Offered without comment, courtesy of Happify Daily.
Til Next Time,
Michael
Travel + Photos
I saw a great piece today on How To Take Professional Travel Photos courtesy of Nomadic Matt. I figured it was a great way to start off the week, even for those of us who (sometimes) are stuck traveling for work rather than for pleasure!
Til Next Time,
Michael
Is Your Co-Worker An A-Hole?
Travel Elites
I was pointed to a recent article the other day on the growing challenge of structuring elite programs for travel’s most loyal participants. The road warriors, the regional sales guys, the implementers of all things people, process, technology who can often spend day after day in some regional mecca the likes of Columbus (any of them really – not just Ohio) just to see themselves wake up in another. I found the article to be very accurate in describing the ways and the reasons that many of these companies (airlines especially) are migrating their program travel requirements to even higher heights, effectively creating a whole new level of travel “elites”. I liken them to “second world citizens” if you consider the true elites to be “first” and people with no affiliation/loyalty/recognition with the company to be “third”.
Candidly, I myself am currently Silver on Delta, trending towards Gold this year. Which brings up an interesting dilemma. How much is it worth to me and how differently may I be treated next year if I chase the next level of loyalty? I am of the opinion that, if you are traveling with any frequency (even once or twice a month) – the incremental amount you can (often creatively/cheaply) spend to get to a next tier is definitely worth it.
But we shall see; I’ll keep you posted!
Til Next Time,
Michael
Show Me, Don’t Tell Me: Visuals in Marketing
I’ve been talking with my team a lot lately about the need to “show me, don’t tell me”. Perhaps this is part of my Missouri roots (for those of you who didn’t catch the tie-in, Missouri is the “Show Me State”). But perhaps it’s just because I’ve recognized a sharp shift in the millennial/digital age’s preference of ways they learn about things. They like to see things visually, and have them reinforced with real words, rather than read some black-and-white text in a non-digital outlet.
Along these lines, I received a stock email the other day from Add This, which went over some great basic tips on ways to improve and use visual components in marketing. For the sake of my argument, I’ll let “marketing” mean anything from implementation to branding to traditional project management. I think it’s a great list and I definitely pull elements from each of these and try to reinforce and innovate my team to drive better visuals.
Here are the tips, courtesy of AddThis:
1. Use Online Tools to Help You Create Images: If you don’t have your own staff designer to help you create visuals, and you’re on a budget, you should check out online tools like Piktochart, Canva, and PowToon. They’re easy to use and are very effective at creating professional images and animations.
2. Create Charts and Infographics: One of the best ways to provide shorter form content is by creating charts, infographics, video or other visual content to accompany your text. The content becomes more easily digestible with the aid of visual treats. In addition to the resources listed above, Infogr.am is another great tool for creating infographics and charts.
3. Include Quotes/Facts in Images: Visually previewing what you’re promoting is a strategy we’ve found effective in our social media marketing. Tweets that include specific statistics or quotes tend to perform better than those without. Recite is an online tool that makes this easy. They offer a variety of templates to which you can add quotes. Buffer’s Pablo app is another easy way to do this with lots of customization options for your image and copy.
4. Use Higher Quality Photography: Marketers are trading in traditional stock photography for more authentic looking images. Here are some great high resolution free photography resources you can use for your everyday marketing needs.
5. Don’t Underestimate Video: Including video in landing pages is another great way to drive engagement. Facebook reports the amount of video posted by users (both individuals and brands) increased by 3.6X from January 2013 to November 2014. Sandwich Video is a great example of a company that does very creative videos for businesses. In addition to the free photo resources listed above, we also have video resources you can check out.
Til Next Time,
Michael
Transparency with Organizational Design
I think one thing people often struggle with in Corporate America is balancing the need for transparency with the need for keeping certain things outside of the public (and internal public, i.e. front line worker bees) domain. I error on the side of more transparency – and perhaps that’s one of my flaws. But I have found in my career that this is a great way to build trust and make yourself honorable to those with whom you work on a daily basis.
Anyways, I am really impressed with how the new Cisco CEO has approached this. Cheers to you, Chuck Robbins. Take a look:
Til Next Time,
Michael
Blogroll: Supercompressor
So I know I’ve migrated the site (just slightly) from doing only Corporate America opine to a bit more of an amalgamation of things I enjoy… which – in some (many) cases – corresponds to Corporate America. Sorry for that!
Either way though, I want to start giving credit to some new (as well as tried and true) favorite blogs of mine. A blogroll and “credits” section of sorts.
Today – I give you Supercompressor – a gear/tech/machine/home good blog courtesy of one of my good buddies. Enjoy!
Til Next Time,
Michael
Weddings & Conferences
I was at a wedding this past weekend, and it made me recall a parallel I have discussed with several members of my team. I thought it appropriate to share here. For anyone who works in conference/meeting facilitation, you may especially agree.
Anytime I have to plan a conference (no matter how big or small), I always have to tell myself “it’s just like a wedding”. That helps me never get too high, too low, too excited, too worried. Here is why I think this parallel works:
- There are inevitably things that come up which you cannot control
- The room will be too hot or too cold
- The room will have audio/visual hookups that don’t work with certain equipment
- It may be too bright/too dark
- Someone will forget something or be unable to bring something for which they are depended upon
- Your budget (whether it’s time, money, or energy) will never afford all of the things you’d like to have (“nice to haves”)
- Prioritizing the “must haves” is incredibly more important than worrying about “nice to haves”
- You will always have a momentary crisis (for some length of time) right before the event where you wish you had a million more hours to button up a million last-minute items
- MOST IMPORTANTLY – more often than not, it all goes off without a hitch
So, next time you have to organize or facilitate any kind of meeting or conference – just tell yourself “it won’t be that bad” and “at the end of the day, the couple usually says ‘I do'”. Just like the team usually says “I do” after your meeting!
Til Next Time,
Michael
Infographic of the Day
Offered without comment, courtesy of the Centre for Learning and Teaching.
Til Next Time,
Michael
Tulum Hotel Review: Livetulum
We struggled finding a place on Boca Paila for our final night (long story short – we extended our trip two days while we were there because we loved it so much – and the final night pretty much everywhere was sold out), so we opted for something in Tulum Centro: Livetulum. It was pretty reasonably priced and it put us closer to the main road to get back to CUN airport Sunday morning anyway.
Here’s the review:
- Location: The location extremely convenient to the main road in/out of town. However, the hotel is situated on a fairly busy street that is fairly heavily trafficked by motorcycles and cars at all hours of the night.
- Facilities: The facilities are surprisingly nice, considering it’s on a block that otherwise feels a little sketchy and abandoned.
- Amenities: There aren’t too many amenities here, but I will say that having TV in the room was actually quite key for this stop (we didn’t have TV anywhere else), as we stayed here on the night of the “Fight of the Century” (Mayweather/Pacquiao), and Mexico apparently broadcast the fight for free on local television.
- Staff: The staff was incredibly helpful. They even assisted with getting us a reservation at Cetli, which I thought was a very nice thing for them to do.
- Rooms: The rooms are very spacious and clean (the hotel actually advertises itself more like condos than hotel rooms – which is accurate), and each have their own kitchenette and refrigerator (a huge plus that we didn’t have anywhere else). Also, our room happened to open up in the back right to the pool, where we had out own little cove for ease of access. All in all, I was pretty impressed considering I entered with average expectations.
Til Next Time,
Michael