Description: Engaging
the Hyper-Interactive Traveler Using Web 2.0 and Social Media: Hotelier's
Best Practices Guide | By Max Starkov and Mariana Mechoso Safer
Today's travel consumer is tweeting, texting, emailing, communicating with
friends via Facebook, and commenting, often in real-time, on restaurants and
hotels via review sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor. How will you reach these
hyper-interactive consumers at multiple touch points during the research
process? And once your hotel has their attention, what should you do to
encourage loyalty to your brand, increase site stickiness, create buzz
around your hotel, and ultimately increase bookings? Many hoteliers believe they do not have the resources to dedicate to Web 2.0
and Social Media, or in other words, they are unable to meet the needs of
today's hyper-interactive traveler
. With more than 400 million users on Facebook, an
average of 50 million tweets sent a day, and consumers expecting interactive
and engaging hotel websites, the bottom line is that your hotel cannot
afford to ignore Web 2.0, Social Media, or the hyper-interactive traveler.

Why a Sound Web 2.0 & Social Media Strategy Is Critical to Your Hotel
Business

Numerous articles have been published that discuss the magnitude of
participation on social media channels. Nothing exemplifies this more than
the fact that recently, Facebook traffic surpassed that of Google's
.

By encouraging interaction on your hotel website and on social media
channels, joining in on the conversation, and making changes to your
business based on feedback, you are showing your current and potential
guests that you are listening to them. This is invaluable for building brand
loyalty and encouraging positive reviews.

As stated in the Social Media Revolution video on YouTube, "We don't have a
choice on whether we do social media; the question is how well we do it." If
you are not interacting with your guests via your hotel website and on the
social media channels, your competitors surely are (more than 700,000 local
businesses have active pages on Facebook).

Connecting with your Website Visitors Using Web 2.0 & Social Media
Strategies An integral part of the de-commoditization strategy, there are multiple
cost-efficient ways to connect with current and future guests via Web 2.0
initiatives and Social Media. You may even find that in addition to further
connecting with your key customer segments by utilizing the initiatives
below, you are able to engage additional market segments, thereby increasing
your market share. All of these initiatives to be discussed also serve to
provide visibility and increase your web presence: essential for SEO.

Hoteliers must align the interactivity of the hotel website with the
hyper-interactive behavior of today's travel consumer both on the hotel
website and on the social web. Create multiple opportunities for your
website visitors to communicate with your hotel. If you do decide to engage
your hotel website visitors with any of the Web 2.0 tactics described below,
make sure to allow those participants to share their experience via all
their social networks (i.e. if a website visitor enters a sweepstakes, make
it easy for them to share that they entered with their friends on Facebook
and to tweet the contest).

Before you launch your own strategy, start by assessing what your
competition is doing. How many of your competitors have a Facebook page, a
Twitter account, a YouTube channel, a Flickr account? How many of them have
Web 2.0 functionality on their websites? Do their websites accommodate and
encourage feedback? Many hotels do not have a solid, unified strategy,
allowing your hotel to stand out and capture an audience that your
competition is leaving in the dark.

When it's time to work on your own strategy, it is important to remember
that it's not just about having a Web 2.0 and Social Media presence. It's
how you execute that strategy that determines your success.

Using Web.20 Initiatives to Engage your Website Visitors

Most websites are not equipped to handle the hyper-interactive travel
consumer of today and offer dead, stale visual and textual content. There is
minimal interaction with the user; all he/she can do is sit back and read
what is on the website, as if reading a novel in a library. Many hotel
websites offer dead, stale textual and visual content. There are no
interactive Web-2.0 features engaging the travel consumer and soliciting
his/her participation and input.

This is contrary to the mere nature of today's hyper-interactive Internet
user, who is tweeting, texting, emailing, communicating with friends via
Facebook, and commenting, often in real-time, on restaurants and hotels via
review sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor.

How can you add engaging content to your website that will solicit the
participation of your website visitors?

1. Initiative: Blog on the Hotel Website

42% of consumers accessed travel information on a blog, and 40% of consumers
actually posted a review themselves (PhoCusWright 2009). Update your blog at
least twice a week, and sprinkle keywords in your posts. Blogs are extremely
SEO-friendly and the search engines index blogs almost immediately after a
post is made. A well-developed hotel blog strategy could provide visibility
to unique aspects of your hotel product and destination, and a
differentiated approach to reach key customer segments.
2. Initiative: Customer Feedback on the Site

By offering a comprehensive customer feedback form where customers can leave
comments and complaints, you are communicating to your guests that their
feedback is valuable to you. Make sure to include questions about the
usability of your website. If possible, offer an incentive for people to
fill out your feedback form, such as a free amenity or upgrade during their
next stay, to encourage participation.

In addition to the positive SEO benefits (many customer reviews include
keywords i.e. "We were looking for a Boston hotel that fit our budget and
found the perfect fit!"), testimonials accompanied by photos if possible,
make your hotel come to life for your website visitors. Also make sure that
you are monitoring and responding to customer reviews
on the major review websites.
3. Initiative: Interactive Sweepstakes

Contests and promotions are great for getting people excited about your
brand and for building buzz. Additionally, contests offer a way to build
your opt-in email and mobile list. An interactive sweepstakes on the hotel
website will encourage daily visits to your website and significantly grow
your opt-in email list. By offering an incentive for people to enter on a
daily basis, people will become more familiar with your hotel and website.

Case Study: CVB in Southern California

A CVB client wanted to increase their social media following as well as
launch a campaign on their website that would generate buzz for the
destination. HeBS recommended an interactive sweepstakes that would reach
consumers at every online touch point, a way to connect with consumers via
mobile, email, and social media.

HeBS built an interactive sweepstakes on the website and participants were
entered in a drawing to win a $1,000 free vacation. A second, third, fourth,
and fifth place prize of a free hotel room was also rewarded. Lastly, an
additional prize of a $250 Gift Card was awarded to the person who referred
the contest to the most friends to promote viral marketing.

Results:

* 1,200 Unique Registrants
* + 300 Facebook fans in 5 days
* + 250 Twitter Followers in 5 days
* Over 800 mobile numbers added to mobile marketing list
* Over 500 new emails added to the email opt-in list
* Over 30 comments on the Facebook fan page regarding the contest
* Winner of a Major Award for Outstanding Integrated Campaign

4. Initiative: Interactive Calendar of Events

An interactive calendar of events is a great way to keep your website
visitors updated on all the latest events happening at and around the hotel.
It's also a recommended way to keep your website content fresh, with a
constant flow of new information to encourage repeat website visits. If your
hotel has a) popular events such as dining events, tastings, leisure
activities, etc. at the property, and b) events close or near the property,
such as museum exhibitions, theater performances, sporting events, concerts,
and more, a calendar of events is a must. The goal is that it become the
go-to for website visitors that want to be kept in the loop of all
happenings at your hotel.

Web 2.0 functionalities on the website have multiple benefits in addition to
engaging your customer segments. They help overshadow any negative presence
in organic search, build a stronger brand relationship, and they bring your
brand to life for members and customer segments tying these initiatives into
your social media presence.

Using Social Media Initiatives to Build Loyalty and Increase Traffic to Your
Website

Four in five travelers read reviews on social media and 95% of those
indicated such reviews were influential on the decision making process.
(PhoCusWright 2009). There is no doubt that Internet users are increasingly
influenced by social media sites and peer reviews. By utilizing a
comprehensive social media strategy, hoteliers can create social media
"buzz" around the hotel, target receptive audiences, and ultimately
stimulate hotel website visits, interactions and bookings.

HeBS' 2010 Benchmark Survey on Hotel Internet Marketing Budget Planning and
Best Practices showed that half of hoteliers surveyed (50% exactly)
responded that in 2010 they are planning to create profiles for their hotels
on the social networks.

Social marketing should become an important component of any hotel's
marketing mix and part of the comprehensive Direct Online Channel Strategy
for any hotel company. Naturally, it is important to use the right ROI
metrics to measure the success of social marketing efforts of the hotel.

Create a positive presence and exude brand voice on the following
high-traffic social media networks:

1. Initiative: Facebook

Create a Facebook page for your business. Make sure to respond as often as
possible to posts, as it is easy to tell when a hotel is not listening to
its audience, a sure way to start losing your fan base. Consider a 'Reviews'
or 'Discussions' Facebook tab, where you may respond to customer feedback in
a professional manner and show that you care about customer support. Include
events, at least one photo album of the hotel, and videos when possible. Add
value to your Facebook page with an email sign up form, a booking engine
widget, and a customized tab describing the benefits of following your
hotel.

Post about upcoming deals and promotions, area events and happenings,
announcements such as new amenities, questions for soliciting feedback
("What is your favorite thing to do in San Francisco?") and exclusive offers
only available on Facebook. Always include a link in posts to a relevant
landing page to create move value to followers who want more information
(make sure this is often your own website), and choose a thumbnail photo for
the URL to attract attention to the post. 2. Initiative: Twitter

Use Twitter to monitor what is being said about your hotel, to engage an
audience that is talking about your hotel and/or its location, and to speak
directly to your current and future guests. Make sure you are not only
tweeting but actively engaging and responding to tweets. It you are only
concerned with posting content, you are not listening. Tweet about discounts, upcoming events in the area, general news about your
hotel, and offer exclusive discounts for your followers. Always include a
brief call to action and a link. Your following on Twitter should be based
around your target market; however, if there are special events that you
wish to push via Twitter, you should also build the following around those
who might be interested in those events (and who are located in that area).
The majority of your followers should be local if you're looking to
concentrate on last-minute events or special offers. To build your follower
list, decide who your main audience is and who would be interested in your
brand, and follow them (hopefully they will follow you back).

Case Study: Boutique Hotel in Boston
HeBS created, customized, and launched a twitter profile for a boutique
hotel in Boston in September 2009. We began to build a following by tweeting
and hinting about the launch of the new hotel website. We also did branded
and informational tweets about the property-its reputation, its services,
its location, etc.

By mid-December, we built a loyal following and were an established presence
in the Boston-based "twitterverse." We had already generated revenue from
Twitter and established a reputation as a good place to check for upcoming
Boston events. We also introduced "{Hotel Name} Chirps"-last-minute deals
for Twitter followers.

Having made the most of its smaller following, HeBS saw that the hotel
needed more followers to expand its reach and capitalize on its Twitter
successes. In order to increase followers, generate buzz about the property,
and strengthen relationships with current followers, HeBS launched a one-day
free-room giveaway exclusively on Twitter. Over 120 people entered the Hotel
free-room giveaway on 12/18/09 between 10 AM - 5 PM. The week of the
contest, Twitter generated almost 12% of the click to the site and over 2%
of bookings initiated.
3. Initiative: YouTube

Why is YouTube so important? YouTube serviced over 6.6 billion streams in
Oct 2009 alone, followed by Hulu (632 million) and Facebook with over 217
million streams. YouTube is the second largest search engine-second only to
Google.

Create a YouTube channel, with a look and feel customized to your brand and
hotel website. On this channel, feature videos that highlight your
destination, your hotel, and any positive news or press coverage. By
including optimized tags on videos to increase your presence in organic
search you will help overshadow any negative videos that may be present on
YouTube, and ultimately increase your brand presence.
4. Initiative: Flickr

Create a Flickr account and upload albums that highlight your hotel and
destination. If possible, include photos of your guests enjoying themselves
at your property. All photos may include an optimized description. A Flickr
account that is well organized with optimized descriptions of photos is sure
to stand out in the search engine results, and an account in Flickr helps
your official photos show up in image results -making the threat of non
flattering photos showing up at the top of search results much less likely.

Once you have established these profiles and accounts, find a highly visible
place to link to these from your hotel website. Also make sure to pay
special attention to how you set up the profiles - always include photos and
marketing messages and maintain a consistent image that represents your
brand.

Measuring Results of your Web 2.0 & Social Media Efforts

In a world where we now have the tools to measure the return on investment
of every dollar, the big question remains: How do you measure the results of
your Web 2.0 & Social Media efforts? Web 2.0 initiatives on the website need
to be budgeted for, and is it worth it to devote a significant amount of
time (or even hire someone) on Social Media?

What is the Payoff of Having Web 2.0 Initiatives on Your Website?

Here are some of the positive, concrete results of having Web 2.0
Initiatives in your hotel website:

* Increased time spent on site: a sweepstakes, blog, calendar of
events and even a customer comment form encourage your website visitors to
spend more time on your website. The more time they spend on your website,
the more familiar and invested they become with your hotel-and the more
likely they are to make a reservation.
* SEO: fresh, new content on the site in the form of blogs, calendar
of events, and a sweepstakes provides original content on the hotel site for
customers and for the search engines.
* Email capture for future promotions: a sweepstakes on the hotel
website is a great way to build your email opt-in list. Case in point: A
HeBS client recently hosted a sweepstakes on their website, and when the
sweepstakes was over they had 12,000 new email addresses to add to their
opt-in list. In addition, over 3,000 people forwarded the sweepstakes to
their friends.
* Pathing towards a booking: use analytics to study where your
visitors are going after they interact with a Web 2.0 initiative. Are they
on their way to make a reservation? Many times they are. Case in point: in
2010, one HeBS client had 21.1% of its visitors attempt to make a
reservation after visiting the calendar of events page.

How do you Measure the Success of Your Social Media Efforts?

Social marketing initiatives, if judged on their own merits, rarely generate
outstanding ROIs if measured in bookings and revenue. Social media and
social marketing initiatives should be reviewed with "sober eyes" and within
the context of the impact of the multi-channel marketing strategy of the
hotel. Instead of only focusing on bookings and revenue when measuring
results from social media marketing, remember that currently the best uses
of social media are:

* An important component of hotel's multi-channel marketing
* Buzz-building
* Brand-building
* Interacting with and engaging customers
* Keeping up with the times, making the hotel look current, cool and
up-to-date
* Driving engaged and relevant traffic to the property's own website

Unleashing a multi-channel marketing campaign simultaneously across all
available marketing channels such as social media, mobile Web, search
engines (SEM and SEO), display advertising, email marketing, etc produces
compounded effect and far greater returns than each individual marketing
format. In other words: The Whole is Bigger than the Sum of its Parts.

Social Media efforts may certainly result in bookings, yet direct revenue
should not be the only metric in which you measure results. If you solely
focus on bookings then you are ignoring other valuable metrics such as
increased visits to the website, brand loyalty, and SEO. Here are some of
the ways you should be measuring the results of your Social Media efforts:

* Brand loyalty/engagement: If people are following your brand and
commenting on Facebook and Twitter, then they are interested in what you
have to say and are more likely to book your hotel over the competition. You
are in fact building stronger relationships with current and future guests.
* Real-time search: the search engines have started integrating tweets
into their search results. Google even offers the ability to search by
'Updates,' which are really just tweets. Case in point: recently, a HeBS
client showed up second on the first page of search results for the very
competitive term of 'Boston Hotel' because of a recent tweet containing that
keyword.
* Customer service improvements: are you using feedback about your
hotel from Facebook and Twitter to better your business? Are you monitoring
for disgruntled guests and potential guests with questions, and answering
them quickly? If you are truly listening to your audience, you will find
ways in which your customer service is lacking and work to improve in these
areas.
* Increased traffic to your site: while social media is still not a
major revenue generator, HeBS clients have seen significant traffic to their
website driven by social media. Case in point: for a HeBS client located in
Northern California, visits from Twitter accounted for 4.5% of total traffic
generated to their website in Q1 2010.

Measuring the results of your Web 2.0 & Social Media efforts should not be
based strictly on direct revenues. Have you been successful in creating more
awareness about your hotel and its value proposition? Are you generating
more positive buzz about your hotel? Are you listening and engaging with
your audience? If the answer is yes, then you have begun to harness the
power of Web 2.0 & Social Media.

Conclusion

Every web savvy hotelier knows that the Internet, especially Web 2.0 and
Social Media, has changed the way in which customers plan and purchase
travel. Hoteliers need to tailor their hotel Internet marketing strategy to
include these initiatives and evolve with these changes in the travel
purchase process.

It is no longer a question of whether your target markets are engaging with
Web 2.0 initiatives or active on Facebook and Twitter. Social media is
popular even among the mature generation (63-75): 36% of them had a social
network profile in 2009 vs. 10% in 2007 (eMarketer). If you are not reaching
the hyper-Interactive traveler using Web 2.0 and Social Media initiatives,
then you are going to quickly lose market share as your competitors gain.

Consider partnering with a full-service hotel website development and
Internet marketing firm to build a strong and cohesive Web 2.0 and Social
Media strategy.

Margaret Mastrogiacomo and Lauren DeGeorge, Account Executives at
Hospitality eBusiness Strategies, contributed to this article.

About HeBS
Max Starkov is President & CEO and Mariana Mechoso Safer is Senior Director,
Marketing at Hospitality eBusiness Strategies (HeBS). Based in New York
City, HeBS is an award-winning, full-service Internet marketing and Direct
Online Channel Strategy firm, strictly dedicated to the hospitality and
travel verticals. HeBS has pioneered many of the "best practices" in hotel
Internet marketing and direct online distribution. The firm specializes in
helping hoteliers build their direct Internet marketing and distribution
strategies, boost the hotel Internet marketing presence, establish
interactive relationships with customers, and significantly increase direct
online bookings and ROIs. A diverse client portfolio of over 500 top tier
major hotel brands, luxury and boutique hotel companies, hotel management
and representation companies, franchisees and independents, resorts and
casinos and CVBs has sought and successfully taken advantage of HeBS' firm
hospitality Internet marketing expertise. For more information visit HeBS
website www.hospitalityebusiness.com. Contact HeBS consultants at (212)
752-8186 or info@hospitalityebusiness.com. TAGS

building brand loyalty
,
interactive traveler
, googles
, facebook
, youtube
, communicating with
friends
,
media channels ,
yelp , sound web
, travel consumer
, media
revolution ,
media strategies
, media
strategy , hotel
website , hotel
websites , hotel
business ,
stickiness , hoteliers
CONTACT

Mariana Mechoso
Hospitality eBusiness Strategies, Inc
Phone: 212-752-8186
Email: info@hospitalityebusiness.com

ORGANIZATION

Description: Hospitality NetHospitality
eBusiness Strategies, Inc. (HeBS)
www.hospitalityebusiness.com
6 W. 48th Street, 8th Floor
USA - New York, NY 10036
Phone: 212-752-8186
Fax: 212-202-3670
Email: info@hospitalityebusiness.com

Ann Richards - 1988 Democratic National Convention Keynote Address

Delivered 19 July 1988

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, very much.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Buenas noches, mis amigos.

I'm delighted to be here with you this evening, because after listening to George Bush all

these years, I figured you needed to know what a real Texas accent sounds like.

Twelve years ago Barbara Jordan, another Texas woman, Barbara made the keynote address

to this convention, and two women in a hundred and sixty years is about par for the course.

But if you give us a chance, we can perform. After all, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred

Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels.

I want to announce to this Nation that in a little more than 100 days, the Reagan Meese Deaver

Nofziger Poindexter North Weinberger Watt Gorsuch Lavelle Stockman Haig Bork Noriega

George Bush [era] will be over!

You know, tonight I feel a little like I did when I played basketball in the 8th grade. I thought I

looked real cute in my uniform. And then I heard a boy yell from the bleachers, "Make that

basket, Birdlegs." And my greatest fear is that same guy is somewhere out there in the

audience tonight, and he's going to cut me down to size, because where I grew up there really

wasn’t much tolerance for self-importance, people who put on airs.

I was born during the Depression in a little community just outside Waco, and I grew up

listening to Franklin Roosevelt on the radio. Well, it was back then that I came to understand

the small truths and the hardships that bind neighbors together. Those were real people with

real problems and they had real dreams about getting out of the Depression. I can remember

summer nights when we’d put down what we called the Baptist pallet, and we listened to the

grownups talk. I can still hear the sound of the dominoes clicking on the marble slab my

daddy had found for a tabletop. I can still hear the laughter of the men telling jokes you

weren’t supposed to hear talkin' about how big that old buck deer was, laughin' about

mama puttin' Clorox in the well when the frog fell in.

They talked about war and Washington and what this country needed. They talked straight

talk. And it came from people who were living their lives as best they could. And that’s what

we’re gonna do tonight. We’re gonna tell how the cow ate the cabbage.

I got a letter last week from a young mother in Lorena, Texas, and I wanna read part of it to

you. She writes,

“Our worries go from pay day to pay day, just like millions of others. And we have two

fairly decent incomes, but I worry how I’m going to pay the rising car insurance and

food. I pray my kids don’t have a growth spurt from August to December, so I don’t

have to buy new jeans. We buy clothes at the budget stores and we have them fray

and fade and stretch in the first wash. We ponder and try to figure out how we're

gonna pay for college and braces and tennis shoes. We don’t take vacations and we

don’t go out to eat. Please don’t think me ungrateful. We have jobs and a nice place to

live, and we’re healthy. We're the people you see every day in the grocery stores, and

we obey the laws. We pay our taxes. We fly our flags on holidays and we plod along

trying to make it better for ourselves and our children and our parents. We aren’t vocal

any more. I think maybe we’re too tired. I believe that people like us are forgotten in

America.”

Well of course you believe you’re forgotten, because you have been.

This Republican Administration treats us as if we were pieces of a puzzle that can’t fit

together. They've tried to put us into compartments and separate us from each other. Their

political theory is “divide and conquer.”

They’ve suggested time and time again that what is of interest to one group of Americans

is not of interest to any one else. We’ve been isolated. We’ve been lumped into that sad

phraseology called “special interests.” They’ve told farmers that they were selfish, that they

would drive up food prices if they asked the government to intervene on behalf of the family farm,

and we watched farms go on the auction block while we bought food from foreign countries.

Well, that’s wrong!

They told working mothers it’s all their fault their families are falling apart because they had

to go to work to keep their kids in jeans and tennis shoes and college. And they’re wrong!!

They told American labor they were trying to ruin free enterprise by asking for 60 days’ notice

of plant closings, and that’s wrong.

And they told the auto industry and the steel industry and the timber industry and the oil

industry, companies being threatened by foreign products flooding this country, that you’re

"protectionist" if you think the government should enforce our trade laws. And that is wrong.

When they belittle us for demanding clean air and clean water for trying to save the oceans

and the ozone layer, that’s wrong.

No wonder we feel isolated and confused. We want answers and their answer is that

"something is wrong with you." Well nothing's wrong with you. Nothing’s wrong with you that

you can’t fix in November!

We’ve been told that the interests of the South and the Southwest are not the same interests

as the North and the Northeast. They pit one group against the other. They've divided this

country and in our isolation we think government isn’t gonna help us, and we're alone in our

feelings. We feel forgotten. Well, the fact is that we are not an isolated piece of their

puzzle. We are one nation. We are the United States of America.

Now we Democrats believe that America is still the county of fair play, that we can come out

of a small town or a poor neighborhood and have the same chance as anyone else; and it

doesn’t matter whether we are black or Hispanic or disabled or a women [sic]. We believe that

America is a country where small business owners must succeed, because they are the

bedrock, backbone of our economy.

We believe that our kids deserve good daycare and public schools. We believe our kids

deserve public schools where students can learn and teachers can teach. And we wanna

believe that our parents will have a good retirement and that we will too. We Democrats

believe that social security is a pact that can not be broken.

We wanna believe that we can live out our lives without the terrible fear that an illness is

going to bankrupt us and our children. We Democrats believe that America can overcome any

problem, including the dreaded disease called AIDS. We believe that America is still a country

where there is more to life than just a constant struggle for money. And we believe that

America must have leaders who show us that our struggles amount to something and

contribute to something larger leaders who want us to be all that we can be.

We want leaders like Jesse Jackson. Jesse Jackson is a leader and a teacher who can open our

hearts and open our minds and stir our very souls. And he has taught us that we are as good

as our capacity for caring, caring about the drug problem, caring about crime, caring about

education, and caring about each other.

Now, in contrast, the greatest nation of the free world has had a leader for eight straight

years that has pretended that he can not hear our questions over the noise of the helicopters.

And we know he doesn’t wanna answer. But we have a lot of questions. And when we get our

questions asked, or there is a leak, or an investigation the only answer we get is, “I don’t

know,” or “I forgot.”

But you wouldn’t accept that answer from your children. I wouldn’t. Don’t tell me you “don’t

know” or you “forgot.” We're not going to have the America that we want until we elect

leaders who are gonna tell the truth; not most days but every day; leaders who don’t forget

what they don’t want to remember. And for eight straight years George Bush hasn’t displayed

the slightest interest in anything we care about. And now that he's after a job that he can’t

get appointed to, he's like Columbus discovering America. He’s found child care. He’s found

education. Poor George. He can’t help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth.

Well, no wonder. No wonder we can’t figure it out. Because the leadership of this nation is

telling us one thing on TV and doing something entirely different. They tell us They

tell us that they're fighting a war against terrorists. And then we find out that the White House is

selling arms to the Ayatollah. They They tell us that they’re fighting a war on drugs and

then people come on TV and testify that the CIA and the DEA and the FBI knew they were

flying drugs into America all along. And they’re negotiating with a dictator who is shoveling

cocaine into this country like crazy. I guess that’s their Central American strategy.

Now they tell us that employment rates are great, and that they’re for equal opportunity. But

we know it takes two paychecks to make ends meet today, when it used to take one. And the

opportunity they’re so proud of is low wage, dead end jobs. And there is no major city in

America where you cannot see homeless men sitting in parking lots holding signs that say, “I

will work for food.”

Now my friends, we really are at a crucial point in American history. Under this Administration

we have devoted our resources into making this country a military colossus. But we’ve let our

economic lines of defense fall into disrepair. The debt of this nation is greater than it has ever

been in our history. We fought a world war on less debt than the Republicans have built up in

the last eight years. You know, it’s kind of like that brother-in-law who drives a flashy new

car, but he’s always borrowing money from you to make the payments.

Well, but let’s take what they are most proudest of that is their stand of defense. We

Democrats are committed to a strong America, and, quite frankly, when our leaders say to us,

"We need a new weapons system," our inclination is to say, “Well, they must be right.” But

when we pay billions for planes that won’t fly, billions for tanks that won’t fire, and billions for

systems that won’t work, "that old dog won’t hunt." And you don’t have to be from Waco to

know that when the Pentagon makes crooks rich and doesn’t make America strong, that it’s a

bum deal.

Now I’m going to tell you, I'm really glad that our young people missed the Depression and

missed the great Big War. But I do regret that they missed the leaders that I knew, leaders

who told us when things were tough, and that we’d have to sacrifice, and that these

difficulties might last for a while. They didn’t tell us things were hard for us because we were

different, or isolated, or special interests. They brought us together and they gave us a sense

of national purpose. They gave us Social Security and they told us they were setting up a

system where we could pay our own money in, and when the time came for our retirement we

could take the money out.

People in the rural areas were told that we deserved to have electric lights, and they were

gonna harness the energy that was necessary to give us electricity so my grandmamma didn’t

have to carry that old coal oil lamp around. And they told us that they were gonna guarantee

when we put our money in the bank, that the money was going to be there, and it was going

to be insured. They did not lie to us.

And I think one of the saving graces of Democrats is that we are candid. We talk straight

talk. We tell people what we think. And that tradition and those values live today in Michael

Dukakis from Massachusetts.

Michael Dukakis knows that this country is on the edge of a great new era, that we’re not

afraid of change, that we’re for thoughtful, truthful, strong leadership. Behind his calm there’s

an impatience to unify this country and to get on with the future. His instincts are deeply

American. They’re tough and they’re generous. And personally, I have to tell you that I have

never met a man who had a more remarkable sense about what is really important in life.

And then there’s my friend and my teacher for many years, Senator Lloyd Bentsen. And I

couldn’t be prouder, both as a Texan and as a Democrat, because Lloyd Bentsen understands

America. From the barrio to the boardroom, he knows how to bring us together, by regions,

by economics, and by example. And he’s already beaten George Bush once.

So, when it comes right down to it, this election is a contest between those who are satisfied

with what they have and those who know we can do better. That’s what this election is really

all about. It’s about the American dream those who want to keep it for the few and those

who know it must be nurtured and passed along.

I’m a grandmother now. And I have one nearly perfect granddaughter named Lily. And when I

hold that grandbaby, I feel the continuity of life that unites us, that binds generation to

generation, that ties us with each other. And sometimes I spread that Baptist pallet out on the

floor, and Lily and I roll a ball back and forth. And I think of all the families like mine, like the

one in Lorena, Texas, like the ones that nurture children all across America. And as I look at

Lily, I know that it is within families that we learn both the need to respect individual human

dignity and to work together for our common good. Within our families, within our nation, it

is the same.

And as I sit there, I wonder if she’ll ever grasp the changes I’ve seen in my life if

she’ll ever believe that there was a time when blacks could not drink from public water fountains, when

Hispanic children were punished for speaking Spanish in the public schools, and women

couldn’t vote.

I think of all the political fights I’ve fought, and all the compromises I’ve had to accept as part

payment. And I think of all the small victories that have added up to national triumphs and all

the things that would never have happened and all the people who would’ve been left behind

if we had not reasoned and fought and won those battles together. And I will tell Lily that

those triumphs were Democratic Party triumphs.

I want so much to tell Lily how far we’ve come, you and I. And as the ball rolls back and forth,

I want to tell her how very lucky she is that for all our difference, we are still the greatest

nation on this good earth. And our strength lies in the men and women who go to work every

day, who struggle to balance their family and their jobs, and who should never, ever be

forgotten.

I just hope that like her grandparents and her greatgrandparents before that Lily goes on to

raise her kids with the promise that echoes in homes all across America: that we can do

better, and that’s what this election is all about.

Thank you very much.

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/19/us/text-richards.html?pagewanted=all

-----------

July 5, 2010

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July 4, 2010

12 Things Good Bosses Believe

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/05/12_things_that_good_bosses_bel.html

What makes a boss great? It's a question I've been researching for a while
now. In June 2009, I offered some analysis in HBR on the subject, and more
recently I've been hard at work on a book called Good Boss, Bad Boss
(forthcoming in September from Business Plus).

In both cases, my approach has been to be as evidence-based as possible.
That is, I avoid giving any advice that isn't rooted in real proof of
efficacy; I want to pass along the techniques and behaviors that are
grounded in sound research. It seems to me that, by adopting the habits of
good bosses and shunning the sins of bad bosses, anyone can do a better job
overseeing the work of others.

At the same time, I've come to conclude that all the technique and behavior
coaching in the world won't make a boss great if that boss doesn't also have
a certain mindset. My readings of peer-reviewed studies, plus my more
idiosyncratic experience studying and consulting to managers in many
settings, have led me identify some key beliefs that are held by the best
bosses - and rejected, or more often simply never even thought about, by the
worst bosses. Here they are, presented as a neat dozen:

1. I have a flawed and incomplete understanding of what it feels like to
work for me.

2. My success - and that of my people - depends largely on being the
master of obvious and mundane things, not on magical, obscure, or
breakthrough ideas or methods.

3. Having ambitious and well-defined goals is important, but it is
useless to think about them much. My job is to focus on the small wins that
enable my people to make a little progress every day.

4. One of the most important, and most difficult, parts of my job is to
strike the delicate balance between being too assertive and not assertive
enough.

5. My job is to serve as a human shield, to protect my people from
external intrusions, distractions, and idiocy of every stripe - and to avoid
imposing my own idiocy on them as well.

6. I strive to be confident enough to convince people that I am in
charge, but humble enough to realize that I am often going to be wrong.

7. I aim to fight as if I am right, and listen as if I am wrong - and to
teach my people to do the same thing.

8. One of the best tests of my leadership - and my organization - is
"what happens after people make a mistake?"

9. Innovation is crucial to every team and organization. So my job is to
encourage my people to generate and test all kinds of new ideas. But it is
also my job to help them kill off all the bad ideas we generate, and most of
the good ideas, too.

10. Bad is stronger than good. It is more important to eliminate the
negative than to accentuate the positive.

11. How I do things is as important as what I do.

12. Because I wield power over others, I am at great risk of acting like
an insensitive jerk - and not realizing it.

What do you say: does that about cover it? If not, tell me what I missed. Or
if you're not quite sure what I mean in these brief statements, stay tuned.
Over the coming weeks, I'll be digging into each one of them in more depth,
touching on the research evidence and illustrating with examples.

If you're like most people I meet, you've had your share of bad bosses - and
probably at least one good one. What were the attitudes the good one held?
And what great, workplace-transforming beliefs could your worst boss never
quite embrace?

---------------------------

Robert Sutton is Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford
University. He studies and writes about management, innovation, and the
nitty-gritty of organizational life. His last book was the New York Times
bestseller The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving
One That Isn't.

----------------------

July 4, 2010

A Ritual to Help You Keep Your Focus and Your Temper

http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2010/06/a-ritual-to-help-you-keep-your.html

John McCaffrey* is a great guy. (*Names and some details changed to protect people's privacy.)

The CEO of a professional services firm, he's been successful by any
measure. He's financially secure. He's happily married with several
children. He's active in his religious community. He's smart, well read,
reasonable, and likable. He's the kind of guy you'd enjoy talking with at a
dinner party.

Then again, the other day, in anger, he threw a telephone across the room,
nearly hitting someone.

"That's not who I am," he told me. And it's true. I know him well and I've
never seen him act anything like that way.

Now, throwing a telephone is pretty extreme. But, if you take it down a
notch, John is not alone. Jane Pennelton is another incredibly successful
leader in a different company - someone who I like and respect tremendously.
She's recently been receiving feedback that she's rude, abrupt,
uncommunicative, and harsh. When I discussed it with her she said the same
thing: "That's not who I am."

John and Jane are mostly right. It's not who they are. Usually, anyway. And
it's certainly not who they want to be.

But under the wrong conditions, it is who they are sometimes.

While most of us would resist the temptation to throw a phone, many of us
still lose our tempers more easily than we'd like. This morning, I yelled at
my kids for fighting with each other at the breakfast table. And then a
little later, I was on the line with an AT&T representative, and after 45
minutes of getting nowhere, I lost it again.

Anger isn't the only problem. We blow people off. Don't return phone calls.
Don't pay attention when they're telling us something important. Many of us,
at times, act in ways we don't like and don't recognize as ourselves.

And I think I've figured out what's causing it: we're overwhelmed.

We have too much to do and not enough time to do it, which results in two
problems:

1. Things fall through the cracks. We don't answer all our emails. We
don't return all our calls. We don't really listen. And this insults and
disappoints others.
2. We live in a constant state of dissatisfaction. We feel ineffective
and insufficient. And so we disappoint ourselves. In both cases our tempers get short. There's nothing more frustrating than
having good intentions and not living up to them. It feels unjust. Like a
child who spills something and then cries, "But I didn't mean to do it," we
don't mean to be mean. But we lose all tolerance for anything that slows us
down. Or that makes demands on us that we can't fulfill. And we get angry at
others for our own feelings of inadequacy.

I wasn't angry at the AT&T guy for wasting my 45 minutes. I was angry at
myself for having stayed on the call that long. And I wasn't angry at my
kids for fighting as much as I was overwhelmed with cooking waffles and
pancakes and oatmeal and setting the table and getting the syrup and the
orange juice and making a nice breakfast. But I was so intent on making a
nice breakfast that I ruined it.

Managing our time better, doing less, and resisting the temptation of
multitasking are all good - and important - long-term solutions. But we need
something more. We need a discipline - a ritual - that can help us stay
centered and grounded throughout the day. We need something to remind us who
we really are and who we want to be.

For me, that something is a beep.

In An 18-Minute Plan for Managing Your Day, I suggested setting a watch,
phone, or computer to ring every hour and at the sound of the chime, taking
one minute to ask yourself if the last hour had been productive. Then,
during that pause, deliberately committing to how you are going to use the
next hour. It's a way to keep yourself focused on doing what you committed
to doing.

But there's another way to use that minute as well. Take that deep breath
and ask yourself if, in the last hour, you've been the person you want to
be. And then, during that pause, deliberately recommit - not just to what
you are going to do but also to who you are going to be during the next
hour. It's a way of staying recognizable to yourself. And to others.

If we're going to reverse the momentum, we need an interruption. When I
yelled at my kids I immediately regretted it, which interrupted my
self-defeating behavior. That interruption was all I needed to remind myself
that I was not that kind of father. I stopped everything I was doing, sat
and held them, and apologized for raising my voice.

Wouldn't it be nice if the interruption were a chime rather than a yell? And
if it came before I lost my temper?

But, most likely, your chime won't come at exactly the right time. How many
of us lose it exactly on the hour?

It doesn't matter. Losing control, becoming someone you're not, happens over
time. It builds throughout several hours. That once-an-hour reminder, that
one deep breath, that question about who you want to be, keeps you stable.
It keeps you you.

Ask yourself if you're trying to accomplish too much or focusing on the
wrong things. In other words, disrupt the source that destabilizes you.
Reduce your feeling of being overwhelmed. Reconnect with the outcome you're
trying to achieve, not just the things you're doing. Then you'll react less
and achieve more.

When John threw the phone he immediately regretted it. And he's still
working to make up for it. Because, unfortunately, one dramatic disruptive
act outside the norm quickly becomes a story that defines the norm.

There is a way to change that story, but it's not dramatic. It's deliberate
and steady, and it takes time.

We need to remind ourselves who we really are, and then we need to act that
way. Consistently, predictably, minute by minute and hour by hour.

-----------

July 4, 2010

Why Friends Matter at Work and in Life ...

http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2010/07/why-friends-matter-at-work-and.html

Susan Harrison, my mother in law, died several months ago after a long and
courageous battle with cancer. Like most of us, she was not famous. If you
didn't know her you probably didn't know of her. She lived in the relatively
small community of Savannah, Georgia.

Yet she did some amazing things there - she was the first ordained woman
Deacon in Georgia, she founded a soup kitchen, and she helped create the
Savannah Homeless Authority. In addition to raising three children and, some
would say, a husband.

One of the problems we faced after her death was finding a church big enough
to hold the people who wanted to attend her funeral. We picked the largest
one we could find, with seating for 600, and still many had to stand in the
back and along the aisles.

Susan had a particular quality that drew people in. It wasn't her
accomplishments. It wasn't money. She had no access to famous or important
people. She couldn't hire you; she wasn't a stepping stone.

Susan was, quite simply, a really good friend.

Which is an art. To be a good friend, you have to give of yourself, but not
so much that you lose yourself. You need to know what you want and pursue
it, while helping others achieve what they want. You need to have
personality while making room for, and supporting, other people's
personalities. You need to care about, and even love, people you might
disagree with (I'm pretty sure she didn't vote for the same candidates as
her husband). You need to be willing to give at least as much, if not more,
than you take.

This is a pretty predictable recipe for happiness. Giving to others - a
reliable way of fostering friendships - makes us happier than taking things
for ourselves. According to research led by Dr. Elizabeth Dunn at the
University of British Columbia, money can buy happiness . . . as long as you
spend it on other people.

http://research.chicagobooth.edu/cdr/docs/spendingmoney-norton.pdf

Researchers conducted three studies. First, they surveyed more than 600
Americans and found that spending money on gifts and charities led to
greater happiness than spending money on oneself.

Then they looked at workers who had just received bonuses and found that
their happiness was not based on the size of their bonus but on the decision
they made about what to do with whatever amount of money they received.
Those who spent more of their bonus on others were happier than those who
spent the money on themselves.

Finally, the researchers simply gave money to a number of people,
instructing some to spend the money on themselves and others to spend the
money on others. At the end of the day, the ones who spent money on others
were happier.

So having friends and treating them generously is clearly a winning strategy
in life. But what about business?

If you watch even a single episode of any reality TV show based on a
competition - The Apprentice, Survivor, Top Chef, America's Next Top Model,
The Bachelor, The Amazing Race; it doesn't matter which - you'll hear a
single phrase come up more often than any other:

"I'm not here to make friends!"

If you want to see what I mean - and just for the fun of it - watch this
short YouTube video compilation. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w536Alnon24
Apparently many of the contestants believe that in order to win you can't be
worried about how you affect others. As one contestant on The Apprentice so
eloquently said, "We're not here to make friends. It's nothing personal.
This is f**king business." Is that true? Are we better off being cutthroat
than collaborative?

Well, let's look at the data. If you're looking for a job you'd better have
friends. The number-one way people find new jobs is referrals by friends.

Once you're on the job, having a best friend at work is a strong predictor
of success. People might define "best" loosely (think of this as
kindergarten where you can have more than one "best" friend), but according
to a Gallup Organization study of more than 5 million workers over 35, 56%
of the people who say they have a best friend at work are engaged,
productive, and successful while only 8% of the ones who don't are.

And another remarkable study, spanning decades, revealed that friendships in
high school were a strong predictor of increased wages in adulthood - to the
tune of 2% per person who considered you a close friend. In other words, if
in high school three people listed you as one of their closest same-sex
friends, your earnings in adulthood would be 6% higher.

http://web.hbr.org/email/archive/dailystat.php?date=062510

Want to stay in that job you have? Then you'd better have friends. As a
friend of mine who runs sales for a successful technology company told me
recently, "People try hard not to fire their friends. It's the difference
between 'he's a good guy' and 'I don't know about that guy."

The happy truth is that the people who say they're not here to make friends
don't win. That's true for reality TV. It's true for business. And it's true
for life.

During Susan's last few days she was surrounded at all hours by her family
and friends. During those moments she managed to get some advice out. Among
her parting words? "Surround yourself with a loving community."

In other words, it's a pretty good bet that we really are here to make
friends.

-----------

Ned's posterous

Right now is the only moment guaranteed to you. Right now is life. Don’t miss it.

July 2010

YouTube - Selah-You Raise me Up

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Ann Richards - 1988 Democratic National Convention Keynote Address

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