Robert Paterson's Weblog

PEI Tourism Fees? Get rid of the system!

PEI Tourism Operators are reeling since they were told this week about the massive fee increase for Inspection. My question in response is do we need an inspection at all? Details here.

Today with social media being ubiquitous, most intelligent operations rely on ratings by customers or on feed back on Twitter and Facebook. This kind of feedback is real and is trusted by the client. It also allows the operator a chance to rate their customer too!

The inspection system is a fake as it is. It is a one day snapshot that looks at how clean and neat the place is. It ignores the wider experience and focuses on the detail. So a place can have a vile setting and get a high rating because it ticks off all the boxes. The place can look ok but have a vile operator.

The inspection system is expensive by its design and cannot be made less so.

Who does the system protect?

When I travel, I look not for an official rating but a user rating. If I have a bad experience, I tell others. I suspect that the system protects the not very good operator who can game the system.

Time to push back and get rid of it completely.

Travel Chaos - Twitter - Lessons for us all

Millions of travellers have been stuck this holiday season. The question is what can you as a traveler and what can you as a supplier do about this kind of event.?

The lesson taken from this Christmas is surely larger than travel but also applies to any bad event – such as Skype’s system failure. You can imagine what your equivalent might be in your organization.

I can see that part of the answer is to be found in social media. Here is how the NYT ran their version of the story today:

While the airlines’ reservation lines required hours of waiting — if people could get through at all — savvy travelers were able to book new reservations, get flight information and track lost luggage. And they could complain, too.

Since Monday, nine Delta Air Linesagents with special Twitter training have been rotating shifts to help travelers wired enough to know how to “dm,” or send a direct message. Many other airlines are doing the same as a way to help travelers cut through the confusion of a storm that has grounded thousands of flights this week.

But not all travelers, of course. People who could not send a Twitter message if their life depended on it found themselves with that familiar feeling that often comes with air travel — being left out of yet another inside track to get the best information.

For those in the digital fast lane, however, the online help was a godsend.

Danielle Heming spent five hours Wednesday waiting for a flight from Fort Myers, Fla., back home to New York. Finally, it was canceled.

Facing overwhelmed JetBlue ticketing agents, busy signals on the phone and the possibility that she might not get a seat until New Year’s Day, she remembered that a friend had rebooked her flight almost immediately by sending a Twitter message to the airline.

She got out her iPhone, did a few searches and sent a few messages. Within an hour, she had a seat on another airline and a refund from JetBlue.

“It was a much, much better way to deal with this situation,” said Ms. Heming, 30, a student at New York University. “It was just the perfect example of this crazy, fast-forward techno world.”

Although airlines reported a doubling or tripling of Twitter traffic during the latest storm, the number of travelers who use Twitter is still small. Only about 8 percent of people who go online use Twitter, said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, a nonprofit organization that studies the social impact of the Internet.

“This is still the domain of elite activist customers,” Mr. Rainie said.

Of course, an agent with a Twitter account cannot magically make a seat appear. More often than not, the agent’s role is to listen to people complain.

I recently posted about Trust and how important it is. Being silent is THE worst position. Even when you cannot offer a fix, offering an ear and the truth helps. Skype kept a running commentary about their problem and now that they have fixed it have shared the post mortem on their blog. Please look at the comments on the Skype Blog - a lesson for us all!

I had been critical of Air Canada until this Christmas - but even they have upped their efforts on Twitter to work with clients and to offer sympathy when they could not help.

They still do promotion as you can see but look at the other tweets – Air Canada are starting to get how this can help their Trust levels.

Now Twitter is still an elite tool for the elite. But all new things start this way. I am thinking of all those who were in the information dark looking over their shoulder at those who were in contact and can see that it will not take long for Twitter and Social media to become the normal for how we find our way around problems. Here is a brief summary of my own travel hell. Where I reach out on Twitter and my friends help me.

This illustrates for me the next phase of using social media to navigate crisis. Right now an airline or your organization can use social media to communicate from your own perspective. But what if you could harness, as I did, the collective wisdom of the network?

In my case I could not be sure of what the roads were like in the last 4 hours of a 13 hour trip. I asked my pals for their opinion and in minutes got enough “TRUSTED” advice to make the call to stop. My pals may have saved my life. So what if an airline could use its followers to help each other look at local weather – hotel rooms – alternative routes etc – even put each other up? What would it take to have a real community of customers? For if you did – they could do this.

Again this demands a new relationship with your customer. A customer is no longer a person out there but a node in here.  If you can build up trust with an inner group, you can partner with this group in all sorts of ways.

• Marketing
• Crisis Management
• Problem Solving

Let’s play with this in later posts.

 

There is still hope - On the Bus to Washington #KETC

 

Many here feel as I did - that they are alone - how wonderful to see them!

What an indictment of the media as it is!

More at KETC here

Boingo - The Power of Strong Ties

What would it be like if your business had a sales, marketing and support force that was 1.3 million strong that you did not have to pay for? What if you could source this leverage with a tiny central force? Sounds impossible? Do you have any idea of how this could work?

Now that everyone is using Social Media – what I am seeing mainly are people who using the new tool in the old way – trying to shout above the noise – “Look at ME!” “Aren’t I cool!” “Aren’t we good!”. I am seeing a Dilbert approach – “Let’s have a Facebook site” “Let’s get on Twitter”.

Most do what most do when a new technology arrives – they apply it in the old way and so get nothing in response.

So what then is the power and leverage that you can harness by using social media well?

Boingo are on their way to finding out how to do this. Oh yes and I am one of the people that are part of this and oh yes I am not being paid and nor do I in any way work for them. I am living the theory.

So how might this work and so how might you do this too?

Boingo have a class of people that are deeply committed to the enterprise that Baochi calls her “Super fans”. They and why they are connected to Boingo and each other is the core of the leverage potential. We will meet 4 of them in this post who agreed enthusiastically to be interviewed by me. As you will see, these Super Fans are attracted first of all to Boingo by the obvious:

• The service – easy one stop access to Wifi in Airports and Hotels – is now no longer a nice to have for travellers but an essential
• The support for the service is outstanding – got a problem – you get instant personal help

But a great product is not enough. Nor is good service. What is the differentiator for Boingo is the human nature of the relationship that Boingo has with its customers. Most organizations do not allow their people to be human. Service people are often ciphers working from a script. Boingo have set up an environment where their key point of contact is a real person who is allowed to be herself.

She has a name and a face and we are all in awe and a bit in love with her. We all feel her presence watching over us. It is way more than getting her help when we can’t sign on. She watches out for us. Have a problem – A quick tweet. In minutes she is there. She is like the guy who runs the old corner store who holds your keys when you go away, keeps an eye on your kids in the street, helps you find a new roommate.

As Nuno Montegro, a customer in Portugal says – It is not what she says but how she says things that is the difference.

Nuno is like me, a customer who actively refers others to the service.

Most of Social media is all about Weak Ties – They are very useful but Weak Ties don’t get people to do much – or risk much – or commit much – that is why they are Weak – they are easy.

If you want to do something – Civil Rights in the US – you need Strong Ties. (Nice new piece by Malcolm Gladwell that explores Weak and Strong Ties in depth)

The key to attracting Strong Ties is being human. It is NOT PIMPING your product. It is instead to show that you really do care about ME. It is instead to show that you can indeed be trusted.

How do you show this? Nuno makes the point that every service and product fails at times. The key is to offer the best possible response to the inevitability of a problem. The best possible response is to know from experience that if there is a problem, you can reach a real person quickly and that they will go the distance to help you get it fixed. “I felt as if I was the only customer in the entire world when she was helping me” Bruno told me. I had the same experience.

Attracting Strong Ties is all about “Giving”.

Aaron Strout is the CMO at social media agency, Powered Inc. and is also Super Fan. “Boingo is proactive and they don’t expect a direct return – they are not selling all day – so if they want an inch, I go the mile back. It’s Karmic! I know if I have a problem that they will look after me. If people are good and do good, then good comes back. Not necessarily directly but good gets attracted back. We talk about a wide range of things that affect me not just the product – which is great too – have to have that – they listen.”

What Aaron is talking about here is a very old model for an economy that was the centre of all tribal economies – the Gift Economy. In the Gift Economy, the Big Guy is not the man who has the most stuff but the person who gives the most.

This is the power in networks – this is how Open Source Works too.

Cliff Bremmer is a programmer who works for a company called Carley Corporation that bids on government contracts to develop instructional CD base/computer based training for the US military.  ”In my spare time I help companies understand and navigate the social media spectrum in a professional yet interactive way.  The company I’m currently helping is the one my father works for called the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel“.

The Gift?

Not only is he a fan but in interacting with Boingo he has learned a lot about how to use SM media well. “If there is anything I’m proud of lately it’s that I helped the Pegasus Hotel promote their brand with the help and support of @Boingo and other companies to become one of the most popular brands in Jamaica.” Boingo is  not only helping him with his travel and Wifi but is talking with him and helping him help his dad in his business with advice and Tweet Up prizes such as free access and bag tags. The Gift in action!

He can see the flaws of how most use SM – “They are stuck in self promotion versus communication. I can see through it all – it’s all about them.”

In the Gift Economy that drives Trust and so Strong Ties, the starting point is YOU. In the non network economy the starting point is ME. No small difference!

Shelby Rogers is a flight attendant, a serving soldier (in the active reserve) and the wife of a serving soldier. Travel is her life. When she is not working, she travels. Access to Wifi has made her travel better – “I now know more than the Gate Agent does about my flights!” and it has taken away much of the loneliness that travel brings with it. Who has not been alone eating room service and watching TV in our room? “I can stay in touch with my husband on Skype and every city seems to have a friend in it.”

For Shelby, Boingo is a service that truly meets her needs. But it is how Boingo is connected to her that has transformed a pleased customer into a Super fan.

How often has your service provider taken you out to dinner? “We have even had dinner recently. I am now a walking billboard for Boingo with winking bag tags!”

So what does this mean? What are the lesson for both Boingo and for you?

• Baochi is no accident – the Boingo senior leadership have created the role and given it the space to enable someone who is naturally humane to be herself inside it. This new way of using Strong Ties to be the centre of a network is all about culture. In most cases senior leadership is too scared to let go. But if you do let go and create this safe place then the power of the network effect can be yours
• A really powerful network has to have an inner core bound by Strong Ties. This is where the leverage is. One staff person like Baochi can without too much trouble have close ties with 34 people. That gives her an outer network of 1.3 million. If she can handle the Dunbar limit of 144 that creates an opportunity of 400 million! You can see that with the right person, you can have a vast reach – provided you realize that your goal is not to have thousands of relationships but a few Strong Ones
• The secret is the math of social leverage. Many of you know about the “Dunbar Number”. Some of you know about “Magic numbers – the hierarchy of trust in human groups. If you don’t here is a quick primer.

So what now?

I think that the next stage would be this:

• At the moment all the Super Fans have a strong relationship with Baochi – I think that the best next step might be to find a way to connect them to each other
• At the  moment most of the dialogue is still about the obvious and excellent service that Boingo provides – I think that some of the work that the Super Fans could do might be to deepen the conversation – Shelby touched on this in her interview with me – What is it that being easily connected while travelling does? In her case it helped her deal with isolation and loneliness – it helped her do her job better – it kept her in touch with her husband – these are deep issues that I think connect all of us who travel a lot

As I think about networks, I think about the laws of physics. All systems have order and attractors. Some force is needed to keep systems coherent.

Think of the Sun in our own local system. It has mass that provides a gravity that holds all the planets and asteroids and stuff in a pattern. It has energy that creates life in the system. I think that any healthy human social system has to have gravity and light.

At the very centre is the “Right Space” a Trusted Space created by the leadership. In this Space, the Right Person – Right being a person who as part of her natural persona truly cares about others. Connected to her is the fuel and the mass that makes up the Sun – the Super Fans. The closer they are to the centre and the closer they are to each other – the more mass and the more energy. The more mass and energy, the larger and more healthy the network of Weak Ties that form up around the Sun.

What gets in the way is our fear about losing control.

At Disney the surface of the Brand Icon never changes but inside the mask is a person who changes all the time and so is never allowed to speak.

But in the new world we have to take off the costume and let the person inside have conversations with the public – HARD to do.

via fastforwardblog.com

Posted via email from Rob's posterous

David Weinberger on Internet = Fail #ashtag

In a time of international crisis, the Internet failed almost utterly. At least in my limited experience.

Here are the things that I could not do over the Internet when, just as we were about to go through passport control for our trip to New York, the Barcelona Airport closed:

We could not find information about the closing posted on the Web when we needed it at the airport.

Email notifications from American Airlines about the flight delay and then cancellation came about an hour after the news was spread in the airport.

It was not possible rebook a flight using the American Airlines web site. That required a two-hour phone call to AA.

The Spanish train service’s site would not take orders for tickets. It contained no information about how to proceed, or about the multi-hour wait-times at the Barcelona station where tickets are sold.

There was no updated information about ticket availability for various trains. Nor was that information accessible at the train station except by waiting on a three hour line.

There was no obvious way to get information about the availability of rental cars, buses, cabs, or people willing to drive you to Madrid in their own car.

As far as I can tell, only three online services actually helped the stranded traveler: Twitter (see the #ashtag hashtag), Skype, and good old email.

This was not the Internet’s fault. It was moving bits faster than Icelandic volcanoes move ash. But the services built on the Net were tested by a non-lethal international crisis and crapped out. Oh, I’m sure there are cool and useful sites ‘n’ services, but I’m a fairly sophisticated Net user, and I didn’t find them, and what I did find seems not to have been built to work during times of crisis.

Makes you wonder about the implications for national security…

[THE NEXT DAY:] Given the level of Twitter activity, I’d probably upgrade the Internet to 0.2. Maybe even a tenth higher. It’s great to have a tool that’s being used bottom up for ad hoc (jeez, there’s a word I haven’t used in a while … it got eaten by “bottom up” and “grassroots”) group-forming and community support. Check the comments for some hashtags to follow.

But imagine an incident far more disruptive and deadly when we really needed to move masses of people quickly. The major transportation and travel institutions that would do the mass movement of people seem to be woefully unprepared and unable to scale up quickly. Twitter would help, but not being able to find out which buses and trains are running, etc., would magnify the disaster. We shouldn’t have to rely on Twitter for the sort of information that could come directly and immediately from the sources themselves. Not to mention that we need to be able to communicate with those sources directly so we can book travel. Twitter’s great, but having Twitter access is not the same thing as being prepared at a national level for crises.

via hyperorg.com

My sense is that the key websites are all built on 1.0 ideas - they have no capacity to be interactive or to allow scaling in an emergency.

All the airlines and train sites failed. As did most of the media. Now Channel 4 has out up the #ashtag stream which is the best source for news.

When Twitter is the only source that works - what does that say about your web site?

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

Volcano & Air Travel - A Black Swan? What might happen

At the moment we are all treating this event as a temporary inconvenience. But what if this is not temporary? The last time this volcano erupted in 1821 the eruptions lasted for months.

 

So Imagine European airspace being closed until September - possible? What then?

The bad news:

• Many airlines now on the edge of failure including BA may not be able to survive. The capacity will be lost and when the skies open in the fall there will be nothing to replace it. 
• London (LHR) is the hub of the global air traffic - some other place will take its place and LHR will never get all of its pre-eminence back - the need for a more diverse system will be made obvious
• Tourism in Europe will hit a blow like no other. Countries like Spain and Greece that are already weak - that also depend on Tourism will take another hit and another step to the edge or maybe over the edge
• Business travel will take a huge hit - seeing your client in person will be very hard
• Air freight will take a big knock as will the just in time aspects of air
• The banks will be put under a lot of pressure again

But the good news:

• If I was Skype, I would be thinking abut how I can make conferencing even easier - video online will be huge
• If I was a cruise line, I would be thinking about what we could do - a 4 day weekend crossing would be a great alternative - if we could test this and see what the experience could be  - could mean a return to a lot of ship travel - after all travel by air is hell now anyway
• A huge boost for rail - a lot of pressure on Eurostar and the Chunnel
• More reason to think local for many things - we can see how vulnerable we are now - air today Peak oil tomorrow?

Assume a long break what do you think would be the bad and good news?

Flying in Ash - BA 09 - What it was like

Ashes no crashes – Watch live online as aircraft clear from the UK’s ash-filled skies

In case you hadn’t heard, Iceland’s volcanoes are sending tonnes of volcanic ash towards the UK right now. Yeah, so that’s not the tech story. The tech story is that courtesy of FlightRadar24 you can watch as the skies across the UK clear of aircraft.

FlightRadar24 receives information from several ADS-B receivers in real time. This is presented as airplanes on a Google-map.

You can even click on a plane and see its path and flight status, like height.

Launched in Sweden in 2007, Flightradar24’s network of hackers and geeks who have an ADS-B receiver has grown to over 100 ADS-B receivers. They receive the information from airplanes with ADS-B and send this information to a server, which then plots it on the map. Only airplanes within the coverage area of the 100 receivers are visible.

BTW, any suggestion that Iceland, an island which helped the global financial crisis kick off by creating an unsustanable banking industry, is having its revenge on the UK, which insisted it pay back the cash, is pure satire.

UPDATE: Two hours later this is what it looked like (is that a Ryan Air Plane?):

via eu.techcrunch.com

Thanks Mike Butcher.

What a mess this will be - but now at least there are more and more tools that gives the traveller a picture of what is going on. I hated not knowing. I use Tripit Pro now to follow what is going on when I fly. I often know before the crew or the ramp what is up. Does not change the delays but does take me out of the dark.

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

Getting above the clouds at the Sun Dial at the Westin Atlanta

What it is like 72 floors up! I am scared of heights too. (Westin Atlanta)

Westjet wins the prize over terrible Christmas weather

I re-post in full Jane Boyd's story on what Westjet did to ensure that their passengers (Guests indeed!) were not abandoned this Christmas. They should be rewarded by our support.

Travel across Canada this Christmas week has been an awful experience for many due to the severe winter weather conditions. Despite this, Westjet pulled out all of the stops to try and keep their customers happy.  Compare all of this service to the experience some Air Canada passengers had trying to get to Toronto. Way to go Westjet! 

From a Westjet Press Release earlier today:

At one point in time, in the wake of the severe weather, WestJet was
faced with as many as 4,500 guests who would not have made it home in time for
Christmas if the airline did not demonstrate its can-do attitude.

     "We regret we were unable to get this number down to zero," lamented Ken
McKenzie. Despite our best efforts, 130 guests remained to be flown, which is
the equivalent of one flight, as of December 25th."
     Here is a breakdown of what WestJet spent between December 20 and today,
in an effort to get our guests home

     -   More than 6,000 hotel rooms were provided free of charge to stranded
         guests at a cost of more than $500,000
     -   More than 25,000 meal vouchers were provided to guests in airports at
         a cost of approximately $220,000.
     -   $250,000 on ground transportation including taxis and chartered buses
     -   Aircraft were chartered from third party airlines at a cost of
         approximately $325,000 to assist in clearing the backlog of stranded
         guests.

     Above and beyond the dollars and cents, there are hundreds of stories of
WestJetters who went the extra mile during this period, including one employee
who ran 10 kilometres to work in minus 20 degree weather after his car broke
down, and countless office staff who manned check-in counters, baggage belts
and other locations.