Flying Through Cincinnati

Yesterday I flew up the Albany, New York to have lunch with some folks. Yes it was a long way to go for lunch. We ate at the Panera Bread because they have free wifi Internet. The food was good too.

I was unbelievably impressed and disturbed by what I saw at the airport. Parking at my home airport - RDU - was the easiest it has been in my memory. At least half the parking deck between the two terminals was empty. I wasn't there all that early. And the same was true when I got back last night.

But the emptiness at Cincinnati was mind blowing. The place has three terminals - A, B & C. Terminal C has been completely closed. I walked through it and all the stores and restaurants were gone. Lights turned off. Just plain empty.

The gates at terminals A and B weren't all that busy. Plus I saw something I can never recall seeing - a 50% off sale sign on an airport retail store.

I had read earlier this year that air travel was down 30%. I have no current numbers, but based on what I saw yesterday it was 50% or more.

I wondered if the impact on Hubs like Cincinnati - a Delta hub - is worse. Is there some multiplier? I mean if traffic to RDU is off 30% and it is just a destination, would traffic to a hub - which has mostly traffic to change planes as opposed to coming to that destination, be off by a larger percentage. At first it doesn't make sense. But...

Here is the thing in the back of my mind. When retail sales in the US are down 5% it seems manufacturing unemployment in China went up to 30%. Why the multiple?

If you have a formula for this I would love to see it.

Thanks.

My Little Sister and Michelle Obama

This is a short example of how to absolutely let your big brother know you are not just a baby sister anymore.

Last night I called my baby sister - I have three - about something. She was not home. I go one of her kids. Here is more or less the conversation...

Me: "Hi. This is Uncle Duke. Is my little sister there?"

Kid: "No. She's in DC. You can maybe get her on her cell."

Me:"OK. You sure I wouldn't be interrupting her?"

Kid:"No. She was supposed to be going to Taiwan, but that got changed. So she had been invited to have lunch with Michelle Obama. She had turned it down since she would have been on the plane, but since she decided not to go to Taiwan she called and said she could do the lunch anyway. But that is not til tomorrow. So you can call her now."

Just to let you know, I had lunch by myself at Five Guys Burgers and Fries. So there baby sister!!!

LifeStream, The Space of Flows or Just Stream

Today I read David Gelernter' interview on The Edge.

He was talking about the concept of LifeStream. It struck a cord with me.

"38. A "lifestream" organizes information not as a file cabinet does but roughly as a mind does.

39. A lifestream is a sequence of all kinds of documents — all the electronic documents, digital photos, applications, Web bookmarks, rolodex cards, email messages and every other digital information chunk in your life — arranged from oldest to youngest, constantly growing as new documents arrive, easy to browse and search, with a past, present and future, appearing on your screen as a receding parade of index cards. Documents have no names and there are no directories; you retrieve elements by content: "Fifth Avenue" yields a sub-stream of every document that mentions Fifth Avenue.

40. A stream flows because time flows, and the stream is a concrete representation of time. The "now" line divides past from future. If you have a meeting at 10AM tomorrow, you put a reminder document in the future of your stream, at 10AM tomorrow. It flows steadily towards now. When now equals 10AM tomorrow, the reminder leaps over the now line and flows into the past. When you look at the future of your stream you see your plans and appointments, flowing steadily out of the future into the present, then the past."

I have been working on a new project we are calling SehHey - more later. For one feature we were stuck just calling it "My Stuff" or even "Stuff". 

As a part of this feature you are able to place things - files, gadgets, pictures, links, documents, etc. - into a carousel. The carousel "flows" when you move from one group to the next. Kind of like a stream flows.

I like it. The SehHey Stream. Create your own SehHey Stream. Sounds good.

Any opinions?

Customer Retention

The American Agent and Broker magazine has a timely post on the value of keeping your existing customers. It Bears Repeating... 

While Laura Toops is focused on you keeping your current customers - and I agree - I think you also need to find cost effective ways to get the 8% to 15% of insurance buyers who are changing carriers this year.

Here is the list I believe in for why people change insurance companies:

1 - bad experience with current company - claims, service or premium increase

2 - move to new area

3 - buy first car, or in some demographics buy new car

4- new relationship with some one in the insurance business they would trust and like to work with

5 - sold by active sales approach

I have no idea of the order these fall in for volume. I'd be interested in your feedback.

Reasons 1,2 and 3 would be sales you get as a result of being found.

Reasons 4 and 5 would be sales you would get as a result of being active.

Where do you and your business come out on these?

Online Marketing Without Search

Only one result gets to show up first in search results. As much as the boomer generation wants everybody to be a winner, in search there is only one winner.

Like a friend of mine once told me about playing in tennis tournaments, in a draw with 64 players there are 63 losers.  Put that big L on the forehead boys and girls.

So if you can not win in search marketing, how can you win in online marketing?

DoshDosh had a good post about this recently titled Marketing Your Website Without Search Engines.

For many small businesses I believe this is your best approach.

To quote...

"Without search engines, people will do what they’ve been doing for thousands of years. They rely on each other. They rely on the community, on the collection of publications known within their geographic location or industry. They rely on word of mouth. And they also rely on getting information from common resources like a public square, library, forum or marketplace.

Go where people gather. There you will be heard. It sounds like rudimentary marketing but quite honestly, until I’ve tried ignoring search engines and focusing exclusively on gathering points, I didn’t realize how much actual marketing I was NOT doing."

The problem is most small businesses do no intentional marketing at all. That is not the same as no marketing. We all create some kind of impression on the people we interact with everyday. Whether we intend this to be our marketing, it will be seen as marketing by those with whom we interact.

I say as long as you are marketing by default, why not put some thought and effort into it and get the results you would like. Build a better business.

If you use online banking, how did you get the web address of the bank to go to for your online banking? I doubt you found it through search.

The key for your online banking was the bank gave you something you valued. You went to the site they told you to go to, logged on, and used the service. Then you went back again and again.

For your business what service could you provide that your customers would come back to again and again? That is what you need to offer.

1 Billion Downloads in 9 Months

Wired had the story today on Apple's 1 billionth app store download. 

Image how fast the world and our baseline expectations can change when you realize this was done in only 9 months.

I can tell you as an i-Phone user of 2 full weeks today, I find it hard to remember a world before I had an i-Phone full of apps. Maybe its my memory or maybe they are just that useful.

Last night I showed my i-Phone to my brother in law at about 11:45 PM. Two hours later I took it away from him so I could go to bed.

The thing really has that effect on people. It will do you no good to go to the store and see it. You have to get someone to loan you theirs for 30 to 60 minutes. Would won't put it down and you won't make a phone call. The phone is just a nice to have thing on the i-Phone. To be honest, if the i-Touch had 3-G access instead of just wi-fi, I might never get an i-Phone.

How to Write for Non Readers

Since I have been waxing on and on about blogging and Twitter, etc, I thought it would be a public service to share some fun at my own expense.

For years I have irritated my wife by telling folks I have a Bachelor of Arts in Spelling but have seen my chosen profession replaced by spell check software.

After reading McSweeney's new English Department course description - Internet Age Writing - I am now going to change my BA to Writing for the Non Reader.

Here is the course introduction as a tease - the whole thing is worth the read...

"Course Description

As print takes its place alongside smoke signals, cuneiform, and hollering, there has emerged a new literary age, one in which writers no longer need to feel encumbered by the paper cuts, reading, and excessive use of words traditionally associated with the writing trade. Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era focuses on the creation of short-form prose that is not intended to be reproduced on pulp fibers.

Instant messaging. Twittering. Facebook updates. These 21st-century literary genres are defining a new "Lost Generation" of minimalists who would much rather watch Lost on their iPhones than toil over long-winded articles and short stories. Students will acquire the tools needed to make their tweets glimmer with a complete lack of forethought, their Facebook updates ring with self-importance, and their blog entries shimmer with literary pithiness. All without the restraints of writing in complete sentences. w00t! w00t! Throughout the course, a further paring down of the Hemingway/Stein school of minimalism will be emphasized, limiting the superfluous use of nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, conjunctions, gerunds, and other literary pitfalls."