SAVE GREECE: Let's all travel this summer to Greece on Facebook

We believe in personal action, in taking control of the situation, in offering what you can to help in times of crisis. This is why we published the SoMaFusion white paper on Policy and Crisis Communications for the Hospitality Sector.

Others out there believe in making a difference as well. Have you heard of the SAVE GREECE Facebook event? Thousands of people and counting are attending this ingenious ‘event’ and are shouting out about it on Facebook. Have you seen it yet? (more…)

I Has An IDEA! 4/52 Uploaded by Paul Glover on 9 Dec 08, 2.46PM BST

Here is one of those insightful blog posts that I just cannot do anything else but recommend them whole-heartedly.

Tom Murphy wrote on how the wide-eyed enthusiasm of the first days of social media is slowly turning into a one-size fits all box with big words and no new stuff to light a spark.

In effect, our social media gurus have left the world of plain speaking and morphed into the same old habits they decried five years ago.

(…)

Stay away from the light social media gurus. Turn back. Remember the old days (oh 3-4 years ago) when you railed against corporate-speak. Turn back. Rediscover your roots.

Stop inventing silly words and trying to add science where it does not belong.

You remind me of my dad.
(via)

It reminds me so much of what we discuss with Manolis whenever we have a chat about a new client who comes to us with words like synergy and social network.

And it brings a smile to my face when that client works with us to do something that truly makes sense and people enjoy using it.

That’s why we like what we do.

A lovely surprise this morning as I was walking past Trafalgar Square (London as always) with the latest WWF project.

The London Ice Bear is in Trafalgar Square from Friday 11 December until Sunday 20 December, slowly melting over that time to reveal a dramatic bronze skeleton.

Inspired by the Arctic landscape, it’s a life-sized representation of a male polar bear in hunting pose.

Everyone is invited to touch the ice sculpture. Artist Mark Coreth hopes that by touching this sculpture audiences can become sculptors themselves and make a direct connection with the bear and its icy Arctic kingdom, now under threat from man-made climate change.
(via)

I particularly like the way it’s all been communicated by WWF in various way.

The sculpture
It’s difficult to describe how striking the sculpture itself is. And the cool think is that you want to go again and again to see it in various stages until you can finally see the skeleton underneath the ice.

The people
You are approached by lovely young people who wear the WWF jacket and talk to you about what the bear symbolises. No talk of joining the organisation or supporting them financially (which I appreciated no end). Instead if you are willing to give them your e-mail they will send you all the information. Notice how the young man in the photos is not holding any paperwork. They all have little handheld devices where they note down your e-mail.

The goodies
If you are willing to give your e-mail the nice young people give you an wrist band and a Christmas card with a cute polar bear. Just as a thank – you but I love how when I returned to the office people asked me about the wrist band. Smart way to cause a conversation methinks.

The flickr group pool
You are encouraged to join the Flickr group and upload your pictures of the polar bear. The most interesting ones are also uploaded on the WWF IceBear website. We already added ours of course.

The streaming video
It was great fun. They are actually streaming the whole melting process on their website – Needless to say I called Manolis and I was waving at the camera grinning like mad. Epic win for WWF here.

All in all I think this is an ingenious interactive installation. Absolutely e v e r y o n e is fascinated by it, people love touching it and photographing it. Thumbs up for WWF.

Being at the World Travel Market these days we were quite surprised at not seeing any of the digital comms companies and social media consultants we know from Greece. Our portfolio is obviously very much geared towards hoteliers and tourism when it comes to the Greek market (we have a different concentration in the British market) and many of our clients were at the exhibition so we did have to be there. Obviously it’s not just a client – thing, we were there for a variety of reasons but I’ll let Sofia explain that in another post.

What left me a bit flabbergasted was not seeing some of the best Greek digital comms companies there or any social media consultants- especially since most of them have been planning to work under the National Strategic Reference Framework (the EU structural funds) which would allow agencies to work closely with development projects – like for example e-travel solutions projects and get funding from the EU.

Let me be clear – and a bit blunt. The money is quite a lot. The level of investment that will be made into these projects will be quite significant and we have been following with interest all through the summer what the various Greek agencies have been offering in terms of e-booking solutions, communications and digital development projects. We saw such a high level of interest and services descriptions that it’s a bit of a shame that they were not at the World Travel Market to explore their options and ideas both with Greek hoteliers and travel people and with other countries that partake in the EU programme and where present at the exhibition.

For SoMaFusion, being there and discussing new developments and projects with the people concerned shows an interest and a desire for engagement and learning that is quite valuable. Our aim has always been to understand the need and provide the relevant solution and we find that these events help our understanding. And not only that. Our presence at an event that is key to any travel professionals calendar – especially at a time when the financial crisis has everyone worried – offers an opportunity to discuss within a potential clients’ own context. So we went to them rather than waiting for them to step out of their own market to come to us.

And boy was it useful! It’s quite astounding to see people from all over the world sharing similar concerns about world travel and the new expectations out there when it comes to travel destinations. It’s quite uplifting to realise that it’s not just our existing clients who look ahead and want to plan for a more engaged comms model but a lot more people, seasoned hoteliers from Greece and abroad are interested in what more they can do and how they can adapt new ways of doing things to their existing models.

It all certainly gave me a sense that we are going in the right direction.

Sofia will be writing soon about our upcoming projects with two travel solutions outlets in Northern Crete – their businesses involving travel, accomodation, activities etc. – as well as details of the discussions we had with some travel professionals from various countries.

Manolis and I went to the World Travel Market today – met old friends and made some new ones. In my question “so, how did you find it this year” I heard a lot of “like last year“, “it’s going to be a tough year“, “we only come to maintain contacts anyway” and similar equally subdued comments.

There was a general worried stance that you could almost taste in the air – the financial crisis is making people nervous and nervous people tend to go back to their comfort zone – for seasoned travel destinations that sadly means playing the game based on price rather than quality and engagement.

Still you have some people – and it’s usually a people thing rather than on a company or country level – who look ahead beyond the financial crises and want to be ready and engaged. For them it’s not just a retention issue but rather a qualitative turn towards visitors who are engaged and demanding. Those visitors are the ones who will make a destination better through feedback and ideas.

For SoMaFusion I have to say that it was a good experience. We had some good meetings with existing clients from Crete (more on that later) and met some new people that we’d love to work with. I was quite impressed by some discussions we had with a truly visionary hotelier from Crete who is eager to engage with his customers and business contacts beyond the old ‘brochure and business card’ model towards a more interactive type of communication. These sort of discussions make these events truly worthwhile.

Work and business contacts aside it was a good exhibition I thought with a good mix of tour operators and booking/ travel systems with country and city presences as impressive as ever. Having said that it was as big and as chaotic as ever and I would have loved to see more tech tools to make navigating the exhibition easier – but hey, I’ll write a separate blog post on that one.

cpil a.k.a. Constantin Pilavios is a Greek Film Director, Producer and Animator. On a more personal note he is one of those talents we simply love.

We are helping him make history

If this works, we’ll make history. I want to produce a short film for the web that will be available to everyone and in any form. We need to raise $35000 in 26 days. The film will be called “Fatherly Love”.
(via)

How about you?

Don’t forget that in about 10 days London Digital Week is taking place in our fair city. Check out the events pages – there seems to be great stuff there.

A week of conferences, workshops, meet-ups, presentations, networking, parties and exhibitions bringing together the digital-orientated industries in and around London under one umbrella event. 2009 marks the beginning of this annual festival, drawing in local and global industry leaders and mavericks to celebrate our talented innovators, thinkers and doers, who have helped to put London firmly on the global digital map. The events aims to further the understanding of digital, to share knowledge within the industry and to showcase the best work of companies, groups and individuals in London and the UK to the rest of the world.

We are planning to attend some – we’ll update via twitter and needless to say we’ll also be blogging about them.

See you there?

A video on the ‘we think‘ idea by Chalres Leadbeater (@wethink)

I really like how the video also has questions near the end – about unresolved issues and challenges that the whole system faces.

Through questions come discussions and through discussions innovation will follow.

One of those “I need to share this” presentations.

Turkish Airlines gave prospective agencies the challenge of getting people talking about the brief process itself – which I think it’s genius. Moving Brand did something similar these days with their brief for the London brand.

I especially like this line:

compatibility between the client and the agency BREEDS SUCCESS

I would love to learn more about the final pitch and the ones that didn’t make it through – but the presentation is interesting as a snapshot of the journey.

It’s very close to what we believe in here at SoMaFusion – how the journey is something we like to share – the travelogue is part of that.

Let me know if you’ve seen more details anywhere (oh, and keep in mind I sadly don’t read Turkish).

Arched people
Originally uploaded by Miodrag Bogdanovic

I wrote about being in London the other day and pointed to an interesting discussion about creativity in the City (I would recommend listening to the discussion wholeheartedly – it’s from a Design Museum event). In that blog post I refrained from explaining our attachment to London too much – mainly because it’s such a difficult place to explain in words. Each Londoner (whether born here or not) will have a different take on the city – which is one of the things I love about the place.

Well London doesn’t only lack a clear definition it also lacks a clear brand and visual identity. That’s what our Mayor thought and gave out a tender for the creative development and design of a brand for London.

Moving Brands decided to pitch and they took their quest to the outside world. They’ve been blogging and using twitter - asking what people think of London, what are the great characteristics, how London makes people feel.

This tells me that the people at this project are genuinely interested in doing a good job and they consider research part of that job. Too often we seem to forget to ask the audience – and what better way to engage with them than going out there and just asking? Already they have received marvellous feedback and lots of good stories and experiences.

This has sparked a whole lot of thoughts and discussions over here at SoMaFusion – I promise I’ll soon blog about them.

Our best wishes to Moving Brands and anyone else pitching for the brief – we are waiting with excitement the outcome of the whole process.

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I found out via London Interesting on twitter