Archive for February 2011
My Interview With Shari Weiss
A number of months ago my friend Shari Weiss (an online friend) requested an interview, I said sure! Our schedules weren’t lining up to well for a short while but the interview finally took place, and I am going to share it with you here.
Shari is a Social Media Maven if you will, she teaches this misunderstood arena, there’s so much we don’t understand about this space. I actually met Shari on FriendFeed a few years ago, we got connected through a chat with Robert Scoble, and we have been chatting regularly since that squable.
Shari can also be found on LinkedIn she loves to discuss Social Media at length, be sure to ask her about her group as well, and tell her Owen sent you there.
I hope you enjoy and learn something from the interview, more importantly, I want you to think. Here is the link to Shari’s website where you can read the entire interview, enjoy:
The Future Of Business – Technology & Tourism
Seth Godin made the statement, While We Weren’t Paying Attention, The Industrial Age Just Ended. If that’s true, the masses of the world are in for change never experienced before. Although technology appears to be driving this change and new world of business, it’s more about how you and I think, to be more specific, how younger generations think.
In The Future Of Business series, I have been sharing insights on various industries, what we might expect to happen in the next 3 – 5 years. In this post I’m going to take a look at Tourism, this is an interesting topic because it is such a huge buisiness, somewhere around a 6 Billion dollar industry. But how will this shift from the Industrial Age to the Digital Age impact Tourism? It’s hard to tell at first glance but lets look at some obvious things that technology may introduce.
I can remember as a kid looking forward to summer, every summer my Mother & Father would take us someplace and it was always far enough away you couldn’t walk home. I could hear Mom & Dad discussing, planning and strategizing months in advance, we were going east or south, that meant Manitoba or the USA. My Dad would never stop either, if we were going from Calgary to Winnipeg (14 hours of driving) he was going to do it in a day, if we were lucky we might stop for potty breaks. The stops were never at a fancy restaurant or hotel, they were rest stops with smelly unclean outhouses. I know this sounds like abuse by todays standards, but that’s what it was like travelling with my family back in 60’s and early 70’s.
One of the saving grace’s on those trips were Tourism Offices, a place where we could pick up a map, a coffee or candy. More importantly, they had washrooms! Something I noticed in these kiosk like buildings was, you would find things there you couldn’t find anywhere else. Local artists would have paintings and or carvings, jewellery and what have you, interesting and talented people figured out it was a great place to sell their work.
Jumping ahead to today, and not much has changed in these groovy little Tourism Kiosks, why? Interestingly enough, the problems the Tourism Industry had back when I was a boy, they still have today. It’s always about funding and how these non-profit organizations have to conform to some very rigid groups and influencial people. I understand the problem all to well because, I used to be Vice-president of the Chamber of Commerce and Chairman of Tourism some 20 years ago. Tourism used ot be under the Chamber domain, today they are independant, out on they’re own.
Now the Canadian Tourism Commission (which is well funded) has culled some series data about where and why people come to visit Canada, it’s called Explorer Quotient, something to put in your toolbox. Here is the EQ presentation made by the CTC.
These groups have something we didn’t have 20 years ago, not even 15 years ago, we now have the Internet & Social Media. Tourism is struggling in this space because they don’t have the resources to create, invite or listen to what we all want. The opportunities are unlimited now for tourism and other non-profit organizations. I learned recently that the Green Bay Packers FootBall team is actually a non-profit organization!
There are a number of tools tourism could take advantage, they are already in place, like Foursquare and Gowalla, these are the low hanging fruit today, but in the next 5 years we will see some very interesting technologies that Tourism will leverage. In the future, we will be able to travel to far away places in the comfort of our own home via Virtual Reality. You may stop at a Tourism Rest Stop and sit down with a virtual reality headset and walk around the very community you are about to enter. You will be able to get key information on the top tourist stops while there, enjoy a cup of coffee at the same time. You will have the opportunity to get special deals you can’t get anywhere else in that town, only at the tourism office. You will have the opportunity to opt-in while touring the area digitally, yes the tourism will be able to track where you are via a smartphone, they will be able to forward information and real-time specials happening for a limited time.
Through your smartphone you could contact them on Twitter to make reservations at a restaurant or hotel. Most businesses will be on these social networks, they will over special deals and opportunities you find in the local paper. Maybe these businesses will accept FaceBook & Twitter Credits as payment. According to those two social networks credits will be offered July 1st, 2011. We’ll see how to roles out but it opens the door for local businesses and especially the tourism societies to partner with local or far away businesses for visitors in the tourism kiosks. We could help our local tourism by donating FaceBook & Twitter credits for them to use with local businesses, so many ideas can come from this topic alone. And these credits or points can be used anywhere in the world!
The sky is the limit here, if you can think it, you can probably do it. Technology is making it easier, what other ideas do you think Tourism could do to attract visitors?
Stuff From Under My Hat
We have a few problems on this planet, we will have a water shortage, we will even have a food shortage, Canada’s population is predicted to shrink, but why aren’t the masses paying attention to what’s coming? Many would claim we have an education problem, I beg to differ, we have a listening problem, not an education problem.
I have taught, spoken to, and even worked with many business people in different sectors, and I can tell you, listening is truely the challenge amung them. Now I don’t claim to know everything, infact, I don’t even predict the future, I do what’s called Foresight, I’m listening to what’s going on in the world. In a world that is moving from PC centric to a world completely mobile, it’s hard to keep up. We are regrouping on the fly, and regrouping people are impossible to control. That’s what big business is trying to figure out, don’t waste your time, you will never nail it down. Use your ears more than your mouth, let your ears keep your hat on.
The listening problem comes from an insecurity in my humble opinion, business owners don’t want to look stupid, or be seen as if they don’t know what’s happening in their business and or around them. I can only tell you this, it is impossible for any one person to know everything there is to know about everything, including your business. If you are a business owner, try to listen more, grow bigger ears, and then turn your business into a platform that people will find useful. People always return to what is useful. And become a likeable, lovable brand.
Tell your story and make it sound different, and mobilize everything. Just some thoughts and stuff from under my hat.
How are you listening to your customers?
Headwayhub.com – Releases Video Series
Now many of you know I use Headway Themes here on Owengreaves.com, I’m a huge fan of the product, and the support community, it’s the best. I was going to put this on my Headway page but I thought everyone should know about this first hand, on my homepage, in your face so to speak.
I began using Headway Themes over a year ago, and I’ve met some savvy people in the Headway community, one in particular stands out, and is a young, sharp entreprenuer named Corey. Corey built a website dedicated to helping others use Headway Themes, and now Corey has gone a step further by developing a series of tutorials on video. The low cost of these video’s could possible save you hours of work. Be sure to checkout “How to build a Community Run Website with Headway Themes and Gravity Forms”. You can find these videos on HeadwayHub.com.
These videos will allow you to design and build effective community driven websites, there’s no need for programming knowledge, just follow Corey’s instructions….point, click, drag & drop, and SHAZZAM! Each tutorial is less than ten minutes long and contain simple instructions on how to build your community website.
You will love Corey’s gentle voice, leading you through each process, and they are simple and easy to follow, no fuss no muss. I highly recommend you get the series, Corey has wrapped it up in an easy to use package for you. Get it here.
Are You A Possibility Thinker?
What I love about going to a futurist conference, or sitting down with other Futurists and innovators is, you will never hear them say your nuts, that’s crazy, or it will never work! There is nothing more energizing than an open mind, a willingness to be taken far from the comfort zone, where would we be if there were no Futurists or innovators?
I can only speak for myself but, have you ever shared an out of the box idea with someone, and they just stare at you with a blank expression? It happens all the time in my community, and I’m older than most of the people I share with in most cases. I mean you would think at 53 years of age I would never talk about the extinction of paper money, the end of the cash register as we know it, that giving your product or service away for free will make you more money than charging for it, or sharing Ray Kurzweil’s singularity vision. It amazes me the masses don’t know what’s happening to them through all these advancements in Technology. If they did pay attention, I’m not convinced technology would advance as quickly as it is. We are far too eager to accept new technologies without seriously considering what the consequences might be.
Now, if you are a futurist or innovator, you have probably felt or thought the same thing at some point in your studies. My focus is on The Future of Business, or commerce. Much of what we know today is leaving us far more quickly than anticipated, but we are struggling to let go of the past. The Gen C kids, under 20 demographic, and the generations to follow, will re-write the rules and laws of business to the point most of us won’t recognize it. I’m convinced they’ll shake their heads when they hear us talk about the future, chuckling under their breath, waiting for us to move on.
Imagine what we would learn if we could get inside their heads, how they view the world, and how they would organize work after we are dead and gone. We would tell them they were nuts, crazy and it will never work, I certain of it.
I would rather we put some future thought into or day-to-day lives, I don’t mean planning your 2 week vacation, we already give that too much attention. I’m talking about how we will learn, how we will work, how we will consume, and how we will provide goods and services. Start spending time around the Gen C demographic and ask them what they see, get around those who are Futurists and Innovators, you will find you have to unlearn much of what you know.
I challenge you to never say the words, your nuts, your crazy, and it will never work. If you are someone who does, you are holding back our future, you are part of the problem and not part of the solution. We have much to do from an energy perspective, the coming water shortage, and possibly a food shortage. In the next 20 – 30 years, we may find ourselves killing others for what we throw away today.
I challenge you to open your mind, to think possibility thinking, creating the impossible, and above all, value the innovators and futurists of today, as they the looking glass of your future.
Which one are you? A possibility thinker, or a person who says it will never fly, it will never work.