It is a great feeling, when you are asked to talk about your work and the principles behind it.

We are very excited about our interview in a Greek daily newspaper regarding exactly those principles which guided us to publish our white paper on  Policy and Crisis Communications for the Hospitality Sector for free. We were asked time and again: Why give it away for free? Nikos Moumouris of Eleftherotypia had exactly the same question and he gave us an excellent opportunity to share our thinking with the world.  (more…)

Meet Theodora Gkiousou.

She joins us as a Marketing & Customer Outreach Executive, specifically for a campaign we are about to run with hoteliers.

Theodora has substantial experience in customer relations with a marketing twist, mainly in the online gaming industry. She brings a thorough understanding of digital outreach campaigns, targeted to specific industries and audiences.

Already we have had our first meetings, discussing the draft material, the contact sheets and the outcomes we would like to see from the outreach campaign. Theodora brings invaluable commercial impact to the project.

Help us to welcome her to SoMaFusion – go on, leave a nice comment.

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Full disclosure: Theodora is Sofia’s sibling. Her CV was examined like any other and she will be paid for the work.

moo loves to print and we love them.

Already we designed and printed our business cards with them and everybody loves them.

Up for a bit of fun we just got out stickers.

Aren’t they cute?

(more…)

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DOWNLOAD THE PRESS RELEASE (.pdf) * In English * In Greek *
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Greek Assistant Minister of Culture and Tourism G. Nikitiadis (pic from his official website)

The Greek Assistant Minister of Culture and Tourism, Giorgos Nikitiadis, called the Golden Bay Hotel in Malia today and then wrote a letter to congratulate the hotelier, Manolis Argyrakis for his offer of value – added services to travellers who were affected by the Greek strikes and the ash from the volcano which prevented them from returning home.

As we’ve written in the past and as it was covered by VIMA, a major Greek newspaper, Manolis Argyrakis of the Golden Bay hotel in Crete, is one of the clients for whom we initially wrote the SoMaFusion white paper on Policy and Crisis Communications for the Hospitality Sector. In that document we discuss the needs that will be created due to strike actions and other external factors and how it is important for hospitality sector people to analyse these needs and adapt their services accordingly.

Manolis took the advice seriously and he hasn’t regretted it. Many of his guests have been affected either by strike action or by the ash cloud. He instituted a policy according to which no client would be left without accommodation if they couldn’t vacate due to extenuating circumstances.

The Greek Assistant Minister of Culture and Tourism called the Golden Bay Hotel today and chatted with Argyrakis and my colleague Manolis Mavrantonakis of SoMaFusion. We are ecstatic that the Assistant Minister congratulated our client and had a few lovely words of encouragement and thanks for SoMaFusion and our white paper as well.

The Assistant Minister of Culture and Tourism, Giorgos Nikitiadis wrote: (more…)

Minister of Culture and Tourism P. Geroulanos Uploaded by esther*κ on 24 Apr 10, 10.33AM BST.

It’s heartening to see that the Greek Minister of Culture and Tourism is now opening up to discussions with a variety of people.

Co-organised with opentourism - a forum for mainly tech and comms businesses in the tourism sector – the Minister Pavlos Geroulanos will discuss today issues with professionals who deal with promoting Greece as a destination via the web.

The discussion will start at 20.00 and will be broadcast live.

Disclaimer: We were kindly invited to the event but due to distance and time constraints it has sadly not been possible for us to attend. We look forward to future events where professionals from abroad will be able to participate via video / telephone conferencing facilities.

Ahsan, Saima and Mark with Ken Livingstone - from the Working for Hoe Street website

Our whole-hearted congratulations go out to newly elected Cllrs Saima Mahmud, Mark Rusling and Ahsan Khan at Hoe Street ward in Waltham Forest, London. They didn’t just get elected – they triumphed!

They came to us with a simple request. Help us reach our potential voters online and set out our policies clearly. (more…)

Blooming London Uploaded by SoMaFusion on 28 Apr 10, 9.55AM BST.

As the picture will verify London is blooming these days. We actually did more work at the park lately then in an office. You know the volcano ash? Well, we got caught in it and Manolis was stuck in London for a while. Not that we minded too much, the weather being so nice and all. We managed to get through some work and start off a white paper. More on that, later, I promise.

These days our big hospitality contracts are running to full steam – start of the tourist period you see. Booking engines need to be updated, contracts renegotiated, prices changed, accommodation parameters arranged. To tell the truth it’s an exciting time for us; the whole time line stretches before you, the strategy is right there, the systems are ready from our work over the winter and all that’s left is to fill in the blanks. Perhaps I should blog about how we run the hospitality stuff sometime.

On other news we are running a pro bono contract these days with a marvellous artist which has got me thinking about creative people and their use of social media. There is some reading I want to go through and then I’ll share some thoughts.

Finally, we are working on a new venture – again on hospitality. Manolis is working out the details of the business plan before we sit down and think seriously about it but it’s still an exciting time for us.

If only the weather in London would hold as well…

Snow Uploaded by SykoFantiS Bastoyni on 6 Jan 10, 12.36PM GMT

Greetings earthlings from frozen London.

I won’t lie to you we’ve been having challenging weather. So much so that I even had to stop riding the scooter for at least a week and that’s saying something.

What better way to fend off the cold than the amazing little gift I got today from one of our clients. We were gossiping about pies the other day – steak and ale being my favourite, chicken and mushroom his. He remembered and got me this precious book on pies today – the day that we completed phase 1 of our work with him (yes, yes I’ll be blogging about it soon)

Pies: A lovely gift Uploaded by SoMaFusion on 9 Feb 10, 2.13PM GMT

Needless to say I am now obligated to cook at least one pie (sigh).

As the above talk regarding a client would evidence we have not died even though we did take a long and well-deserved rest over Christmas, especially Manolis who managed to wind down and reconcile all of our client hotels’ systems for the winter.

A lot of systems updating has been happening but I will not bore you with the details – suffice it to say that all client software and hardware is ready for the new holiday season. (Yes, we do feel quite smug about it).

Oh, and when I do bake the pie (notice the ‘when’ rather than ‘if’) I promise at least a picture.

* I was this close to titling this “It’s high time for 3,14″. All this systems and numbers talk is getting to me.