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Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008) may well be Palestine’s greatest poet, and perhaps that of the Arab world.
His works, though specific to the Palestinian question, are much broader. They speak of dispossession, yearning, the need for a home. The broken wings of birds
Ottawa, Canada’s capital, is a quiet, unassuming city with a quiet elegance and lots to do, especially for families.
We invite you to sit back and listen to this sound-rich Audio PostCard from Ottawa.
How BlogFrog Monetizes the Massive Influence of Women Bloggers
How do you get to be called the largest women-blogger network in the country?
You believe in what BlogFrog CEO and co-founder , Rustin Banks, says: “Elevated authentic editorial brought to you by a brand is the future.”
What’s he talking about?
He’s talking about sponsored conversations with a very large blogger group that pose questions near and dear to a brand’s heart, and solicits viewer responses ( chatter, votes, stories, advice, suggestions, etc.) near and dear to a brand’s bottom line.
The same brand that paid to have the sponsored conversation to begin with.
Nothing especially unique about this ever since the line between editorial and advertising got blurry, and more blurred back a little while ago.
But in far-ranging article in Entrepreneur Magazine by Jennifer Wang, we learn that Banks has successfully tapped into the mother lode of online influencers: Mothers.
Statistically, as the article points out, “moms” lead the pack in innovation in digital commerce and media, with this generation of moms being “tech-savvy, highly educated and (controlling) 85 percent of household income.”
They’re also the most “social demographic,” meaning if they like or dislike something, they say it. On line. Socially and virally.
So, BlogFrog, borrowing a sentiment from Pinterest, perhaps, set out to become a social network organized around what people are interested in, not who they know. Which led to their having 125,000 active members and 65,000 bloggers, with a reach of 10 million parents making it, arguably, “the largest mom-blogger network in the country.” As we said.
Lots of social networks offer bloggers the opportunity to generate revenue through advertising on their blogs.
But the three-year old BlogFrog actually offers tools for bloggers (mostly “moms”) to create their own communities, discussions and video content, and connects these to brands willing to pay to be part of the conversation.
The company vets its bloggers. Based on a range of “influence factors,” it chooses its chief bloggers (“community leaders”) and sets them loose to create a larger blogger group around topics of interest to brands, who pay a fee determined by the number of bloggers and their reach.
Already ABC News, Lego, Procter and Gamble are reportedly among the big brands that have signed on probably because BlogFrog fills the need for customers and brands to be connected, but without advertising, which has no real capacity to drill down and customize the brand’s messages.
Bloggers are happy because the company has allegedly paid out more than half a million dollars in one year to them.
What’s cool about the site (besides being able to earn some big bucks) is that unlike a typical blog, there is a conversation among community, questions and answers, back and forth. In a blog, there is no cross conversation; no sideways chatter.
However, it’s not that simple to sign up and get going. While the actual signing up is relatively easy, I was left feeling unsupported in my next steps and had trouble with the embedding code.
Still, as Laurie Turk of TipJunkie.com, the popular DIY/craft site says, BlogFrog “is giving women bloggers the opportunity to wield power and influence…to make a ‘mom blogger’ a profession.”
And that, as they say, can be taken to the bank.
Why Companies Stress Brand Promotion Over Customer Service
You can’t blame travel suppliers and companies for their myopia. For all too many years they’ve had a Pavlovian response to their brands: promote them, and get around to taking care of customers later.
Or maybe never.
In spite of all the brouhaha that suggested social media was the way of connecting with and servicing customers, the facts seem to speak differently, according to Hotelmarketing.com . They report that 62% of customers are looking for more support through social media. But, brand reputation and promotions still top the list of how companies are using social media.
In the travel industry, there are not many destinations or destination management organizations (DMO’s) that use their on line presence to support the needs of their customers, or would-be customers.
They’re just too busy promoting the virtues of their properties to actually ask what their customers want, and more importantly to answer questions or provide quality, individualized advice.
Unfortunately, the disconnect between what customers want and companies are giving is actually growing. At the end of 2011, MarketTools reported that only 23% of US companies provided customer service via Facebook and 12% provided customer service via Twitter.
Econsultancy goes on to point out that many companies just don’t get that they’re in business to serve us, the people, who spend 23% of our time on line. And that using corporate social media muscle to promote brand and not to give the people, their customers, a voice, is very wrongheaded.
Econsultancy’s cool infographic shows that, once again, that the retail industry has the highest percent (45%) of customers using social media as their voice, and contacting (and getting) support through social media.
Travel and Hospitality comes in third third with an unimpressive (34%), but Health Care comes in last, with just 9 % of customers using social media to contact a health provider or hospital.
The travel industry in particular needs to do better.Too much emphasis on using the Internet and social media to generate bookings by featuring glossy images of ocean liners and attractive (if empty) dining areas, pools and beaches. They fail to make themselves available to support and sustain their clients using the new or social media platforms to hear the voices of the traveler and provide quality customer service.
What’s finally interesting about the infographic is that the disconnect may be the result of top brass not knowing how to use social media.
Seventy-three percent of corporations and companies said they would “use social media for customer service,” if they understood the tools available to them.
It certainly is time to get past that.
How One Family learned to Give Up Electronics and Love Aruba
Kim Orlando loves to travel. She should, she’s the CEO of travelingmom.com and she especially loves to travel with her family.
When the idea of a family trip to Aruba came up, Orlando knew she wanted to go and, better still, take her family. But, she also knew that she wanted them to experience the island’s beauty, and detach from their electronics: phones, computers and tablets.
Challenging? You bet. Orlando’s brood consists of three kids ages 11-15, and of course her husband, Rome.
Naturally, no one wanted to part with their electronic lifelines.
To sweeten the deal, she offered each kid twenty bucks. “I thought that was the best way to ease the pain,” Orlando said. “I’d give them each twenty dollars and they could spend it on texting, or pick up some great stuff in Aruba to bring back, and build a memory with.”
How did they react?
Not surprisingly, not happily. Said Sophia, 13, “ It was one of the toughest decisions I’ve ever had to make. Shopping or texting my friends? Too hard!”
Dario, 11, has a girlfriend, so for him, giving up his phone and texting was decidedly not something he was happy with. But mom was able to make it work.
“So, the kids were finally able to detach during our hike, windsurfing and at dinner but otherwise there was a lot of negotiating attempts,” she laughed. “My daughter shopped. But then she got smacked with a $100 texting billl a month later!”
But freed from their devices, the family gradually succumbed to Aruba’s charms.
One of the high points was a breakfast al fresco, arranged by DePalm Tours , and a family hike through the Arikok National Forest.
Of course they explored Aruba’s famous caves, the homes of former pirates, some say, but with intact Arawak Indian hieroglyphics from the 14000’s.
The golf courses of Aruba were a compensation of sorts, because Orlando’s family are golf addicts.
But at the end of the day, when all the Aruba action was over, would the Orlando recommend that other families go cold turkey and leave their electronic devices off and out of reach?
“If you can get away with leaving the electronics at home, do it!,” Orland says.
Since that’s unlikely for most traveling families, she strongly recommends a family pow wow and coming up with some sort of “electronics plan.”
She also recommends checking with phone service providers to see if they can put limits on texting. We suggest asking service providers for special offers and roaming charges.
At the end of the vacation, does Kim Orlando think it was worth the effort?
“Absolutely!” she says.
“This electronics challenge has become part of our family vacation story. We laugh and groan about it long after the trip is over.”
But that’s how memories are built. Right?
Watch the 1-min Family Travel Video PostCard
Long Live the Titanic! w/video
“God Himself could not sink this ship,” a crewman of the Titanic said to one Mrs. Albert Campbell, as she boarded the ship in Southampton, England
In May 1911, the RMS Titanic gracefully slid into the bustling harbor of Belfast, Northern Ireland, where she was built by Ireland’s skilled ship builders of the Queen’s Yard of Harland & Wolff
A crowd of some 100,000 people cheered the birth of what was then the largest movable manmade object in the world.
Fast forward to April 14, 1912.
Just four days into her crossing, heading for New York, the majesty of the seas, the Titanic, hit an iceberg and began her agonizing sink into the sea.
At 2:20 the following morning, the Titanic sank completely; 1,517 people died. There were 2,358 people on board.
Nova Scotia, one of Canada’s Maritime provinces, was the closest city with direct rail and steamship connections. so recovered bodies were taken to Halifax, the capital, for burial.
The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in the pocket-size city has the best collection of wooden artifacts from the ship in the museum’s permanent Titanic exhibit.
There’s a eerily perfectly preserved deck chair, for example, and large pieces of oak carving.
The exhibit is powerful in its simplicity, and the clean, simple lines of the museum allow visitors to to reflect on the tragedy and the irony without distraction.
For a strong sense of the moment, The Titanic Times is a very interesting read.
Taken from the Belfast Newsletter of April 17th, 1912, the language captures the feel of the dismay and disbelief of the times, reporting on the ship that “buckled into pieces.”
To mark the years since a watch sailor called out, “iceberg right ahead,” and in recognition of the Titanic’s Irish heritage, the Titanic Museum Attractions in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee and Branson, Missouri, are giving away six, 11-day trips for two to Belfast.
The 12 winners of the “Back to Titanic 100th Year ‘Tour Ireland’ Sweepstakes”
will sail to Belfast and visit the birthplace of the world-famous ocean liner.
Both museums have Titanic exhibits shaped like the ship, and both try to bring the story to life through sight, sound and artifacts.
In July, Titanic Museum Attractions will allow every guest who visits the museum to pay tribute to the passengers and crew by depositing a single rose petal into a container in the Memorial Gallery.
On April 15, 2012 – exactly 100 years after the RMS Titanic was lost – each of the rose petals will be carefully laid onto the surface of the Atlantic Ocean directly where the Titanic sank.
The sinking of the Titanic is more than an oft-told tale, but it’s lost neither its capacity to captivate an audience, nor its appeal to marketers.
Watch the one-minute Titanic Travel Video PostCard
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Book Review: Hypertravel-100 Countries in Two Years
Hardie Karges has one self-professed goal in life: to see every country in the world.
And he’s off to a grand start!
His recently self-published book, Hypertravel -100 Countries in Two Years is less about Karges’ journey to most of the countries defined by the United Nations as countries, and more of a journey into Karges’ mind.
That’s not to say we don’t get some powerful and startling insights into the countries, villages, bus depots, airports, marketplaces, cafes, cities and dumps he wanders through. We do.
It’s just that the three-hundred plus page book is really the author talking to himself and our listening in as he skewers a country (Djibouti sucks, and can’t make a good cup of coffee). Or as he makes an off-handed comment about a national characteristic: “There is something peaceful about the Iranian character, likewise rigor mortis.”
But don’t for one minute underestimate him.
His humor and tongue-in-cheek approach belies astute observations about the countries of the world, their people, cultures and traditions.
His hopscotching the globe could not have been accomplished with heavy reliance on the Internet, and his desperate search for WiFi spots is one of the humorous high points of the book.
But so is his exhausting mastery of bus and train schedules, the art of ticketing convoluted flights that often take him back to a destination, in order to go forward, just so he could go further back from where he started.
This travel legerdemain requires fortitude, street-smarts, planning and tremendous sense of curiosity coupled with life-saving humor and patience.
But I especially love Karges’ sense of irreverence.
Take the Italian island of Rimini, for example, the celebrated seaside resort along Italy’s Adriatic coast. For most travelers, it’s a place for the rich and famously tanned beautiful bodies.
For Karges, however, in the summer, it “must be an anthill of sun-burned tourist butts strolling down the street in search of pizze and gelati.”
Or his initial impression of Cairo at midnight as as “halogen heaven.”
But between seemingly endless searches for visas, hotels with Wi Fi, cheap buses and random airlines to take him to even more random places like Somaliland (is that even a country?), the author shares a running commentary on everything from religious overtones of Islamic or Christian enclaves, to the street touts who try to scheme him.
Hypertravel is a guide book of sorts, but not the kind one reads for bus schedules and generic places like “the Middle East.” Karges unravels the places he visits, and if he doesn’t go very deeply, he more often than not strikes a true chord with an honest, clear-eyed look at who he is and who the people he meets are.
He’s married, and now and again confesses to utter exhaustion and looking forward to his reunion with his wife in Los Angeles. As to why he undertook the mind- boggling trip, his answer, again, is disarmingly simple: “ My goal was and is to see every country in the world.”
There is one serious omission in his book, and one I was surprised to discover: The total lack of illustrations and maps.
It’s inconceivable that a travel book such as his would not have visual summaries and examples of his journey. The reader, I’m sure, will grab his or her atlas and try to follow his routes. He could have made his book more appealing and interesting if he had supplied some of these reference points for us.
Karges may or may not be a modern day Ibn Batuta or Marco Polo, but he wrote a fun and informative travel journal that really should be read.
To see what this intrepid traveler looks like (and who his friends are), check out his Facebook page.
Women Family Travel Bloggers Rule the Internet
Used to be they were called “mommybloggers,” but that was before their Klout scores soared and corporations avidly courted them.
And while I may be exaggerating, I’m not by much. This group of bright, engaged mothers (and some dads) who travel with their kids and run homes and blog, now run the family travel market and drive some of the most exciting conversations on line.
While CEO’s of hot start-ups and established web sites are pronouncing and pontificating, these women bloggers and journalists are running high-profile Tweet chats with impressive prizes, turning out compelling, useful content and run one-of-a-kind Family Travel Conferences.
Anyone who has visited familytravelforum.com or travelingmom.com is quite aware of the electricity generated by Kyle McCarthy and Kim Orlando, CEO’s of the respective sites.
Check in @familytravel4um and watch the fast-paced conversations about travel zip by with family travel cohorts like @familyonbikes, @familyadvice, @momaboard, @familiesgo, @hvbabywillrvl, @foreverdaddy and @luxurytravelmom.
These are experienced travelers, sharing and having fun.
They are mostly women, all of whom have a vibrant thing going on with each other about all things travel: destination tips and trips; legal advice about single parents traveling with minors; top cities of the world; funny and touching stories; differing opinions, travel expos, etc.
They’re witty, unfailingly good-willed, and always supportive of each other and family travel issues
One a Tweet chat I attended, had a couple hundred participants, and although about 50 voices dominated, the others had their says too. The discussion went well past the cut-off time.
And you bet these family travel bloggers are being noticed by big-time companies and corporations.
Why?
In part, as Ypartners points out, experience-based travel involving family and friends is the leading type of leisure travel. That is, visiting friends and relatives accounts for 50 percent of travel. Family vacations account for 42 percent.
Several of these family travel voices recently created the first-ever Family Travel Conference .
Under the leadership of Ms. McCarthy and Orlando, it was at New York’s classy Omni Berkshire Hotel.
Who sponsored it? Norwegian Cruise Line, Disney Parks, Atlantis, The New York Pass and Visit Orlando, to name some of the backers.
The 2-day event was in invitation to 30 or so bloggers and journalists, with family travel content experience. The blend of the traditional writer with Internet content creators was a wise move because the two groups learned from each other and provided differing viewpoints.
What was it like?
First, the Omni Berkshire was a clever choice of venue because it’s a smart hotel. The spacious rooms and cleverly designed spaces with accessible outlets, imaginative use of fabrics and plants is friendly and efficient.
There was a workshop on honing writing skills led by veteran family travel writer and syndicated columnist, Eileen Ogintz, and Pulitzer prize nominee, Cindy Richards, who teaches at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.
Kim Orlando, an indefatigable blogger and entrepreneur drove the Twitter dinner, which was more a live Tweet event than an actual dinner. But it was more fun than most of the conference dinners I’ve attended.
After a video workshop (Presenting Yourself: Ledes and Hooks), participants scattered throughout the hotel, smart phones and video cameras in hand, and created on-the-spot content ranging from an inside look at the hotel’s kitchen, to tips from housekeeping on making a room look like new.
When the dust settles, we probably were participating in the first of many such workshops about family travel, technology, monetizing content and community.
What I found refreshing, more so than conferences with top brass from from Google , Amazon and other legacy companies, was the openness and enthusiasm.
These “mompreneurs” combine humor with a depth of practical, real-world travel knowledge, and they make it all accessible by sharing.
With family travel a huge, fast-growing niche ( 4.5 trips a year; 67% saying kids are never too old to travel with), this fast-talking cohort may well set the standard for online activity… and enviable sponsorships.
Apple Ends Boring Visitor Information Centers
One of the vexing ironies of travel is that Visitor Information Centers (VIC) do little to nothing to enhance or promote the destination they represent. If anything, they can be a “turn off” for the destination.
Visitor centers are usually some functional building filled with tired staffers surrounded by lots of brochures, a few maps and mundane kinds of information.
Almost never anything interactive
Great places to use the restrooms and buy a Coke and a bag of chips.
Not so with the UK city of Manchester, reports Tnooz, the talking- travel tech web site.
Just as Kayak, the successful fare search engine, launched its new web site to mirror the best design features of Apple, so has the Manchester Visitor Information Center.
HotelMarketing.com says that Kayak’s redesigned site borrows heavily from its iPad and iPhone apps, resulting in simpler, more engaging set of pages.
Manchester’s technology-heavy, Apple-inspired design is geared to make “discovering the city fun and useful,” also using clever technology-inspired experiences.
Tnooz reports, for example, a Mediawall that fills and entire end of the center and lures visitors into participating in the Manchester experience.
There are wall-size, a real-time information screens carrying messages from local businesses, residents and travelers and pose fun, quirky questions like, “Mummy, why does the train go Choo-Choo?”
There are lots of desktop computers around the space for booking and research, and live tweets that create a living sense of the present.
The Microsoft Surface Table, which is fast becoming a staple of the industry’s need to engage travelers in their travel-decision making process, plays a prominent role in the city’s VIC.
The surface table is gives visitors a 360-degree interface that elegantly combines touch with real-world objects, and gives visitors tactile and informational interaction with maps, hotels, attractions and the like.
How successful is the Apple VIC spin-off?
Tnooz quotes Andrew Daines, who consulted on the project, as saying that 58% of visitors discovered new places to visit using the tech, and two-thirds of visitors actually cited the technology as a reason they would visit the center again.
So, the theory probably is, if you can get potential visitors to return to and interact with the center, actual bookings to the destination should be the next logical step.
Unless of course, the Visitor Center satisfies the need for the visit itself.
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