New Media Cruise / Podcamp@Sea - from NYC - June 28th - July 3rd

The Idea

A different kind of cruise is being planned for this June. This is a cruise for people more interested in bit rates than bingo, and more interested in RSS than the midnight buffet. The idea is to create a floating unconference on new media. I have had a chance to do a themed based tech cruise and found that it was much more enjoyable and interesting than a regular cruise vacation (shuffle board is not my game). We will spend the time in port exploring but when the ship is at sea we will have sessions of interest to the attendees on new media and social media.

This is a 5 day cruise to keep the costs low with no additional fee for the conference as long as you register through me. By registering together as a group, the ship should provide the necessary meeting space with no additional charge. Also we will sit as a group rotating people through different tables to make it easier to meet people.

What is an Unconference
To keep the costs low it is my intention to do this as an unconference where the people attending will decide what sessions we will have rather than paying for speakers to attend. I would like to provide a place where novices and experts alike can learn something. I have created a discussion in the Amateur Traveler boards called “What do you want to learn?”

The Cruise
The plans for the New Media Cruise have solidified and we have reserved cabins for cruise leaving New York City on June 28th and returning on July 3rd with stops in Halifax and Saint Johns.

Who are we?
I am the host of the Amateur Traveler, The Bible Study Podcast and a co-host on This Week in Travel podcast. All together I have published more than 400 podcast episodes (both audio and video).

I am working with Lorene Romero of the Home Based Travel podcast to pull this off because she is a cruise travel expert and knows how to coordinate this with the cruise company and how to help people book their travel, excursions, etc.

For full and fair disclosure Lorene and I will make money on the commissions to help pay for our time working on this, but frankly Lorene thinks I am a little crazy for not having a registration fee to pay for miscellaneous expenses.

How much will this cost?
The taxes and fees came in a bit higher than I expected (always make sure to check these when you book a cruise because often the advertised price does not include them).

Final costs are:
Inside Cabin $420 base price, taxes and port charges $198.77 = $618.77 per person
Outside cabin $480 base price, taxes and port charges $198.77 = $678.77 per person
Balcony $650 base price, taxes and port chagres $198.77 = $848.77 per person
Also plan on $10 per person per day for tips

How do I book the cruise?
Email newmediacruise@AmateurTraveler.com with your contact info and cabin selection. If you do contact them please mention that you heard about it via Gary Bembridge (TipsForTravellers Blog)

How can I help?
Please spread the word to the podcasters and new media producers that you know. The more people who come the more fun this will be.

Dutch customer service research: e-mail still preferred contact channel

Trinicom, a Dutch vendor of Customer Interaction Management and web based self-service solutions, has announced the results of the edition 2009 of it’s customer service report.

One of the findings of the report is that the main functions that customers expect to find on a website are…an e-mail address and a telephone number. E-mail, the research, says, is still the most popular tool to ask questions to a company.

A fax number is the least important this year, last year the last place was for chatboxes. So there maybe is life for all kinds of live contact chat tools. But still: the traditional customer service channels are the most preferred.

When sending an e-mail to the customer service of a company, 54.5% of the respondents expect at least a notification that the mail has been received and in what timeframe it will be answered.

More on this link.

Social Media Strategic Framework

Our Chief Digital Officer, Steve Sponder (blog / Twitter), in collaboration with key luminaries from our agency (I grandly include myself in that) has created our Social Media Strategic Framework. Let me know your thoughts.

Here’s the thinking:

There are certainly no shortage of agencies offering social media tactics to brands although almost all of this activity is crude, forcing a conventional advertising approach into this new social media environment.

Social media has disrupted the conventional marketing model. People are one click away from the perfect job, the ideal product, a damming video diary or the 5 star review. Access to, and control over, this information results in different behaviour and attitudes. I believe social media is disrupting markets and the result will be more profound than the introduction of the Internet.

Brands need to adopt different mindsets, models, approaches and strategies to meet their commercial objectives. In order to help brands adapt to this change I have been working with my colleagues at Five by Five and Headstream to develop a Social Media Strategic Framework which we believe will enable brands to strategically navigate through, as opposed to just blindly rolling out the latest, must-have tactics.

Our Social Media Strategic Framework (SMSF) sets out a number of key areas for organsiations to consider:

1) Social Media Strategy – As organisations start to understand the far reaching implications of social media they quickly appreciate the need to define a social media strategy that mutually supports other strategies within the organisation.

2) Influencer Networks – Influencers will play different roles within different market-sectors, so the key here is to understand how to identify them, the role they play and how to engage with them.

3) Brand Outposts – Don’t just set-up a Twitter account because everyone’s doing it. Take a step back and think about how your outposts will support your social media strategy, who will run your outposts and where the content will come from?

4) Reputation Management – Arguably, real-time eavesdropping on what people are saying about your brand is one of the most immediate benefits of social media marketing although, conversely engaging in a negative conversation could escalate in a full blown crisis so again a clear separate strategy is required here.

5) Brands with something interesting, useful and/or relevant to say should be aiming to start conversations, using branded content as social currency. A distribution strategy will then ensure that engaging content has the best opportunity to kick-start a conversation.

In conclusion, the strategic intent should be for organisations to be an authentic part of the social media community and appropriate conversations, along the way there will be immediate, tangible results although like branding, social media is about the long-haul. It’s about systemically and consistently building the reputation of the brand where the pay-back is ultimately brand equity.

I hope you find our Social Media Strategic Framework interesting and that it builds on, and continues, the conversation.

More on SlideShare

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Twitter: the next big thing for your brand. Or not??

gary bembridge twitter home pgae, originally uploaded by garybembridge.

As a bit of an online junkie (some may even say whore), I love new tools and love new social networks like last.fm and facebook. I finally started to use Twitter a few months back, though I am still not really sure what it is all about and why it has become so hot.

To me it feels like a jumble of stuff and the more people you follow the more jumbled it gets. I thought it would be a good place to keep on top of news but find google news is better.

But one of the most interesting things that really made me ponder this whole topic last week, was a short interview and discussion on one of my most favourite podcasts (Media Guardian Podcast). On it they interviewed a 17 year old work intern they had who very bluntly said that Twitter is for celebrities who want to go on about "I am", and old people (by which she meant over 30) saying "look how young I am by using this".

It really made me think. The place to look for the next big thing is what teens and what this very online savvy generation is doing. By the time many of them get more mainstream, and your work mates start using them, it is time to think either:

(1) This tool is now past it's peak and past it's cutting edge. Our use of it may date us, may make us seem too establishment and behind the curve. OR

(2) This tool is now mainstream and time to embrace it!

Which option is right depends on your brand. So if you are a trendy young and cutting edge brand you probably need to be on what is scorching hot and new. More mainstream brands should look to the 2nd.

Either way you need to embrace these new tools and at least be trying...

visit my twitter feed at http://www.twitter.com/garybembridge