Hraba Hospitality Consulting

So it seems that I have enough work that I can’t write a proper blog post…. which is good.  I do enjoy putting them together because it’s like a coffee break for my noggin’, and I can take a second to observe and learn rather than keep my head down in the hurried pace of being a modern hotelier.  But operations and actual business take a front seat to my intellectual (or charlatan) musings…. and frankly I think this forum for soundbytes fits our world a bit more efficiently.  I will get back to a couple thoughtful posts (of which I have about 8 or 9 hanging, waiting to be finished) soon…. until then, here are the links that stayed open in my tabs for far too long not to share.  More to come, but enjoy these because you never know when I will have time to put this together again. =)

1) You might just want to go out and buy this one:

A lovely special report from the Economist on Social Networking, and modern communication.  All the buzzwords are here.. and *EGADS* they actually hold this wonderful new tech masquerading as cult to task for being important without an economic feasible business model…. what will support this wonderful new thing!  It covers Facebook, Twitter, small biz using SN to be big biz, how to profit from friends, whether social networks at the workplace are problem, distraction, or potential benefit.. and more.  My favorite two pieces are about Privacy and endless communication socializing the state.  So to speak.  Whatever the case… some big thoughts in there, and likely… another post.

2)  Cornell does it again with a couple reports available… the INCREDIBLY interesting one about price differentials for consumers, and how it effects them, your brand, and their likelihood of staying.  If you don’t want to download it, the long and short of it: People want information about differential pricing – including transparency and accessible to information about how prices are regulated.  The OTA’s have created a conundrum in controlling our own rate at the property level… and in doing so have confused regularly savvy travelers.

3)  OTA’s begin their own bargain basement for branded OTA users.  To have the distressed rates of distressed rates makes me sick to my stomach, but hey… there are a lot of those types of rates out there, aren’t there?  Anyone have an opinion about this sort of stuff?  Like Jetsetter getting packages that marginalize luxury positioning?

Maybe it’s luxury doing it themselves… they’re even dropping “resort” from their marketing.

and yes I adore the line : “To attract business conferences in these tough times, some luxury resort hotels have resorted to a sort of strategy of last resort: They’re dropping the very word “resort” from their names.”

4)  I hate to think that hospitality is entering a realm where it’s as difficult to manage normal business as it is for F&B.  That’s why we choose to be in hotels… because someone needs to help us if we enter F&B.  Hell you can open a teensy little outlet and it will completely alter you ability to “do” hospitality – and what’s more, your bottom line.  I was in front of a well respected head of PKF (who will remain nameless) that said, “Buckle up… RevPar and the entire industry won’t return until 2014.”  And I heard that in 2009.  It’s sounds scary, but seeing as we are already a couple months into 2010, I might believe it for one reason alone:  Our industry is so completely tied to the unemployment rate.  Until employment stabilizes, we can’t come back.  It’s too important a part of our industry.  Period.

5) Facebook conversion tool is offered… attempt to track Facebook consumer’s tendencies.

But is Facebook really the place to go for travel, lodging, and commerce? You know what I think from about a year ago:

But so much changes in social media so fast.  People saw Facebook as a HUGE marketing experiment which is more about amalgamating data than it is caring about the interests of the consumer/user.  Oh wait… it’s still like that.  Well – has any more commerce started happening beyond the jaw dropping revenues from Zynga’s social, yet annoying, games?

Well here is some data and metrics from Facebook…. and if they aren’t interesting, maybe pay attention to the conversation.  Some very interesting data and insights here… as well as the comment section (a part of blogs and papers that continues to amaze me with relevant, if not hilarious, conversation).

6)  Daniel Craig has a lot of good stuff to say, even if he does seem wholly unaware of my existence.  Tis fine tis fine Mr Craig…. we are all in this to help others.  My ego is transcended by knowing I help establish the pulse and tide of our industry.  That’s more than enough for me (tongue firmly jabbing cheek).  If you want to make sense of social media, and are just entering the world… well you *ARE* in the right place.  You are here reading me…. but if you want a little more, check out his latest post.

He’s right… know who you are reading, target that exhaustively…. or you won’t ever get anything done.  I am at the point where I barely have time to read myself. =)  He is always on point, and usually helps add a dose of levity.  Speaking of precisely that, I offer you Gulliver’s frazzled end of newsday ramblings…  A fun discourse into how to make airline food better.  I love that he actually, somehow, engaged me on a conversation about hot sauces.

7)  Photo Fakeouts caught by Oysters blog… great stuff! A piece on what they are doing with it *HERE* , and Oyster’s Blog here.

As for the gent in that rantrave.com comments section which talks of Oyster’s photo blog, I don’t mind leading those creeps on…. not one bit.  If I have the time, I will ruin their day with bizarre non sequitrs and baffling logical progression.  If you somehow found out how to get a hold of me for marketing reasons, you better realize who you are messing with.

8)  A fantastic and interesting interview with Hilton CEO Nassetta.  Amazing… with the allegations flying around about his involvement in the Denizen disaster, this is a very interesting interview (that doesn’t for one second come close to touching on anything at all in regards to Starwood’s newer claims.)

9)  SOME HELPFUL NEW YEAR TREATS! These are something I mull over, look at, think about throughout the year.  It might not be patently obvious why these are important, or how to leverage them…. but the more you read and learn, the more you will get why these are vital!

The top 15 web 2.0 websites as of January 2010

The 20 most popular social bookmarking sites on the web, as of January 2010

There you go!  I am sure I missed some stuff, but I will add more next week in what promises to be a constant addition too my blog.  Cheers!

I just found this.  1) Don’t know if it’s useful, but it’s interesting, 2) I am sure you guys can leverage this in some way, 3) I don’t know if this is supposed to be visible or not… so take advantage now.

This isn’t just about keywords by market which is endlessly fascinating, but it also says a lot about their markets…. the sheer volume of terms in SF compared to, say, Portland is pretty intriguing.

http://www.yelp.com/topsearches?page=01

that’s for SF.

You can also search other cities

http://www.yelp.com/topsearches/nyc?page=01

http://www.yelp.com/topsearches/la?page=01

http://www.yelp.com/topsearches/chicago?page=01

http://www.yelp.com/topsearches/sacramento?page=01

http://www.yelp.com/topsearches/portland?page=01

750+ pages of terms for SF, 521 for LA, 443 for Chicago, only 59 for Sacramento, 63 for Portland, etc.  Enter your city and see if it is at all worthwhile or interesting for you.

Cheers… just thought I would share.

Also….

I apologize for posting the below (I had published the keywords, but didn’t feel comfortable with them, now I just list the #), as it is the nefarious naughty words of net searches… but I doubt this will be up for long, due to searches like this tarnishing yelp’s equity with user base searches like #35, #47, and #60 among other less illegal or salacious terms on the SF search term board (like #99).  Ouch, yelp.  Ouch.  If these pages are removed, I will post the terms.  Frankly, they are sort of disturbing. =/  Can any SEO people suggest what these are?  I cannot believe they are organic searches?

FIRST:  Daniel Craig at EHotelier is incredible funny.  Well played sir… 2010 Trends.  Hilarious for us dorky hotel types.

And… anyone that wants to look at and figure out this abstract from a couple UK universities:

A model of hotel occupancy performance for monitoring and marketing in the hotel industry

Spas adapt to these rough times:

appetizer sized spa portions… down economy forcing a reorientation of full sized treatments

green recoverings – donating used linens for the needy
a simple, PHENOMENAL program that would be easy, and beneficial, to implement.

What would google do? – vilifying google for content distribution

Gradigio / Hotel Marketing Strategies – Josiah’s best of 2009 and Strategies for 2010

Social Media integrated with email marketing for hotels

How sustainable tourism effects travel and your wallet

Google study suggest marketing imperative to travel

Some great books for the businessperson just entering social media, and trying to make sense of it.

La Croix meets hotel uniforms to equal high fashion on the frontlines

Google’s Real Time Search, and hotel social media marketing

And The CMO of Morgans talking about their “Recess is on” recession campaign by staying and being “outrageously” cool.  I will tell you what…. I am including this because I just think these guys are way off.  Time will tell…. but using words like psychicgraphic.. is idiotic.  Their new campaign is “get dirty (two dirty martinis), get wet (big bathtub), get blown (in room salon services).  They are, apparently, adding value… and asking guests to trade up.  It just feels like a syrupy mess of creepy and scummy come together.  Which is why The Clift in SF, likely, is known as “The Place where locals go to cheat on their wives”.  Ugh.

Sorry I have been to busy to blog, everyone.  I have about 10 hanging about, and will get through them in the next couple months.  Cheers, be well, and happy new year!

A USA Today reporter had asked the question… what do you do when you have a complaint on property about a barking dog.

Oh boy do I remember this… and it is a delicate matter because people typically complain about this when they are trying to relax. So your approach to the situation matters greatly… it is always professionally wise to be a bit obseqious when you have issues that our out of your hands. But how to handle it? Well my thoughts are below.

Why are my thoughts below? Because I let this blog run to tech and social media far too often, when my 15 years is operational rooms and F&B know how! Frankly, I didn’t grind out 16 hour days at hotels just to be known as “that twitter guy”. =)

So enjoy a bout of SOP conjecture… and let me know what your thoughts or procedures are about this!

1) It is important not to wait for a problem to occur… on the website, at check in, in the room (as long as you don’t have billboard blindness with 100’s of tent cards throughout the room) and ESPECIALLY at check in = you need to equate dogs with children. You never, ever leave a dog alone in a room. It is a foreign area with no familiar smells… and it is tantamount to abandoning your dog. Nervous dogs, or ones with separation anxiety will start chewing things, urinating, etc. If you have an emergency, or need to get away for a private dinner, the dog should go in it’s “den”, aka the vehicle that it knows and understands that the owners will come back to. As long as it’s safe, and the weather temperate…. a dog left alone in the owners car is much safer, sanguine, and relaxing to a pup, rather than a foreign room. So a proactive approach is imperative.

2) When the dog is in the room, and the barking has started: a) like any guest complaint, whether right or wrong, real or imagined – you take accountability & ownership to best of your capacity, see what options are available like finding the dog owner’s phone number on their folio (a practice that is a vital part of check in). If all else fails, do whatever it takes to move the offended guest away from the area… and room move them to the other side of the property.

3) Sometimes, room moves are not possible. What’s more, it is vital that you do not go into a room where a nervous dog is already scared… I have had housekeepers bitten, and dogs run out of rooms. It is a tremendous problem for labor and consistency. What’s more, sometimes the smallest dogs can be the most destructive or aggressive. Size means nothing in regards to this, so it is imperative you do not go into a room with a lone dog. In this respect it is vital to engage the guest’s empathy. Help them to realize, with the utmost of deferential accountability, that this is a problem guest more than an issue with hotel service. You are doing your best to deal with the situation as you would a belligerent drunk or a loud wedding party. Most guests will understand this predicament, and instead of being antagonistic will professionally defer to the hotel’s capacity to make things right.

4) How do we make things right when the going gets rough and all avenues of resolution have been spent?

Free Breakfast! Discount on the room! Coupon to come back and visit when there are no dogs here! The free breakfast is mindless, simple solution… but sometimes seems lazy. Discounts hurt, which is why I like to do gift certificates because about 15% (approx) of those guests actually use them, but it pacifies them at the time of the issue.

So there ya go! A little hospitable support and advice from a guy who hasn’t worked on property in a couple years. Thanks for getting me to think operationally!

So I know Yelp works in the San Francisco Bay Area. LA’s sprawl might hinder it down there, NY seems not to be catching on (at least slowly), and Canada and the UK seem as if they were failures, at least as of yet.  I don’t have numbers on this (which is, by the way, a TERRIBLE way to start a blog post), and Yelp is always beaming with monthly hit reports, but it still seems their critical mass is the Bay Area, while a foothold in other markets seems elusive.

Doing Bay Area hotel/restaurant advertising w/ yelp is, basically, a no brainer.  Because of the sheer page hits, it will likely lead to conversion.  The margin isn’t at obvious for restaurants, but I would assume it might be of interest.  If you do the math, paying their scale plan for ads at about $1000/month, you would really only need to convert one or two people into a couple room nights each. If your yelp page is getting 1000 views, it isn’t that far of a stretch that you could convert to get solid ROI. Even with 500 hits a month for a mid range hotel, it should be compelling to do the math on how many people need to book to pay for the expense of advertising on Yelp.  Yes there are ethical grey areas, yes there is a lot of flap about how yelp does business….. but the bottom line is that it may be worthwhile for your property.  However, that is in the Bay Area.  Let’s look nationally.

I notice in other markets that should be strong, like Portland, it isn’t really taking off at all.  It is a massive assumption that it *should* do well anywhere, and as of yet I haven’t seen it stabilize with a critical mass of users anywhere but major metropolitan areas, and depending on the definition of critical mass, that may also be conjecture.  With the population of New York, and the type of food town it is, Yelp should be a massive powerhouse.   Portland is a *wee* bit smaller, but you have tech/web savvy foodies galore in the area, and I would have just assumed it would be utilized more than it is in that market.

Now, as a user of yelp I have ridden the ups and downs of their botched marketing and PR, issues with ethical murkiness as well as their problematic algorithm, or inability to embrace crisis, etc.  Yelp is a great idea that is being run by young, inexperienced tech-youth, non-businessmen.  We are all new & inexperienced at some point, but it is our duty to be aware of that and grow accordingly.  I know this is the management style in much of 2.0, and much of the 2.0 crowd pejorativize the word businessman as “bad”, but there are simple decisions that could have been handled better with acumen garnered from real management/business experience, etc.  The concept of the “businessman” is being reconsidered, or at least looms, as sites attempt to monetize and gain a foothold of the share of social reviewers & content providers.

Enter OpenTable, how it can matter, and it’s own take on restaurant reviews: Guaranteed no fake reviews.  I don’t know how it works if you cancel a rezzie, or if you are able to rig the system, etc…. but in theory it works. Like Expedia, you are not able to write a review unless you have a confirmation of the reservation through the open table service.  This is far and away more credible than Yelp’s practices. What’s more important, in my mind, is opentable’s reach.  Besides being a functional software for restaurants and diners alike, it seems that it is reaching a critical mass that Yelp could only dream of.  Maybe it is the simplicity of the format… simple rating systems bolstered by simple reviews with a few short sentences, or maybe it is because it is more about food, and less about social networking or user generated content.  However, since they rolled out the ability to review, many people in the social media realm took notice.  I find it interesting that their reservation product garnered enough of a following that it’s foray into content generation sort of immediately took off, piling up reviews of restaurants with reviews that have massive legitimacy compared to Yelp.

Of course, comparing the two seems myopic…. Opentable isn’t a full review site with reviewer profiles, etc.  They both operate in a different realm, and I am willing to bet there are crossover users that have completely different purposes for the sites.  Just like facebook and twitter, some people likely use both for different reasons.  In fact, many would claim they are *entirely* different services, but Opentable is obscuring those lines.  They can move into reviewing fairly simply, while Yelp would be hard pressed to move into a reservations technology.  This gives Opentable a very interesting upper hand.  What I think is a real challenge to yelp is that 1) opentable offers verification and unheard of legitimacy in regards to reviews, 2) it has a market and reach/impact far beyond the Bay Area, and 3) they have a less shaky business model.  The margins are somewhat slim, and I am not sure I can do the overall math… but if you compare their user base to how many reviews they are churning out, that could be an issue for Yelp.  I may be way off here.  At the very least, 100% of those reviews, purportedly, are legitimate while yelp deals with endless shill review issues.

However, it is important to realize that just because Opentable provides credibility, it doesn’t mean that yelp isn’t a useful tool.  Pardon the negatives parade in the preceding sentence… I am just saying, Opentable is a bit more legitimized, while yelp serves as a different tool to interact and learn from your guest’s reviews.  Opentable hasn’t opened up their site to the more social side of the web, and in regards to that they aren’t creating a meaningful conversation or interaction between diners and restaurants, which is, to some extent, what social media is all about.  But if they choose to go that direction, it will definitely be an interesting development.

As I mentioned, Yelp in the Bay Area works, but if the National competition is to be had, Yelp might have it’s back to the wall.  In a foodie centric city in the Northwest, a brand new fine dining restaurant I am involved with has opened.  In the first month and a half, there was one yelp review, and 57 Opentable reviews.  The difference is massive.  The reviews are more succinct, the verification based off reservation is very comforting, and it comes along with a considerably more professional tone overall.

I am wondering your experiences with Yelp vs. Opentable, and if you find yourself trusting or interacting with one more than the other?  Please feel free to share your thoughts.  Until then, I might suggest to watch out for Opentable… having been around and surviving the web bubble in the dot com burst, they may just be the seasoned, professional medium to provide truly meaningful interaction and content, leading social user generated reviews into the 21st century.  In the end, it might provide the competition necessary to help social media mature, and become more functional than controversial.  Until that happens, Yelp will continue to be a vital tool to reach your consumers and guests.  It may be useful, but until people start anchoring their reviews to a real, legitimate profile…. it is nothing more than a sophomoric, juvenile Myspace like world.  One that you have to work with.

So…. do you know where yelp works outside of the bay area? AND…. do you think opentable.com lends more legitimacy than yelp reviews?  Do you think Open Table could open up their reviews to interaction from ownership?

I actually got into a conversation on linked in today!  Go figure… I haven’t used it much as the “professional facebook”, but every once in awhile meaningful discussion about the industry pops up…. even then I typically don’t dive in.  But it is interesting…. so much conversation about the recession being over, and hoteliers, ownership, and properties are popping up their heads to see if they see their shadow.  As real winter looms, our proverbial “winter of discontent” wanes.  But instead of being rife with joy… let’s cast our doom & gloom nets out a bit.  If you look anywhere in media – fear and panic are often confused and countered by people’s desire to find the light at the end of the tunnel.  There are two types in this debate…. the sky is falling, or it’s looking up.

Well… I am cautiously optimistic.  The Dow hit 10,000 today, briefly, and a “painful recovery” is nothing in light of 80% of economists saying “The Recession is Over”. What’s more – It isn’t just the normal public mags, but trade mags are being VERY cautious in saying… “recession lifting, let’s get back to it!”.  In fact, not many are even highlighting articles about it… it is just a general “how to weather the rest of it”, “ideas for getting out of the recession” and the like.  There are articles like this (and here about a community’s B&Bs, and I have seen many like this about international markets)  all over the internet… little niches surviving or doing great!

It is a good feeling to see people conversing about an end to our economic woes.  Of course, I don’t forget that it is the talk and panic that drives the initial problem, as well as talk and optimism that can drive us out of the “mud” on our bottom line…… that is……decidedly….. black.  In fact, that negativity and existential concern about hotels and their future still pervades the news feeds.  But let’s not give the time of day to those who pander to the lowest common denominator… let’s look at a tried and true brand who’s consistent and professional tone to the industry is a good earmark for our collective concerns:  Marriott’s blog post.

I think it sums up the problem we hoteliers currently have… we would like to celebrate the dow at 10K, or the economists reporting, en masse, “it’s getting much better!”.  The problem is the reality, and that many hotels in standard, normal markets can feel the pinch for some time longer.

Another reason to hesitate…. we are growing, but current growth is *slow*.  I don’t have the articles on me, but I do know that lenders are still holding all the keys because the value of properties since 2007 have basically halved (Hotel Business Vol. 18 No. 19 Oct 7-20, 2009)… which is ground shakingly tragic.  The foreclosured and distressed will hit the market soon, and more problems will be discovered than are currently known.  But on the other side of this coin, it is time for equity and ownership to start finding PHENOMENAL deals.  Everyone should be able to buy a hotel in the coming year (joke)….

Economic recovery and slow growth is one thing… but we are hotels, and we might need to take a closer look at the national unemployment rate.  The economy might be recovering, but our industry is so COMPLETELY controlled by labour and unemployment, I am worried it will give a false sense of security when certain segments might still get hit hard.   I saw Tom Callahan the other day from PKF in San Francisco, and he said the basic consensus is that we will not hit q4 2007 or q1 2008 ADR and RevPar until 2014… which is…. depressing.  But it is only a climb up from here.  As long as you retained some rate parity, the property should be able to bounce back.  If you are like Vegas, you may have dug a hole so deep, you will have issues “digging up”. =)

(To be fair, even some people think that Vegas is finally on an upswing, or at least battling the recession.  True their tourism is down, their rooms are empty…. but finishing City Center in a climate like this is amazing, and frankly… although they are reducing flats @ $2000 / sq ft possibly to below $1000 / sq ft…. I am shocked 55% of it has been sold.)

All this being told… I think the slide and panic is over.  Our awful day at the beach is done, and what happens next is shaking out the blanket to clear the sand…. and we will see what is jarred loose from the hotel economic fabric.  The problems that are still to come are not pro-longed troubles for hotels, it is simply the back end of the recession working itself out.  Until then…. buckle up…. I doubt it will be too bumpy a drive home, but it’s gonna be a long ride.

Yes I am fully aware of how many metaphors I used in this.  =)  Good luck EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU… be well, hang tough… and see you on the other side!

A professional acquaintance and I were communicating today about the odd nature of social media in regards to “friending”, and navigating the tightrope that is personal and professional.  Social Media and Online Communication are still very young, and it is still learning to become the “metaverse” Stephenson conjectured, or at least fantastical replication of the physical world.  As it starts to more accurately and efficiently replicate tangible existence, we will see a new vision of a social platform – something that is capable of being augmented, and adapatable enough for the most diverse of us. For now, we have the frustrating complexity of navigating our professional selves, and awkwardly surrendering our personal lives in lieu of building a professional network.

The question she asked was “How do you decide who to friend when someone finds your profile off of the page you administer?”

This is, truly, a billion dollar question.  The online world is slowly revealing itself to be a simulacrum of the real world…. whereas MySpace’s vague and anonymous profiles caused confusion and apprehension, FB verification process through jobs and schools creates a more acceptable legitimacy in regards to the “realness” of a person.  If the person tried to build a “fake” profile, it would sort of become irrelevant because there were no real world connections to make.  That poses a problem for the more diverse of us.  I note Twitter facilitates the need to compartmentalize interests, hobbies, characters, etc…. I have multiple twitter accounts – one for my music and DJ’ing, one for art and science, one for biz, and so on.  The nature of communication is that we compartmentalize these interests, so we aren’t talking about the new museum to a hotel person, or the renovation of a hotel to someone who like to listen to music.  It’s vital – it’s who we are, and how we do biz.  At the very least, there needs to be a separation of professional life and work life.

This is where FB really lets me down.  Originally I had two profiles… my main normal one professionally (networking and managing pages), and a goofy one for all my closer friends, music/art/SF scene friends.  I soon realized it is literally impossible to juggle between the two accounts, let my alt-profile go dormant, and now I am simply an open book on my main profile.  I use it however I wish, post whatever I wish… all the while accepting professional peers as friends.  If they like my personal stream, that is fine – if not, they will unfriend.  But I note, for my own mental sanity, that I couldn’t possibly keep up to speed with trying to maintain two FB profiles, all the FB pages… and figuring out what interaction happened where.

So I ditched that alternate profile, and it has been incredibly freeing.  1) FB is not like twitter… it is a closed social network.  What is odd about that is that people don’t seem to want a closed social network in regards to their friends… because they will simply call and chat with them, see them at work or dinner, etc.  People want an open network like twitter, for sharing funny stuff, professional networking, etc.  So I note a lot of people on FB have just become friend junkies and will say yes to whoever might want to be their friend, simply to expand the network and ability for meaningful interaction.

I doubt you insulted anyone… most likely it is another Oregon local just trying to expand their network.

Whatever the case… this is a widely spoken about… you are not alone.  I think Twitter “gets it”, and Linked In sort of gets it.  There isn’t that much interaction there, but it is a valuable tool in conjunction with FB, at this point.

However, I think someone is going to soon create a tool/medium that allows you to truly compartmentalize these personna…. and create alternate profiles, conversations, etc within one network.  The person that figures out how I can post some inappropriately irreverent and sardonic nonsense on one part of my profile, and professional news and tidbits on another, while posting a video or new mix on my other “side” – that person is going to make a lot of money.

Google Wave could be a start to this.  I just realized something… Facebook would be able to adapt to this, but I am not innovative enough to figure out how Twitter to handle this sort of shift in friend management.  Whatever the case, pardon my afternoon verbosity.  The sun is hitting the office window and for some reason I just caught fire. =)

The rest that is cut off (hey I am a hotel guy, not a HTML guy) says “($42/month), would you?”  You can take the survey yourself right here: TripAdvisor Survey for Owners.

I will let the pic speak for itself.  I know it’s just a survey, but I assume some people might have a concern in regards to this?  How about: mom and pops, small innkeepers, non branded or flagged properties that don’t have a mega-marketing budget to leverage every site, and I could go on.  I know it’s only $500, but it adds up…. and if they were to really go through with this I assume it would be irrevocably damaging to their long term credibility.  Even Yelp has tiptoed around ethics issues with business owners, review manipulation, etc – but haven’t done something this obvious.  Of course, the question is:  In their quest to monetize, will TripAdvisor risk their credibility to do so?

Any thoughts?  Is it that big a deal?  Would it create an unfair gap between “haves” and “have nots”, or is TripAdvisor supplying link and phone info moot, because guests will call the hotel directly anyway?

Once again, Hotels Mag & Mr. Hartesvelt have come up with an interesting piece… this time in regards to “Random Acts of Marketing” and hotels PR people being a bit beleaguered in these times, and acting out accordingly.  I, once again, had too long a blog response and note that the comments section isn’t always the best place for banter… or at least I have trouble posting there at times.  In preparation of that, I linked the article above…. and put my own thoughts here just in case.

The best marketers are skeptics or operators that turned into marketers… because marketing has been a land of long lunches, little data, & arcane, questionable demonstrable results…. ALWAYS.  When times are good, the greased cogs and gears tick forward inevitably… often unnoticed (for good or bad).  In a down economy they just become a little more visible because of their obvious lack of connection or understanding of operations, budgets, etc.  There are some STUNNING marketing firms out there (a little plug for BMC.. the guys are so incredibly together it is refreshing, and astonishing)… and most of those are the ones big enough to admit 1) we are undergoing some major changes, and 2) we have little to no idea what is happening for the time being.  At least… if not hyperbolic relatively based in truth.

“New” marketers talk about getting back in synch, like the old system…. where, apparently, print media showed results.

Frankly.. I am not sure it ever did, and hopefully this new wave of social tools democratizing the guest experience will force the hand of marketing people to stop convincing their consumers that the brand is good…. and instead just focus on “gooding” the brand; making sure the hotel or entity is ethically orchestrating business in a way that will have consumers actively endorse their model and passively advocate it.

It isn’t about convincing people that a product is exceptional.  It’s being exceptional and allowing people to recognize that.  That doesn’t take place with marketing or PR… that takes place from within operations and management. Run a business well.. *then* hand it to marketers.  They might begrudgingly thank you that you just made their job easier.  More and more I see marketers admit with defeat that the message is no longer controllable…. and many don’t have a clue what’s going on.

But don’t worry marketer, most of the industry and business world is that way.  That’s what happens when consumers gain control for the first time in history.

Yes this is about sporks.  We will get there.

This article had this comment:

“As a linux and mac user at home and a very reluctant MS user at work (saved by a large smattering of open source progs here, thankyouverymuch), I can say without a doubt that the advert for Bing alone is enough to put me off. Even if it wasn’t owned by MS… “the decision engine”? Now MS is telling us that they have been keeping us locked in their OS for decades, but now officially, they want us to willingly hand over our ability to make decisions to them. Sure! Why Not? I hope google stays on top of MS on this one. And that Chrome OS winds up kicking Windows 7 in the tookis. That’s right. The good guy winning for once. – sorry. I’m ranty today.”

*aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand…* it made me think of something… something I hadn’t thought of in a long time.  Well, we will start with my thoughts, and then get to the spork analogy for business and life.

I am a ridiculous clouded out google fan boy.  I will say this:

1)  Google does “search” well, as well as innovation.. but….   Their google desktop has consistently been problematic for my machines (crashing, eating memory).  The Chrome browser is the single worst browser in the history of the universe.  That.. my friends.. is not hyperbole.  Maybe that is my opinion, but jeez… it’s a disaster.  I really don’t have much hope for the Chrome OS.

2) I have zero time for Bing.  It doesn’t work well (yet?  more use the better it gets?) for me…. but the idea of it being a “decision engine” is all marketing and nobody is literally assuming they are giving MS the ability to make decisions for them.  The Pareto principle is going to have me waiting and seeing whether it is worth any time at all… so for the time being they are not going to make any decisions for me at all.  What’s more, the only thing I find myself typing into Bing is “Google” and I wonder what percentage of people are doing that (tongue in cheek)

3)  I want google to kick butt.. big time.  I like them… they could do better with back end customer service, but they are trying.

As divisive and outlandish a blogger might like to be in regards to opinions, it never really is that simple, is it?

I am conservative in business, and I see a trend that I am not too thrilled about, and it might be wise to consider.

Enter….

The problem with this situation is precisely about the spork…. the spork is a simple, complete analogy for most situations…. it’s not just about business, it’s about the overriding human condition.

The spork has prongs far too short to actually effectively pick up peas, or meat; just as the spoon is far too shallow to actually be used for soup or the like.

By trying to be efficient, adaptable, and multifunctional – it miserably fails at everything.

Nintendo is a good example of not falling prey to that… as Sony and Microsoft launched into this world of being too many things… DVD, gaming, sound, computer, “media centers”, Nintendo leaned back and said… “Go for it.  You guys be “too much”… we will be the game system everyone buys and connects to your media centers.  It is far and wide the industry leader in gaming, 2 to 1 vs. competitors.  I am not a gamer, don’t own a system, and am more likely to go online and play a free donkey kong knock off…. but I still have to thank Nintendo for that.  It does, however, offer an interesting view of business:  An acumen for knowing your limitations, and knowing what you do well.

I am not saying Google should stay put and not play this technological game of Risk and world domination…. nor am I suggesting that MS should sit idle in this rapidly redefining tech world.  I am just saying they both run the risk at failing at everything by trying to be too many things.  Of course, their shareholders would never let that happen, right?