Many thanks to the Pacific Business News and the Star Bulletin for covering the recent So Much More Hawaii fam tour with mainland bloggers. I started this writing as a comment on PBN, but I have a rule that when my comments exceed two paragraphs, I move the conversation over to my blog for clarity and for support. (Plus, the Star Bulletin did not allow comments on Ms. Schaefer’s article and PBN does not allow links in their comments – both of which limit the conversation and tend to make me a little grumpy.) As I understand it, this blogger trip is not the first time Hawaii tourism has paid for blogger fam trips – though it is the first official blogger tour and significant campaign of which I am aware. Paying people to come here and write about us has its own issues that I addressed here and here.

Measuring Social Media Campaigns
I agree with Derek (a commenter on PBN) on the point that internet-based marketing campaigns can be far more measurable (and accurate and targeted) than traditional print, radio, and tv-based initiatives. He was responding to this item in the PBN article:

It is difficult to measure the effectiveness of online marketing, but Lu said it may be beyond calculation.

A lot can be measured ex post facto but some of the more critical elements require set-up in advance, not least of which is doing some baseline measurements “in the space” to compare pre and post data. The better social web monitoring services also cost real money, in addition to the time it takes to set them up.

The Hidden Costs of Social Media Campaigns
I am really proud of Christine’s persistence and the state’s willingness to dip their toes in the water. The additional collaborators (hotels, Hawaiian Airlines, Avis & the bloggers) all gave from their pockets to support Hawaii tourism – of which they are a vital part. This was a low-risk venture and hopefully a terrific learning opportunity for people new to social web marketing. This model may not be replicable or scalable though. My concern is that since it was done on the fly (and on the cheap), it may be hard to truly get a sense of what is possible on the social web.

Nonetheless we produced Podcamp Hawaii last year on the fly and on the cheap with outstanding results! (It’s how Christine Lu came to meet Nathan Kam who represents HVCB and David Uchiyama of HTA.) We had over 400 live attendees, thousands more who joined us via live video stream from around the world, and our “tag” – the short label referring to our event (#pch08) – was the #1 trending topic on Twitter for a day (in the world!) and #2 on Flickr (in the world!). We made a huge dent and had people all around the world dreaming about being in Hawaii. We had the support of HVCB, the HCC and many other local businesses. We gave them each a custom landing page on our site – a place to talk directly to our audience – and hundreds of additional blog posts, twitter messages, videos, live stream banner ads, etc.

There is no Podcamp Hawaii 2009 though – despite the hugely positive response. It’s a lot of work for a group of volunteers. I personally logged over 200 hours of my time producing the event – 100% volunteer for this community service. The tools are often free, but the time commitment is substantial with social media.

It is an age old dilemma – people want to try “new” things with very little investment. If it’s successful, it is part luck and part skill. If it’s not, pessimists think they prevail when in fact not enough was invested to make a dent. Remember, blogging has been around for 10 years now; CNN uses the same software Christine used to build the blog; etc. In reality, these are not “new” technologies.

We Are Beginning to Understand the Value of Online Networks
The Harvard Business Review has been covering the social web for years now. I tripped across this article from 2001 (!) today, pointing out the exponential value that is accrued within self-organizing, peer-to-peer online networks. Author David Reed, who called them “GFN’s” for group-forming networks, actually began his research in 1997 and states:

I’ve been studying GFNs for the last four years and have come to realize that they require a whole new way of measuring network value. Indeed, I think companies that can capitalize on the power of GFNs will gain the strongest competitive advantages that the Internet has to offer.

Caveat: I know Christine Lu and several of the bloggers personally and have been trying to persuade various tourism entities to learn more about the social web, Here’s just one recent example. The interactive web is not easy to understand from the outside, just like most foreign cultures. In this “place” there are people issues as well as software and technology issues, thus making “understanding” a daunting task to be sure. OTOH (on the other hand) it is a very open, embracing environment though and “newbies” are always welcome!

Want to Learn More?
Our local chapter of the global Social Media Club meets once a month and our meetings are free, open to anyone, and feature informative speakers and excellent networking. Our next event is Friday, June 12th at the ING DIRECT Cafe in Waikiki. Come join us, and learn why the Club’s tagline is, “If you get it, share it.” This month’s topic is “Online Reputation Management.”

Shane and I are also launching KnowHow Café – a place to learn more about the social web, online productivity, audio and video podcasting, blogging, Twitter, and more. Join our email list to be notified of upcoming online and live, in-person classes. Use the promo code “bfs” to help us know where you heard about us. We are mid-way through a six week course called “Getting Started on the Social Web.” I’ll be posting more about that in the coming week, time permitting! Once again, time is a critical resource on the social web.

With Aloha,

Brian Solis, a truly forward thinking PR professional and co-founder of the Social Media Club, took the time and captured a lot of the same thoughts I had, yet was reluctant to post in detail when I discussed Google, the FTC, and paid links. I too am influenced by my friends and business colleagues, and am trying to influence the discussion of social media practices here in Hawaii as a long time practitioner and also a founding member of the Social Media Club. (Whose tag line is, “If you get it, share it.” sometimes people don’t want to get it though – they are more comfortable doing business in the old ways.)

Please read: This is Not a Sponsored Post by Brian Solis

My post now is in response to Brian and the discussion taking place over at WebProWorld.com – where the opinion of bloggers among web managers and SEO experts is not too positive.

On a blog you never know as there is no way to know. Google warned about this a long time ago, likely because they remember how the FTC reatced [sp] to sponsored links when Se’s tried to disguise they were paid advertising, It is the law… bloggers aren’t above it.

These new brand ambassadors are almost the perfect instruments for surreptitiously sparking and cultivating groundswell within desired and vital target markets.

Consumers look to experts and trusted peers for guidance and insight when making decisions.

Who’s to say that the information they’re receiving from their trusted sources is indeed truthful and honest, if they’re unaware that these authorities are actually directly or indirectly compensated for their opinions and insights.

To me, blogging has become a big enough industry that it now replicates behaviors that humanity has gravitated towards “naturally.” Some travel bloggers, like some travel writers for mainstream press, now receive paid fam trips. We all like to think we are free thinkers – but when we are being paid, that does change things. We are not as impartial. Nearly impossible for all but the crankiest among us.

When a beloved blogger gets laid off from her job and appears to serendipitously take a trip to Hawaii to get her life sorted out, her readers responded with support and compassion. How would they feel if they knew it was an all expenses paid trip, courtesy of the tourism industry?

The really good news is that all parties stand to gain more by tweaking this relationship a little bit, and doing business in a more transparent manner.

Problem:

• Advertiser pays blogger for specific reviews or specific trips, knowing that they will get better than blind coverage.


• Blogger hides said compensation to maintain appearance of independence and not taint the story with “pay per post” energy.


• Google is aware of this and is working diligently to find a way to ignore “advertorial” postings.


• Blogger has to hustle on a case by case basis to cover costs and receive just compensation fro the incredible work being done building a targeted and loyal audience.


• Advertiser has to jump from blogger to blogger in search of hidden paid endorsements.  


• Both run the risk of being outed with the ensuing backlash.


• Readers do not get the whole truth.


• The problem holds true even if there is a page hidden away somewhere on your blog that says you got paid for something.

• A statement of acknowledgement belongs on every post not just in the back of the blog.


• I’d like to see a generic icon developed that indicates some form of compensation was received for the item(s) mentioned in this post. It has become very popular to nuance the language these days, “no one was paid for their time” – yeah, but they did get an all expenses paid trip to Hawaii with access to countless not-so-obvious products, services, and people right? That dear readers, is compensation to me. Is it to you?


• Advertisers are better served by developing a relationship with bloggers who have an audience in their desired space. They should step up and provide ongoing paid support for that blogger, so s/he can continue to do the fine work and build the audience. This goes for the people developing social media campaigns too. There is a lot of effort that goes into creating these campaigns, effectively.


• This means not paying for specifics on a per trip or per product basis, but by being a proud sponsor of said blog. Create some distance. Get your banner ad, write the check, participate in the comments, and otherwise stay out of the way.


• Let the blogger pay for their own products and services unless each mention of said item is disclosed.


• Blogger can thank the sponsors at any time; it’s good etiquette. They can be transparent about the help and the money they are getting. There is nothing to hide here when it;s being handled ethically.


• The NPR model works so well. “This blog/this post is brought to you by ABC.” Then everyone knows the deal and can make their own decisions.


• I know the loyal viewers of our BeachWalks.tv internet show would be thrilled for us to get a sponsor who truly grokked the value we bring to people’s lives. They often even suggest sponsors they would like to hear from, who they think are a good fit for our show. How many instances do you know of that happening?

The agency should be proud to support aka sponsor bloggers and bloggers should stop pretending they are immune to editorial standards of disclosure. If a big company did this – like Walmart did with its fake videoblogger/RV across America tour a few years back – they would (and did!) get nailed for it in public.

There really is a win-win-win in here! But advertisers and bloggers have to remember one of the fundamental rules of the social web: TRANSPARENCY. We can move business ethics forward, support the companies and the bloggers and the audience. Really, it’s not that hard. I am confident it will get worked out sooner than later.

Aloha,

And do it all in less than 2 months.

“Whaaat?” you say. That’s right. This is another example of the power of the social web, of leveraging your network, of the network effect, of doing good and doing well, and so many other 21st century concepts made possible by the internet combined with intrinsic human traits. It’s also trust on the part of vendors, and it gets energy from the “bird in the hand is worth two in a bush” fact of life.

Rox’s Free Advice Sidebar:
If you are in the music industry, this describes an opportunity waiting to be seized. What if a publisher/distributor like Mountain Apple Company set up a site like this and offered something new and special every day/week? It would be a great way to get more people listening to Hawaiian music. It just takes a modern web developer and one or two people who really get social media.

If you are in the travel industry, what a great time to bundle deals like this! If Hawaii companies could collaborate on a similar site, and offer new bundles each month – I think this would improve the collective bottom line. And think of how much it would get people thinking and talking and dreaming about a visit to our piece of paradise.

What:
MacHeist is a software bundler web site. They aggregate different applications from third party vendors into a package and sell the bundle at a discounted price, an old business practice familiar to many of us. People love discounts, so they buy the bundles, even if they might not want or use everything in it, but because the things they do want are cheaper than list price. Each software vendor benefits from added exposure and added sales.

How:

• MacHeist recently bundled $980.70 worth of applications (13) for $39. The offer was good for 14 days tho pre-event publicity began about 6 weeks out.
  When you purchase a bundle, you immediately receive an email with download links and valid serial numbers for 10 of the 13 apps.


• When 400K was raised for charity, the 11th app was “unlocked”. When $500K was raised for charity, the last 2 apps were unlocked and available for download with a valid serial number.
  25% of all sales goes to charities that you can select during checkout: a specific charity or evenly divided among them all.
• When you buy a bundle and create an account, you are given a unique link. You can then share this link. Based on your friends’ purchases, you are entitled to two additional free apps, nothing more. The same offer was available to any of your friends who buy the bundle.


• MacHeist posted an announcement video on You Tube to help spread the word. Others can then embed that video on their blog pages and web sites.


• The program launched on Fri Feb 6th. On Feb 13th the official “mission” began. The bundle itself was announced on March 25th. The purchase offer expires tonight, on April 6th.

Results:
With one day left, they have raised over $628K for charity, sold 66,300 bundles, and earned over $2.6M in sales. (And the numbers are growing as I click submit on this blog post!)

In Case You Have Questions Like These in Your Mind:

“What’s in it for MacHeist?”
They have a very simple business model. They have a beautifully designed site to manage (the unique user pages are all automated) and they get to help promote others, give money to charity, have fun, and make money themselves. People over 30 listen up: this is the way people like to build companies now. On the fly, dynamic, collaborative, and internet-based.

“How do they do this without advertising?”
They have built a brand that people love. Their fans are rewarded for playing with them, aka “buying the bundles.” Their fans are further rewarded by telling their friends. This is the network effect. And they and their fans use social web tools like YouTube, Twitter, and communities to spread the word. They have even automated the ability to post your link to Twitter, which scores you two more free applications valued at $60.00!

“Isn’t this just a pyramid scheme?”
Not one bit. First, each buyer is getting an incredible deal. Second, each buyer generally wants to share these great deals with their friends. Third, you only can earn a max of two free apps, so there is no incentive to keep trying to push sales beyond your organic network. Fourth, the same offer is available to every buyer.

“What does fun have to do with it?”
Surprisingly, I think it is one of the key ingredients. The heist has elements of secrecy, of milestones, of rewards, of rewards for your friends, and the excitement of an auction. Sales are accelerating incredibly as we approach the last few hours of this offer. They even generously feature their buyers back on their site. If you follow them on Twitter and use the auto-tweet announcement after you have purchased, your face will show up on the live updating page. That’s just cool, and fun, and generous – more attributes of 21st century web-based enterprise.

Want More?
Mac Update Promo does this every day for a single product by offering 30-50% off on a single pice of software. It is similar to what Target does with their weekly circular. It’s just that a third party is doing the work building the customer base and sharing it with new companies. They send daily emails and we, as a small business, buy a lot of our software here at prices that might normally be available only to large bulk purchasers. This is great for nonprofits and entrepreneurs. And you know, business doesn’t always have to be just about the Benjamin’s.

As always, thanks for spending time here with us. I hope you’ll share your opinions in the comments.

Aloha,

I recently read in the Pacific Business News about the HVCB (Hawaii Convention & Visitors Bureau) Hawaii: A Thousand Reasons to Smile Campaign. It’s targeted at residents of San Francisco, who are frequent visitors here. I support the idea of reaching out to San Francisco residents – I have many friends there including Chris Heuer, Kristie Wells, Stowe Boyd, Susan Bratton, and Elyse Tager along with Charlene Li, Scott Simpson and Jeremiah Owyang, many of whom love Hawaii and come here wanting to meet the locals. They are generally smart, friendly, successful people who are used to spending money.

However, may I politely suggest that the way to attract them is NOT with a last century web site built on a 100% flash interface that loads s-l-o-w-l-y and is very controlling in its navigation schema, restricting how the user can (not) truly explore where s/he wants to go?

I would have liked to point this campaign to my San Francisco friends, who also happen to be active web users, who themselves have a large “following” via blogs, social networks, Twitter, et al. As it is, there are too many “last century” flags on this campaign, so instead, I am using it as a learning opportunity. GoHawaii/HVCB will get attention in any case!

Together, just those few friends mentioned above have over 75,000 followers on Twitter. Even if you don’t know about Twitter, this translates as follows: These people carry influence and are well known in the smart, hip, savvy circles of San Francisco. Exactly the kind of people this campaign wants.

There are also many people who live here and have friends all over, and who are also active on the social web like Neenz, Arleen Anderson, Angela Keen, Vernon Brown, and Ryan Ozawa.

This is a collective of natural communicators with large networks who represent a missed opportunity on this campaign because it does not take advantage of social media tools and practices. Instead, HVCB reached out to mostly newspaper editors and a few paid bloggers. Pardon me, aren’t newspapers, including the San Francisco Chronicle, going out of business on a daily basis? I don’t mean to suggest either/or – new media or old media – they both can play. I do mean to suggest that this campaign is completely unfriendly to social media influencers. I do understand it is natural and easier to do what you know, however, that is no longer a viable or responsible option, whether using taxpayer or stockholder monies or not.

Let’s Get Real

The San Francisco Bay Area is home to the Cluetrain Manifesto and the now decade-long march toward transparency in communication and marketing. Hawaii tourism officials would do well to read the book. I have several copies and would be delighted to loan them out to anyone who is interested. It is also available online for free. Email me.

Faking things up is not part of the mindset with the smart and savvy in San Francisco. Instead think living green, being politically and socially active, being at leading edge of technology, and setting the pace for change in almost every aspect of life today.

Having a Contest v1.0

Why have secret judges when you can have the community on the internet get engaged, give you more page views, and do the judging for you? Compare this to the Queensland Department of Tourism, who created the World’s Greatest Job contest. Mind you, I still don’t like the slow and user-unfriendly flash interface as I have yet to find a way to re-locate or link to some of my favorite video submissions. But the concept and most of the execution is fantastic, and remarkably similar to an idea I had last year. 34,000 people submitted 1-minute videos from all over the world. They got buzz from all spheres of web users – geeks as well as tourists, news organizations and justified critics.

They are using the internet to talk to people who live, work, and play on the internet, and they willingly embraced the communication practices of the modern internet: transparency, simplicity (look at their rules/submission page), play nice with others, and embrace peer-to-peer power among a few. Sadly, GoHawaii and HVCB are using the internet as it existed 5-10 years ago. It doesn’t make us look as smart as we can be.

Why Are The Events So Un-Promote-Able???

Back to the Smiles Campaign. The Music Events Are Very Cool: they (we, from taxpayer money) are sending local musicians to play at Gordon Biersch locations in the Bay Area and I am thrilled my friend Mailani Makainai is among them. This is in itself a great gig for promoting Hawaiian music, something very dear to my heart for years!

But why is all the info stuffed into a flash file – not indexable by search engines or easily bookmarked much less read by humans? The page is also not printable and the scroll bar is hard to see. Why is this not on a blog with linkable pages, ratings, comments, Twitter postings, etc? Why is there not a Flickr group collecting photos of the musicians teaching folks how to shaka at all of these locations, getting cross-posted to Facebook, Twitpic, etc?

Nathan Kam is doing his best (and rocking his personal brand!) by posting photos of the (old school) San Francisco campaign launch on his personal account when this could and should be rolled under a more strategized web asset for the campaign IMO. Nathan – I love you and hope this post gets you more support as you are one of the precious few trying to learn and implement social media practices. Big {{hugs}} to you for going above and beyond to take, post, and tag the photos of the reception!

Why is there no tag so people can talk about this event using internet shorthand, and so search engines can aggregate all of the related content? If they had used the social web instead of a 4 flash pages, the HVCB could actually measure the effectiveness of the campaign not to mention generating incredible Google juice – done mostly for free by other people!

Does Share Mean Spam?

Just when I was about to give up hope, I decided to click the Share link, hoping to see links to my favorite social networks! Alas, it was just an email form with no mention of privacy or if those friends’ email addresses I might share go into a tourism database to be spammed from here to eternity. Do they? I hope not; in any case I won’t risk it. “Share” these days means using web plug-ins to tell your friends on Facebook, Digg, Yahoo Buzz or save to your own Delicious bookmarks! For people like me who like to share, these tools are much easier, faster, fun, and effective than trying to remember people’s email addresses and type them into a form, without their permission.

Even the URL is dated:

I wonder if this blog post will offend some, and they will not speak up as is local custom. I would prefer you do speak up, and help me understand the logic behind this campaign – or at least let’s start a discussion here or at another location. I write this because I so love this land of Hawaii. I write this because I see tourism as an oportunity to improve relationships within our state and with our visitors. I’ve been told by a select few tourism officials that I care more about the state than those paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to do so. I write this because I find it so frustrating that our tourism, advertising, and PR leaders are still doing things in such old-fashioned, expensive, boring, and ineffective ways. There is opportunity all around us; we started the discussions at Podcamp + Wordcamp Hawaii, but I am impatient.

Before You Leave…

Please visit this web site, A Thousand Reasons to Smile. Compared to the SF Blitz PR, which one draws you in more? To some it is just plain old user-generated content but it speaks to me far more than GoHawaii’s polished, pretty, perfect, no-one-home, old-attempt-at-selling-the-fantasy Hawaii site. BTW, this blog came up #1 in a Google search for “A Thousand Reasons to Smile.” That is the name of the Hawaii campaign.

Hawaii, my darling, it is time to let go of controlling every aspect of the message. It is time to put behind the pretty flash sites in favor of messier and livelier blogs and social networks. It is time to bring new blood into your agencies. Your friends can stay, but they are not keeping up with the times. We can teach them – who wants to learn?

I have been giving free talks on this stuff since early 2005. I decided it’s time someone spoke up and mentioned that we, together, can do a much better job of spreading Aloha, of telling the world about these beautiful and imperfect islands in the piko of the planet. I hope you will tell me what you think!

Me ke aloha pumehana,

I have always loved the concept of artist-in-residence or writer-in-residence, like our client Lannan supports. It is an altruistic gesture in most cases, a generous soul or organization that supports a creative person in finding her/his muse, or voice.

Alas I am a Capricorn and many roads lead back to business in my mind. I was at a meeting today with Robin Graf, Stacy Keen, and Nancy Daniels at their hotel, The Wyland Waikiki. We were talking about PodCamp Hawaii and we were agreeing how every blogger/podcaster is a “travel blogger” when in Hawaii. This place is like no other in the USA, and there are stories to show and tell literally every where you are.

So I had this great idea! What if a hotel sponsored a podcaster-in-residence?

At first I thought for an extended one month stay.
Posting 2-3 videos a week, capturing the moments, the stories, the guests, the staff – in sum the personality of the hotel. But in this case, it would be not exclusively about the podcaster finding her muse, but also about creating media for the hotel. The Hawaii hotel industry is feeling pain right now. We’ve had two airlines go out of business and the price of oil aka plane flights has gone up. Hawaii also is just coming out of a massive expansion and upgrade of capacity, and plenty of people complain about the high rates.

Then I Thought About a Rotating Podcaster-in-Residence.
What about inviting several podcasters to spend 4-7 days in your hotel? And post 2-3 videos? You would then get a diverse collection of styles, both cinematic and content-wise. You could leverage the audience of several name-brand podcasters, instead of just one.

Naturally, I am Biased Towards Video Bloggers.
What’s not to love about video? Especially if you are not the one doing all the shooting, editing, encoding, and posting. He He.

Radical Cherry on Top: Shared Among Several Hotels & Restaurants
What if someone like the HVCB sponsored this, and had a social media expert plan out the campaign, set up the site and hosting mechanisms, found the right podcasters, etc. and it was all shared among the many? Fewer costs per place, more diversity of content, broader audience appeal. The more I type the more I like this idea.

_What are Free Ideas? They are just that. I have more than I can use, so I am going to be adding Free Idea posts on a regular basis. We all know that as hard as it is to come by a good idea, it’s even harder to execute. So if can, can! If want our help, contact us.

Background
Shane and I have been podcasting since Oct 2004. We have given talks, blogged and podcasted about it, and of course have delivered over 640 episodes of Beach Walks. It has taken on average two to three hours of every day.

Through the podcasting (and now Twitter etc) networks, we have met amazing people who are our neighbors as well as very distant friends. Our techies complain about the echo chamber, about the people who don’t get it, about the missed opportunities. Our local businesses see tourism waning somewhat. They are still averse to much that our geekdom can offer, and we have decreasing visitors and increasing dissatisfaction between the tourists and the locals about their effect on each other and the disproportionate benefits received as well as fees charged.

The PodCamp Dream: October 25-26, 2008; Honolulu, HI
I can imagine a PodCamp event where people come together to learn about a technology that can bridge these gaps, that can let the world see our beauty and experience our aloha, that can listen to our gripes even, and that can elevate us to the stage of importance we truly deserve. One that reaches out beyond the conference attendees, and into the Hawaii we locals know and love.

Please download and read the Fact Sheet PDF (PDF) I posted here as it outlines the many “firsts” that a Podcamp Hawaii can achieve. I want to work closely with the tourism industry. It will create opportunities for attendees and members of the HVCB to collaborate in mutually beneficial ways. It will change our location on the PodCamp map, the internet technology map, and the tourism industry map.

In the UnConference spirit of transparency, I am posting the call for team leaders aka co-organizers here. There’s lots more information available, so please contact me if you want to know more.

UPDATE May 27: I will fill in names as we fill in positions.

Here’s What I Think It Will Take
Here are the minimum requirements I see as necessary to have a successful event of this kind:

1. I will assume responsibility for being project leader. I imagine this will require at least 5-8 hours a week of my time, for the first three months, increasing somewhat steadily until October.
2. I want at least 6 other committed “organizers” who are willing to provide 3-5 hours a week until the event. I am open to co-chair arrangements as well.
3. We will seek the ongoing assistance of as many “volunteers” as we can find.
4. Each organizer will take charge of a specific area, will supervise her/his volunteers, and will coordinate with me and each other on the master details of the event. The commitment of time and responsibility is most important; we will all be learning on the job.
5. Volunteers will be given specific assignments in bite-sized pieces with due dates. Volunteers will be able to come and go as their interest and schedules dictate.
6. I can assure you I have the interest, the ability, the connections, and the drive to create this large scale event, provided I have a team of 6 other people who are willing to give a solid commitment and who themselves are willing and able to plan and delegate work to our beloved volunteers and sponsors.
7. Here are the 6 key areas of responsibility I see for now, each requiring a team leader:
   • 1 – Communication: will manage both publicity and outreach, will develop a marketing plan to use traditional and new media channels
   • 2 -Venue: will coordinate room assignments, AV & wifi needs, decoration, signage, food service, etc. Kyle Nishioka has agreed to be Team Leader!
   • 3 – Activities & Travel: will coordinate lodging suggestions for non-Oahu residents, will manage the matching of an attendee with an appropriate HVCB member, will help plan social activities, etc.
   • 4 – Sponsors: will develop the sponsorship packet and contact sponsors; will help them deliver what we need to promote them adequately, will help think of ways to get gifts, shwag, and messaging, etc.
   • 5 – Web Site & Media: will manage the main podcamp hawaii web site and related sites on other social platforms; will manage media creation and delivery to support the other teams; will support web editors in keeping the site content fresh and compelling. Shane Robinson has agreed to be Team Leader!
   • 6 – International: will develop a plan for inviting attendees and sponsors from Asia and Europe; will determine what countries we should reach out to, based on available volunteers and connections that we can gather; will determine translation needs for the website and during the event. Matt Olson has agreed to be Team Leader!
8. I will form the LLC to run the money through and manage the legal and accounting details. There will be open book accounting, online, for all to see. Podcamp provides that no one is paid; all service is volunteered free of charge. I will work with all of the team leaders and support them in having the tools needed to get their respective tasks accomplished.

I want to fill these 6 seats by June 1st.

I really hope we have the level of interest to do this – I think it will be an amazing learning opportunity and one Äiwaiwa event!

If we have more than 6 people who are interested, there are more tasks to be organized and I think having a co-chair arrangement is also doable. Please contact me to learn more.

Dan McConnell DDB Worldwide just spoke here at the Hawaii Tourism Authority Festivals and Events conference I am attending (and twittering and blogging too.)

“Upgrading your web site” is only about 10% of what the internet has to offer today. Yet many of our Hawaii web sites are still web 1.0, not 2.0. So that means we have a long ways to go together to compete effectively. Our speaker also teaches at the University of Washington and encourages CEO’s to embrace blogging and social media. Dan’s company gets it: the most recent blog post is featured on the home page.

Festivals make your marketing dollars go farther.
We are planning an unconference, Podcamp and Wordcamp combined, that we hope to use to bring together the tech leaders from around the world and connect them with locals to share culture and knowledge. We hope the local business and tourism community will collaborate with us to showcase our beautiful state and akamai kama’aina.

The following points help tell us the full story, as festivals and events draw visitors while the internet is the key player in making it happen.

Secret Draws: Beaches, Outdoor Locations, and Information

• Outside the mainland, beach/resorts are the most popular destinations
• Outdoor venues by far the most popular
• Travelers want local culture; what is a community all about?

What more can I say? We have this here in Hawaii, best in class.

Beach Walks has proven this over and over again. People come by searching for Hawaii and they return over and over again because we share a slice of real life – good and bad weather, local people (not just celebrities), local sites (not just perfectly staged sunsets.)

The Internet is Where It’s At. Where Are You At?

• The internet is the most influential method of travel planning; can’t play it up enough.
• Most travel planning self-serve online.
• Cable and internet are very important to 25-44 year-old group
• 70% of online users also watch TV while online.
• Internet spend increased over 18% from 06 to 07.

Yet we in Hawaii are behind the curve. How many of our tourism, PR, communications, and advertising execs blog or podcast or twitter? Virtually none. (Please LMK if you do and I don’t know about it! I want to give you free buzz and free hugs.)

This conference did have online payment and registration, but no other internet follow-up. There could have been follow-up to attendees, reminders or links to maps and parking info, a listing of attendees so we can network with each other, post questions for the speakers, etc.

On-site, no mention of web site resources for the conference. Power point slides were printed and enclosed in our packets which is very helpful to have; however most will be ʻōpala by 6 pm today. They could be posted on online for wider distribution, archival access, for sharing virally, and to practice sustainable green best practices.

Where is money being spent?

• Festivals and events get about 10% of the total marketing spend
• Traditional advertising dollars going down; cable specialty shows garnering higher rates by delivering a targeted audience.
• Outdoor is the million dollar baby; spending is increasing; people like to get messages while they are outdoors.

Dan’s final advice? “Be local, think global. Concentrate on the internet.”
Since there are no sessions today focused on building internet skills and awareness for the attendees, I hereby offer my skills as a trainer. If you are in tourism and want to attend a program to see how the internet on steroids can help you, please contact me! I will organize it and guarantee you will leave ready to blow your kids’ minds about how tech savvy you became.

The time is now. You can learn to use these tools. I personally guarantee it.

I just love it when this happens.

We do a daily video podcast aka internet TV show called Beach Walks with Rox. Last weekend, YouTube featured us on their Travel channel page. We had over 80,000 views in less than three days. (We will eventually be rotated off this page…)

The episode was about a tree and mulch blessing (or oli in Hawaiian) the was conducted by the Lani-Kailua Branch branch of one of our clients, The Outdoor Circle. It featured awesome chanting by Haunani and ʻIlima Stern of Aloha Blessings.

And a circle it is, as I then sent out a few press releases to local media. Erika Engle, author of “The Buzz” column in the Star-Bulletin Business section, called me for an interview and wrote a really terrific article, ostensibly because of the YouTube story but she delved deeper and we got into an interesting (IMO) discussion about how businesses, especially Hawaiian tourism businesses, can use these new media and social networking online tools.

After I gave her a boat load of examples, she asked, “Why doesn’t every business upload their stuff to YouTube?” Great question, dontcha think?

What I don’t get is why the online version of the article does not have links to our business website and the the Beach Walks site being discussed. It’s easy to do, but traditional print media seem to be “link averse” as if they will lose a site visitor. More importantly, they provide an even better resource by including the link (which creates more customer loyalty) and they always code it easily enough to open in a new window – keeping the main media site alive and well on the viewer’s computer.

Oh, and I sure wish I could have left a comment on Erika’s page to thank her and add to the conversation. I wonder, does it get lonesome writing without response?? Leave your comment here for Erika and I will send her the link to this page.

But in any case, the article was written well, accurate, and managed to mentioned the many people involved. Mahalo Erika! And mahalo to Mary Steiner, CEO (and blogger) for The Outdoor Circle who emailed this morning after having read the article. Hmm, I wonder if she has a Google Alert that notifies her whenever “outdoor circle” gets mentioned online??

Surfing Tip: Right-click (or control-click) on all of the links in this article if you want them to open in a new window. It’s a web surfing power tip that comes in handy frequently.