two posts previous), this one is custom fitted to the proper width. I left the first one AS IS, to show that blogging and embedding is a continuous learning process. And that you don't have to exactly master the whole thing at once. Just pieces.


I've been blogging for a little over a year and during that time video clips have become more and more popular, the code to embed them is presented for you, and so I've started to incorporate them into my blogging. I'm ever evolving :) It's not required that I or you be on the cutting edge, just that we add a splash of the new every now and then.

So you think it only happens to other people...Part Two

One week later - An update on the Sons of Maxwell VS United Airlines

Views on the You Tube video - astronomical and counting
Appearance on Canada AM - check
Appearance on CNN - check
Wolf Blitzer mentioning your name - check
Print media tailgating on your success - check

Numerous Tweets - check
Facebook sharing links - check
Follow up video on You Tube thanking everyone for their support - check

People who whole heartedly agree with you - check
People who totally disagree with you - check



Did it work? Was it worth it? Only time will tell.

So you think it only happens to other people...

Social media frenzy right here in Atlantic Canada.

The band, Sons of Maxwell, recently travelled to the US for a concert with United Air Lines. Long story short, the baggage handlers broke a guitar. After several fruitless phone calls to United, the frustrated band vowed to unleash their wrath on You Tube.

As of this writing, the video, posted 48 hours ago:

• has received 82,000 (and counting) plays
• was featured on the website consumerist.com
• was played on my local radio station
• was facebooked by many of my Atlantic Canada friends
• was facebooked by my local DJs
• was twittered
• was Dugg
• was shared and forwarded

Check it out, it's a catchy tune

Update: when I went to get that link the views were up to 132,000

How can I do something like this? Or do I even want to?

More importantly - How do I keep my operation from becoming a "United" and forcing someone to blast me on the internet?

All good questions. Ask me when you sign up for your Tourism Technology mentoring session.

beth at tianb dot com

Thinking outside the box

This week I stumbled across unique uses for Trip Advisor, and I thought what a great outside the box use for a vacation rating site. Especially in the Tourism Industry where we are facing a human resource shortage.

Quoted from a Linked In group discussion:


Tripadvisor.com Secondary Use for Employers & Job Seekers

Two additional uses for Trip Advisor :
Not only is Tripadvisor a great tool for consumers it is also a great tool for employers and job seekers.
1. Recruiters and employers should check all GM candidates past hotel’s placement on Tripadvisor. As past performance is a good predictor of future success.
2. Job seekers should check a hotel rating on Tripadvisor prior to a job interview to learn of any operational weaknesses that they could help to address. I believe most employers would be impressed to learn that a potential candidate took the time to research their property beyond the company website.


So here's the challenge, do you have a favorite website that you use for a purpose that might not be what the developers intended?

Can you think of outside the box uses for other sites?

Send in your ideas and I'll share them in the next post
beth@@tianb.com