Scott Ahlsmith, CTC's - Roads Less Traveled

What the heck is Web 2.0?

Dion Hinchcliffe's Web 2.0 Blog has become my guide book for understanding and sorting through the evolving technology that has been labeled Web 2.0. 

In basic terms, Web 2.0 shifts our focus from large static Web sites to numerous deposits of interactive Web knowledge.  Web 1.0 is all about talking at you and Web 2.0 is all about creating conversations.  Think of Web 1.0 as a television which lets you watch content created by a small group of others.  Web 2.0 is a video camera that lets you create, watch, and distribute content to others who also create, watch, and distribute content.
 

The applications (like Outlook, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc.) of Web 1.0 are loaded and launched on our personal computers and the output from these applications is stored on our personal computers or private network file servers.  The applications of Web 2.0 are stored and shared with others on the Web and the output from these applications is available to anyone connected to the Web and given permission to view and interact with our output. 

Web 1.0 is all about centralized knowledge and push (e-mail) & pull (Web site) messages.  Web 2.0 is all about decentralized knowledge, social interactions, conversations, and collaboration among individual users.

In yesterday's post on Dion's blog he addressed Web 2.0's Real Secret Sauce: Network Effects.  At the end of his post, he asks, "How will you apply Web 2.0 to your life, business, or organization?"

Here's my response and how I see Web 2.0 benefiting travel professionals and their clients:

Retail travel distribution can use Web 2.0 strateigies and techniques to build strong viral social networks.  Travel experiences create great water cooler stories which translate into bragging-rights for travelers.  Travelers love to talk about travel.

Web 2.0 gives knowledgeable travel experts an opportunity to leap frog static online travel Web sites and their kissing cousins, the peer-to-peer message boards.  Given Wall Street's cool shoulder towards online travel Web sites, I believe investors understand Web 2.0 opportunities too.

It's All About the People You Meet

We travel to collect better stories, but the best stories involve the people we meet. 

Yesterday, I had the honor of meeting my "coach," Lisa Haneberg in Seattle.  We talked about time management, caffeine levels in Seattle's harbor, Webinars, breakthroughs, interviewing & hiring, time chunking, writing, hotel management, chili peppers, motorcycles, the rolling hills of Tuscany, Luigi, blogs, 5-sensing, podcasts, leadership, and a couple other topics.  It was a jam-packed hour.

I met Lisa when she presented her "Loveable Brand" Webinar for Cruise West. Lisa's support of marketing the travel experience versus the travel product and price was music to my ears.  I enjoyed and benefited from her common-sense approach that I attended her Webinar a second time.

Welcome to My Laboratory

This is nothing more or less than a test.  I want to make sure I can publish to this Blog using Performancing's editor within Firefox.

Part of what I do is experiment with new technologies so you don't have to.

In the case of Performancing, it works as advertised -- a Blog editor that resides inside my Firefox browser -- but then I don't yet know why you or I would need it.  Of course, that's the issue with many new technologies, isn't it?

Careless Travel Writing

Elliott Hester, a flight attendant and travel writer wrote in Sunday's Chicago Tribune Travel Section, " Yes, I could have been charged twice as much had travel arrangements been made with a traditional travel agency."

 

I wrote Elliott and asked, "How many and which traditional travel agencies did you contact to verify the accuracy of this statement?"  I also presented the following information to help reshape his thinking.

 

2006 Words of Wisdom

At the end of each calendar year, I reflect on the notes I've made on the back of cocktail napkins and always benefit from sharing those that survived the test-of-time and are still legible.

Travel & Tourism Management 101 - Two Rules for Succeeding

1. Take responsibility for everything
2. Pay attention to details

--Thank you to Seth Godin's Blog for the insightful simplicity

Tipping Hotel Housekeepers

Tripso, one of the travel newsletters I enjoy reading, contains a very interesting and thought-provoking message thread in its Survey Forum.  The survey question asked, "How much (if any) do you tip housekeeping at a hotel?" A number of the postings in the forum prompted me to analyze my tipping rationale -- after 35 years in the travel & tourism industry, I tend to get stuck in a routine and don't really remember why I do what I do. Some would say I built a career on not remembering why I do what I do!

Here's what bubbled to the surface after reading others' posts and reflecting on tipping in general:

Personal Greetings from Sir Richard

One of the most attention-grabbing promotions this Holiday Season was the e-mail from Virgin Atlantic saying the Sir Richard Branson wanted to give me a personal call to pass along his best wishes for the Holidays.  This promotion has the potential to create as much buzz as the automated telephone attendant a few years ago that instructed callers to press 1 for sales, 2 for customer service, 3 for accounting, and 4 to hear a duck quack.

In this case, all I had to do was click on a link to the Virgin Atlantic Web site and tell Sir Richard my first name, my nearest Virgin Atlantic gateway city, select what gift I most wanted from a list, and finally select what time was most convenient for Sir Richard to call.

Curing the Pod Father's Jet Lag

During Adam Curry's (a.k.a. Pod Father) most recent trip from his home in the UK to his office in San Francisco, he complained of jet lag.  After 34 years in the travel industry, I know the feeling!

To successfully defeat jet lag, I've been using the Argonne National Labs, Anti Jet Lag Diet. To help Adam and al of you, I created this 3 minute travel tip cast and promo for Adam's Podcast, Daily Source Code (DSC)

Download

Finding WiFi

I just found a feature on Yahoo Maps (beta version) that will make the life of every frrequent traveler so much easier.  No, it's not a particle beam transporter, but it does help you stay digitally connected while you're away from the mother ship.  It's a map that pinpoints public WiFi access points near your destination.

The best way to describe this feature, is to show you.  As an example, I have meetings at The Travel Institute in Welleseley, MA next week.  Before and after the meetings I want some private and quiet time to check e-mail and record the meeting's action items.

Once I've entered The Travel Institute's address in Yahoo Maps, I add WiFi to the seach and, "voila!"

Click to Enlarge

Learning About Subcription Feeds

Subscriptions, or feeds as they are commonly called, are simple ways for web publishers (bloggers, podcasters, news sites, etc.) to notify interested individuals when the publisher's online content changes.  Subscriptions or feeds save you time by not having to continually check a Web site to see if there is  anything new.  Instead, an short message, headline, summary, or alert is sent to every subscriber indicating there is something new to view on each selected site.

Interested individuals subscribe to feeds, through a feed aggregators, which give them access to all desired subscriptions in one location.  Many feed aggregators are available.  Some are standalome applications, others are add-in utilities to Outlook or your Web browser.  Some feed aggregators are free while others require payment.