Archive for June, 2010
Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It’s Back to Work I Go…
01 year ago
by Eric Hoffman
in article
My employer has a fantastic program in which they incentivize year round employers to take a month off in either May or June. I just finished my “MayAway” and returned back to work this past Monday, refreshed and ready to dive into a bunch of cool projects that we have in the works for the coming months. I find myself looking forward to MayAway each season as it approached, but I also find myself looking forward to the end of MayAway and get back to a job that I find interesting and challenging.
In a way, I’ve been preparing to return to work for pretty much the entire time I’ve been off via this blog. It’s been a great way to keep current on trends in travel and tourism and I’ve even been able to test out several ideas in it. For example, I’ve been experimenting with increasing my posting frequency to see what sort of impact that might have, and although it hasn’t been more than a couple of weeks, it seems as though I’m seeing more search engine referrals and definitely some more people viewing and subscribing to the blog via RSS and email. In the process of trying to post more frequently, I’ve also found myself making frequent use of organizational tools like Evernote and Google Reader to help me organize blog ideas and even get several written up and ready a few days prior to having them publish…yep, I’ve actually been getting ahead of the curve for one of the very few times since I started this blog. Here’s to keeping that up!
Photo credit: tedkerwin
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Should a Ski Resort be a “No-Tech” Zone?
61 year ago
by Eric Hoffman
in article
As an interactive marketer, I feel like I spend hours upon hours pondering apps and other interactive items that could add value to skiers and riders on the mountain. However, a recent New York Times article, “Your Brain on Computers – Attached to Technology and Paying a Price” prompted me to wonder if perhaps the mountains are a place that shouldn’t enable our always connected addiction to technology? To clarify, does is it in some way devalue the outdoor mountain experience of skiing and snowboarding if a resort is encouraging guests to pull out their mobile device and in the words of the article, “our ability to focus is being undermined by bursts of information.” Or, as one of the people in the article says of her husband, “‘It seems like he can no longer be fully in the moment.”
The closing paragraphs of the story further the point:
Mr. Nass at Stanford thinks the ultimate risk of heavy technology use is that it diminishes empathy by limiting how much people engage with one another, even in the same room.
“The way we become more human is by paying attention to each other,” he said. “It shows how much you care.”
That empathy, Mr. Nass said, is essential to the human condition. “We are at an inflection point,” he said. “A significant fraction of people’s experiences are now fragmented.”
Obviously, a ski resort can’t shut down the cell services that provide data and voice services, but does it do itself a disservice by unintentionally providing a negative (an incentive to use technology) in an otherwise oasis away from technology. What do you think?
To wit, I just saw another story on this same topic on CNN titled, “Is the internet making us quick but shallow?” this is certainly an interesting topic to ponder.
Photo credit: Flickr user Jean & Nathalie via CC Attribution 2.0 Generic
How to Get a Job Working for a Ski Resort
01 year ago
by Eric Hoffman
in article
Every so often I’m asked, “How can I get a job working for a ski resort?”
“It’s easy,” I answer “just look at the online application as it seems like there are always jobs posted.”
“No, no, I’d like to find a year round job doing something that doesn’t involve lifts, food and beverage or maintenance.” Btw, please don’t tell anyone I know who does this vital jobs i wrote this sentence! 
“Well, if you’re looking at marketing, sales or most management opportunities at a ski resort, you probably need to get in line…”
Actually, I don’t think it’s quite that bad and if you know what you’re looking for, have the right skills and network, I think it’s quite possible to find your dream job at a ski resort. It will most likely take some persistance though. Here are my recommendations:
- Network, network, network. Some of the best jobs might never make it to the job listings, so make sure you know the people who do the hiring at the resort you think you’d like to work for.
- Following up with more networking, look for resort networks on LinkedIn and follow ski resort peeps on Twitter.
- Setup Google alerts to let you know when a job in your preferred area comes available, and follow the job boards at the Ski Area Management job board or at larger search sites like Coolworks and ResortJobs.com.
- Start small, if you’re still in college, find a way to help with your local ski or snowboard club. Another great place to start is with internships, I know several people who have moved from an internship directly into a year round opportunity.
- Be realistic, ski resorts, like do not have huge numbers of year round people. You may need to work seasonally until you find your niche.
If your dream ski resort job doesn’t work out, remember that there are lots of other jobs in resort destination areas, and most resort areas have good digital connections that might even allow you to work via telecommuting!
Photo credit: Me – of a co-worker ‘working hard’ on a typical day at the office.
Using Facebook to Sell Movie Tickets – What’s Next?
01 year ago
by Eric Hoffman
in article
Digisynd, Disney’s social media division, has recently developed a Facebook application called Disney Tickets Together to sell tickets for their upcoming “Toy Story 3″ movie. This app will allow consumer to buy tickets without those customers having to ever leave the Facebook site. The application will also alert a users’ friends that they have purchased tickets to TS3 and encourage them to purchase tickets as well. Disney has already said that they plan to evolve this application for other Disney movies if they deem it to be successful. Interestingly, Facebook will not have any share of revenue of tickets sold, they just hope to see more ‘stickiness’ on their site.
By creating this app with Fandango, Disney is leveraging an existing online ticket distribution network that allows them to sell tickets for most theaters around the country. This leads to a few questions:
- Is this an space where ecommerce opportunities are open for ski resorts to sell their tickets or other products like rentals and lessons online?
- Would customers be willing to buy a lift ticket on Facebook so they could coordinate which days they wanted to ski at a particular resort with their friends?
- Can existing ski resort technologies be adopted to enable this, or is this something that a third party vendor such as Liftopia would fulfill?
I just wish the app had found a theater near to me so I could have tested it out!
Understanding the “Semantic Web”
01 year ago
by Eric Hoffman
in video
I came across this excellent video by Kate Ray in my Google Reader feed via Joe Buhler’s post on PhoCusWright Connect and I wanted to share it further. The video is a bit long, at about 15 minutes, the Klezmer style music gets a bit much at times, but the quality and basic insight that the interviewees provide is well worth it. As you watch, I’d encourage you to think about how these concepts and ideas could be applied to the online experience for people looking to and taking a ski vacation – it’s an interesting mental exercise – enjoy!
Social Networks for Ski Resorts – Flickr
01 year ago
by Eric Hoffman
in series
This is the next in a series of posts in which I am reviewing “Social Networks for Ski Resorts.” There are a huge number of ways to share photos online, but Flickr is one of the largest and most established and has some unique features/benefits that make it hard to bypass if you have a business that is looking to share photos online (personally, I’m not sold on their video option at this point).
First off, Flickr is owned by Yahoo! so you can (pretty much) rest assured that the site will be up and your photos accessible for years to come. Now, the key to this is to understand that if you are planning to post more than 200 images, then you’re going to want to purchase their “Pro” account. It’s just $25/yr and allows for unlimited uploads for images up to 20Mb apiece, using a nifty uploader application, I’ve been able to upload literally hundreds of images totaling well over 1Gb all at one time! All images are stored in high res format and Flickr even resizes for various download options. Here’s my one caveat: I’m a bit perturbed to have just learned that Flickr has now limited their stat reporting for Pro users to the past 28 days, which is a negative, but hopefully not a harbinger of changes to come.
In any case, uploading images to Flickr is easy, tagging is simple in the uploader, EXIF data can be readily included (geeky camera info) and geolocation tagging can be added through a nifty map interface. The overall user interface in Flickr is a bit problematic and many of the navigation and editing functions aren’t as intuitive as they could be, but additional integration with the Picnik online image editing application is very much appreciated by those who don’t have Photoshop (or perhaps don’t want Photoshop) on their computer.
Flickr is also a tremendous resource for Creative Commons licensed images via their Creative Commons search option. What this is means is depending upon what usage you intend for an image – business blog post or the like, you can search for images that Flickr users have allowed you to use with simply giving them credit, many even allow you to modify the images if you’d like. In fact, this is how I get many of the images that I use in my blog!
In closing are a few Resorts I’ve found using Flickr and using it well:
- Alpine Meadows – lots of photos, consistent posting, and I love that they have a gallery of employee images.
- Big Bear – great quality images, organization is just chronological, but they’re consistent.
- Moonlight Basin – basically just used Flickr for their Photo of the Day postings, but they did also include several Video Snow Reports.
- Diamond Peak – doing a great job of keeping images coming, even in the offseason, with photos of some construction that they’re doing.
- The Canyons – an example of a way to promote lodging and weddings via Flickr.
- Mt Snow – I think it’s awesome how they posted a chunk of photos of their employees thanking everyone for a great season.
If you think there are other resorts using Flickr in unique, or well-executed manner, please let me know in the comments!
