travel – Page 3 – whatleydude

Travel & Tourism: Got Klout?

I’m an ardent supporter of all things Foursquare-related; be that through either [on a consumer level] meaningless badges acquired through a specific number of check ins or [on the brand side] a fairly robust off-the-shelf loyalty card system – I think the possibilities with the platform, should it hit critical mass, are endless. But that’s just me.

Something that is yet to measure Foursquare’s impact in social media [but yet shares a similar ‘is it any good or not’ debate] is KLOUT

The self-proclaimed ‘Standard for Influence’ uses over 35 different variables on Facebook and Twitter to measure ‘True Reach, Amplification Probability, and Network Score’. Influence, according to Klout, is the ability to drive people to action.

This is something I can on board with, certainly.

All right there is a healthy amount of well-deserved scepticism, but when big hotel chains start getting involved in this kind of thing then it’s time for the rest of the industry to sit up and take notice.

A few examples —

Since September last year the Palms Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas has been building out what it refers to as ‘The Klout Club’ – whereupon checking into the hotel in question (actual checking in, not foursquare checking in), you may well be asked ‘What’s your Twitter name?’ so that your Klout score can be measured there and then.

The Palms believe that this will allow high-ranking influencers to experience their ‘impressive set of amenities’ in hopes that these ‘influencers’ will want to communicate their positive experience to their followers.

You got a bajillion followers with an awesome Klout rating? You get the jacuzzi!

Foursquare mayorships this ain’t.

There’s more…

Earlier than that, in June last year, Virgin America was using Klout to pick and choose which influencers to reward with their free flights to Toronto program. OK it was a tie-up to a new route launch but, as adding a social media element to your PR goes, I’ve certainly seen worse.

Key takeaways?

As we move into a more open world and social media becomes much more widely accepted, these industry early adopters are laying the ground for other, larger influence campaigns in the future and yet, while folk will often try and game the system, it seem that building your online reputation may well be having some long term benefits.

I’m fairly sure that with all the good will aside, KLM definitely picked the more influential of their passengers to bestow their gifts upon [and don’t even get me started on which online voices the Old Spice guy started tweeting to], all of which begs the question:

Which is more important; the amount of people you make happy, or the amount of people that know you did it?

Answers, debate and commentary welcome below…

Me and St. Pete

a parable for the envious

There are times in my life when I love my job, there are times in my life when I hate my job, there are times in my life when my job opens my eyes to something so freakingly awesome but no matter what happens, I can never tell anyone.

Friends ask me often if I enjoy what I do, whether I’ve seen anything cool lately and/or if I can tell them of anything I’ve seen – “Y’know, blogger to blogger?”

More often than not, I respond with the following – “It’s like the old joke…”

A preacher who liked to play golf every Wednesday at a modest public golf course was standing on the elevated tee at the sixth hole of that course...

He took a few practice swings, and looked across the river to the immaculate private country club nearby.

“Just once I’d like to play at that gorgeous course,” the preacher said to his foursome.

Another player spoke up:

“My company has a reserved tee time at that club for us every Sunday morning, and it’s all paid for, too. But all of a sudden yesterday the boss says we have to travel out of town for a week. It’s a shame to let that tee time go to waste. I could give you a guest pass and you could have it all to yourself. Would do you say?”

Of course this was a dream come true for the preacher, but it put him in a terrible predicament. If he accepted the gift, he would have to miss Sunday worship. He thought to himself,

“I haven’t missed a Sunday service in 17 years of preaching. A sin to be sure, but I am after all just a man trying to do my best like all the rest.”

He succumbed to temptation and accepted the invitation.

On Sunday, the preacher awoke, called his deacon, and said, “I’m terribly sick today, and will not be able to offer service.”

“Well, we surely hope you are feeling better soon,” said the deacon. “What matters most it that your health is blessed, and we shall all pray for you today.”

This made the preacher feel a little guilty, but it was a beautiful clear cool morning, and promised to be a beautiful day. He opened a box from under the bed that had a new folded golf shirt, his cleaned and polished golf shoes, and he put them on instead of his usual clothes.

Later, on the beautiful practice green, the preacher fit right in but couldn’t help feeling conspicuous. At that exact moment up in Heaven, Saint Peter was looking down. He said to God,

“Do you see what is happening down there? I’m very disappointed in this preacher. Surely you are going to do something?”

God replied, “Don’t worry Pete, I’ve got it all figured out.”

St. Pete knew it was best not to question any further, but to just wait patiently and watch for it all to play out. He watched the preacher walk confidently to the first tee, a short par-4. The preacher teed it up, and hit a pretty fair drive, low and straight.

But just then, God waived his hand and created the perfect little wind. The wind carried the ball as if in the hand of God and lifted it down the fairway. The ball took once bounce and landed on the green, kept rolling, swung to the right, barely crept up to the hole, and fell in. It was beautiful.

Up in heaven, St. Pete was very upset.

“An albatross! Are you kidding me? Here is one of our own preachers committing this sin, on a Sunday no less. Just when I’m certain that you are going to offer up the perfect punishment to befit the sin, you instead go and reward him with a once-in-a-lifetime shot?”

God says, “Yes, but calm down Pete. Who is he going to tell?”

I love my job.
I get to see the coolest things in the world before anyone ever will.
My eternal curse is that 99.99 times out of 100?
I’m never going to be able to tell anyone.
Damn.

Images via Paul Clarke

Postcard from LA

I’ve been in LA for nearly a week now and it’s been fairly intense; working solid from 10am through ’til 4am most days (while my body tries to adjust to the time difference) and generally trying to keep on top of things. We wrapped project one on Sunday morning and project two wraps tonight; it’s been a helluva ride.

Fortunately, thanks to the timings of both projects, I was able to take Sunday night and Monday morning off to catch up with my friends Matt and Jen. The former introduced me to Ryan Penagos, aka Agent_M, the editor for Marvel.com (so much geekery was had!), and the latter took a colleague and I down to Dog Beach for a midday stroll in the Sun.

Sitting in the sunshine two weeks from Christmas is a very odd feeling indeed.

What else is new?

I’ve decided to take up dance again and I’m writing a truck load more these days too. A friend got one of my pieces published recently; non-trade, in-print and actually out there in the real world, so that’s quite exciting. I have a couple more I want to submit, so we’ll see if that leads anywhere.

Thing is, you know that bit in Star Trek where Spock tells the rest of the crew how everything has changed? That now, thanks to Nero’s actions, they’re all living in an alternate reality…?

Yeah. That.

Things are different now.

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In Cannes

^Turn it up to 720p

Cabcam

^Turn it up to 720p

What now?

Moleskine entry: March 16th, 2010

A strange sense of calm is over me… and I can’t quite work out if I like it. Last year I had my fair share of luck and it’s still keeping me smiling.

I’ve hit 30 and I’m happy about it. What happens next however? I’m not so sure. Marriage and children should be on the cards and, to a very large extent, they are. I’ve been looking forward to fatherhood for some years now. One might argue since my little brother was born. But I think in reality, it’s more since meeting someone who really could be the future mother of my children that the feeling, the broody feeling, really came over me. I can’t wait to be a Dad.

But.

Something is holding me back. Right now, for the first time in such a long time, I am truly happy. I have stability. A great job, a warm home and a beautiful girlfriend whom I adore… and right now? I just want to enjoy them.

I’ve never been here before and I quite like it. I’ve been through pain, I’ve been through sadness and, today in my life, I have happiness. Good friends, good life, just goodness.

I just want to enjoy it for a bit, is that so bad?

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I’m in Washington D.C. and this is the final entry in my first Moleskine.
Onwards.

What day is it today?

Moleskine entry: Dec 15th, 2009

What day is it today? 15th? I think so. That’s right, ten days ’til Christmas, I remember.

It’s been a fair while since I emptied my thoughts into this moleskine of mine, but excuses I have none. Instead I have nearly three months of hard work to look back on. 1000heads is treating me well, very well.

It’s hard work, challenging even, but in the best of ways.

I can’t talk about any of of the stuff I’ve working on, obviously. However, let’s just say I am in exactly the right place at the exactly the right time; I’ve seen the future, and it’s very bright indeed.

It strikes me that it might be some months until this entry makes it out onto my blog. So apologies in advance if this seems out of time at all.

I wonder if, in time, I will be able to talk about what I’ve actually worked on, i.e.: projects of the past. I’m finally getting to grips with how fast this place moves; last Wednesday I helped out with creating an invitation for the Ovi Daily App Awards. Between us we nailed the copy, design, look and feel and just for good measure, a comedy QR code to boot.

They were signed off, printed and sent out within 24hrs and, by Friday, blog posts were already springing up. Amazing.

I understand that this might just be par for the course for some of you but, coming from a veritable behemoth of an organisation, this is not how it’s done ‘client side’.

I’m yawning as I write, I must be boring myself.

Writing from a plane (again), we’re headed for Helsinki. There’s a man two seats away who spoke at OpenLabs. Remember that?

Seems like such a long time ago now…