Keep Your Audience in Focus – 16 Resources for Effective Presentations

When going through all the effort to get in front of a crowd, you need to ensure that you communicate effectively. In the past decade, the majority of us have most likely had to sit through a bullet point infested presentation that completely failed to keep us engaged. Or worse, awake.

There are many aspects to giving a good presentation and being an engaging public speaker. The good news is that the web is full of good resources that can help us improve in these areas. By now, most presenters are aware that lots of text in your slides is a no-no and knowing your content is priceless. But even that isn’t enough.

Here are a list of resources list of resources that can help you take your talk to another level. Enjoy!

Open letter to John Kennedy, Radisson Blu Hotels & Resorts

We all are receiving dozens if not hundred email newsletters every day / month.

Just now I've received one from Radisson Blu, the Radisson Blu newsletter. Nice layout, nice colors and nice photos I must admit. But listen to this special announcement in the header of the newsletter:

"Win one of 10 gift cards with a value of EUR 100 each" (this has been translated from German into English by myself, so no one else to blame).

Wow! This is amazing! This is mind blowing! This is unique! This is...

Ok, here comes my letter to John Kennedy (his name is underneath the newsletter but I don't know who he is...).


Dear John Kennedy

I think you are joking. This can not be true. Your Radisson Blu chain is offering 10 times EUR 100 vouchers for the winners of this unique promotion?

EUR 100???

I have to repeat it:
EUR 100???

How much is the average night at one of your Radisson Blu hotels? I will have a quick look, wait. Ohh, I see, the Radisson Blu Dublin costs EUR 150 (SGL, no Breakfast), the Radisson Blu Portman London EUR 255 (SGL, no Breakfast)or the Radisson Blu Hamburg for EUR 135 (SGL, no Breakfast).

Hmm, this newsletter was send to the MICE industry, I assume. So you expect us to bring you - this is a guess - about a minimum of 30 room nights per year (per account). So this would be 30 nights x EUR 150 EUR 4'500 revenue. And now we can win a price of EUR 100? This is very generous, indeed.

I think this is cheap, very cheap. In terms of Marketing, this is a disaster (at least in my case).

Maybe with all the acquisition in eastern Europe there is no more money left for the poor marketing team. I feel very sorry for them.

How about giving away 10 x EUR 1'000 or 5 x EUR 5'000 or something like this? This would mean something to us readers and yes, we would participate and yes, your brand awarness will rise and yes, even people on Twitter will write about it and so on.

But maybe that's not what you want. Maybe you think 10 x EUR 100 is very generous...

I hope to get a replay from you, I would love to understand why you are doing such a thing. I am always eager to learn.

Sincerely
Christian W. Frei
CEO
MICEpoint

EIBTM - the 3rd kind of invitation

I love creative people, and I especially love them at Trade shows.

A couple of minutes ago I did receive a simple email with the subject "Meeting at EIBTM 2010" with a link to youtube and of course I was curious what it will be.

So here it is:



So he promises that he will let us know how to find him. Let's hope that the follow up is as good as this introduction.

Google’s Proposed ITA Deal Has The Online Travel Industry Crying, “No Fair!”

Google’s proposed $700 million acquisition of flight data powerhouse ITA Software is running into some serious resistance from the online travel industry. A group of online travel companies including Expedia, Kayak, Travelocity, and TripAdvisor are lobbying the Justice Department to block the deal on antitrust grounds through an organization called FairSearch. Some of these companies were also behind competing bids for ITA Software which failed. Microsoft separately opposes the deal as well.

ITA provides flight data, schedules, fares, and availability to many of these travel sites, airline sites and Microsoft’s Bing search engine. The FairSearch coalition argues that allowing “Google could use ITA to try to marginalize competitors in ways that raise prices for consumers and limit innovation.” They fear that Google will use its search dominance to steer traffic away from their own sites and favor flight search on Google itself.

These fears are not completely unfounded. A lot is at stake here. Online travel is a huge business. It accounts for an estimated $80 billion in ecommerce sales, or 38 percent of all ecommerce last year (the biggest segment by far). It also contributed an estimated 6 percent of online advertising (and an estimated 8 to 10 percent of Google’s revenues). About two thirds of all travel plans start on a search engine, and FairSearch claims that more than 30 percent of all travel searches already start on Google.

Getting this deal through the Justice Department will be a big test for Google. For its part, Google responds that it will honor all of ITA’s existing contracts, won’t sell airline tickets, and it plans to keep sending traffic to travel and airline sites. The reason Google wants ITA is because flight search is broken and needs fixing.

But in order to fix flight search, Google will very likely try to keep people on Google longer before sending them off to a travel site. Just like the ITA-powered travel section of Bing today is a fully-functioning travel search engine until the last click to purchase, Google will likely move in a similar direction. The travel sites understandably don’t like the prospect of Google gaining even more control over their business.

As I’ve written before, the ITA deal represents a huge shift in strategy for Google towards more vertical search and a possble move from cost-per-click (CPC) to cost-per-action (CPA) advertising. What if Google starts charging travel sites a CPA bounty based on each ticket purchased instead of just for every click it sends? Google would make more money under such a scenario, and the travel sites would make less—but only if Google has good enough data to know which flights to show which travel seekers. That is why Google needs to own ITA and all of its data.

Does that raise antitrust concerns? Maybe. But it’s all hypothetical harm at this point. Only one thing is certain If Google gets this deal past the DOJ, you can expect a few more going after other online industry verticals, which in turn will change the Google search experience depending on the type of search you do.

This article is written by Erick Schonfeld of Techcrunch.

Advancing Tourism’s Response to Climate Change

Today I would like to bring a special paper to your attention:

From Davos to Copenhagen and Beyond:
Advancing Tourism’s Response to Climate Change
by the UNWTO

Tourism and travel is a vital contributor to the global economy and especially important for many developing countries. Tourism is an effective way of redistributing wealth and a catalyst for gender equality, cultural preservation and nature conservation. As a result, the sector is also contributing to the UN Millennium Development Goals.

Climate change is one of the most serious threats to society, the economy and the environment and has been an issue of international concern for decades. The Inter‐Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has reported that warming of the global climate system is “unequivocal” and that it is “very likely” that anthropogenic (human‐made) greenhouse gases (GHG) have caused most of the observed global temperature rise since the middle of the 20th Century. Ambitious emissions reduction
targets for developed countries and an effective framework that addresses the needs of developing countries are required.

Read the full paper here:
White paper

The perfect companion for your next business trip

Finally someting for us men!

Yes, yes, yes, I love it! There are so many nice and beautiful travel toys for ladies but now I have found what I have been looking for all my (travel) life:

T.T. Trunks

As any seasoned traveler will tell you, a trunk is more than something that transports your stuff. With its sturdy covering, studs, and metal corners, it recaptures an age when travel was undertaken by hardy types prepared for any eventuality.

T.T. Trunks understands that appeal, creating trunks that can be personalized or made to order. And you don't have to be preparing for a world tour to justify owning one: The Champagne Trunk, for instance, fits right in at home, with a built-in refrigerator that chills 20 bottles and holds 18 flutes and an ice bowl.

The latest release is the New Dandy, timed to celebrate the French company's arrival in New York City at the O.C. Concept Store. This three-and-a-half-foot-high chest on wheels has a power pack for mobile devices, an iPad base, and a whiskey decanter set. One drawer includes a humidifier and hygrometer for cigars (my favorite; what a great way to have my cuban cigars with me, for always and everywhere), while another holds 500 clay chips, a dealer button, two decks of cards, and a poker tabletop. We think that pretty much says it all, but for dandies who like to go one step further, the whole thing, right down to the chips, can be personalized. I am thinking "007" (or freedom for men)!

The New Dandy trunk, from $30,550.

Baltic blonde Maledive Island

A Lithuanian company plans to set up a holiday island in the Maldives run entirely by blondes - the latest project in a growing blonde movement in the Baltics. But how legitimate is this latest sign of Baltic blonde ambition?

What do you call a blonde who runs a business? A dab hand at marketing, if she comes from Lithuania.

Blondes in the Baltics have had enough of the jokes about being dumb. Now they want to show they are smarter than the gags make out, with a growing blonde business empire.

The Lithuanian company Olialia, pronounced "ooh-la-la", is planning a holiday resort in the Maldive islands.

The firm hopes to pull in the tourists by employing only blonde staff, and offering direct flights to the island crewed entirely by blondes, including the pilots.

Olialia is run and staffed by blonde women, and already operates in 75 different business sectors, making products from computer software and food products to pop music.

Read here the full article:
BBC

Mobile Apps for Tourism

Lately I have been involved with the Mobile world and there is an amazing amount of great mobile apps for tourism available (one of my favorite is what MySwitzerland has to offer).

And now I found this article:

7 Ways Mobile Apps are Enriching Historical Tourism

Some of the most famous historical sites would be just another old house or pile of rubble if you didn’t have any background information about their significance. Tourists have always had options for educating themselves about what they’re looking at. They can read relevant books beforehand, they can hire a tour guide, or, if everyone in the group has the patience, they can take the time to read every plaque and sign on the premises.

Now, many programmers are also offering tourists the option to learn about these sites via their smartphones. While many of the world’s significant historical locations have some sort of interactive app connected to them, the seven we picked below are among the most innovative and impressive.

To read the full story simply visit Mashable / Mobile.

Enjoy this,
Chris

Negotiating with hotels

I found an interesting document for associations on the ICCA website:

Ideas and advice for meeting planners to obtain a better understanding of the hotel business objectives that drive hotel negotiating positions.

Most hotels have limited experience of dealing with associations, and are more familiar with corporate meetings and intermediary agencies, whose needs and buying behaviour can be very different from those of association planners. Many buyers in the association world have limited experience of negotiating with hotels, and do not clearly understand the business objectives that drive hotel negotiating positions. Most guides on the subject of negotiating concern themselves with the corporate market. These three facts add up to the need for a simple guide to assist the international association buyer to speak the same “business language” as the hotel sales representative, and to obtain a fair deal that reflects the importance and value of their event.

More here:
Negotiating with hotels

World's Sexiest Rooftop Pools

The rooftop garden at the new Marina Bay Sands Hotel, perched atop three towers 660 feet above Singapore and totaling more than 15,000 square feet, has the feel of a paradise that's off-limits to mere mortals. (Although, for $20, non-guests can visit the observation deck.)

As if the sheer magnitude of the place weren't intoxicating enough, the 500-foot-long guests-only infinity pool—one of the largest urban pools in the world at that height—feels equally endless, and a little dangerous, too. Add to that an international crowd of beautiful people lounging on white daybeds beneath swaying palm trees, and the whole place takes on a floating-in-the-heavens kind of sex appeal that makes you want to strip and drift through the water in your birthday suit.

There are also rooftop bars and restaurants, in case, you know, the gods get hungry.

Marina Bay Sands Hotel
10 Bayfront Avenue
Singapore
Tel: 65 6688 8888
Thanks http://www.concierge.com for the article

Art may be everything, except being boring - Case study

“Art may be everything, except being boring”- St. Moritz Art Masters 2010/ Engadin St. Moritz, Switzerland

This case study is written by our guest authour Irina Trofimovskaya.

From the 27th of August until the 5th of September the third addition of the St. Moritz Art Masters took place in St. Moritz and in other villages in the Upper Engadin. National and international painters, photographers and sculptors exhibited their works in churches, hotels, banks, galleries, museums, lakes and other public places easily accessible to the visitors and free of charge. This was a great collaboration between the organization committee and the local partners.

From the event visitor point of view, what type of marketing will attract you to visit this event? Is an advertisement in the national and international newspapers and in train stations will attract your attention with advertisement slogans like – “St. Moritz Art Masters- the leading Art event in the world”? Probably not. Important to mention that this event is open for everyone who is interested in fine arts, good atmosphere, socialization, mobility, education and all that in a wonderful destination called the Engadin St. Moritz.

During the marketing campaign, the brand St. Moritz Art Masters was mentioned just in small letters on the left side of the advertisement posters. The advertisement posters carried amusing, provoking and clever statements which attracted the viewer attention. Every person could identify himself with at least one of them or relate it to someone they know. For example, when speaking about art, which person wouldn’t identify him with the statement “the best is yet to come” or “in few years no one will remember the bad critics”? And to whom you can relate the statement “I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying”?

Another attraction was the Angels and Demons sculptures by Alain de Lille (2008) posted in St. Moritz village several weeks before the exhibition. The statements and the sculptures were so attractive that people made photos and published them on the social media platforms. This type of publicity gains easily the buzz effect or the WOM- word of mouth, when people start to discuss the topic and exchange experiences.

The question now is, if the camping fulfilled the visitor’s expectations? It definitely did! When arriving to St. Moritz, the visitor was in a totally transformed village. There were directing signs to visiting the venues where works of art were presented. A detailed brochure with the description and location of the exhibiting artists was produced in English and German and allowed the visitor to move independently on his own pace through the venues. In most of the venues additional written information and interpretation was provided about the arts.

There was art for every taste, age, mood and interest. This event was once again one of the highlights of Top of the World destination Engadin St. Moritz and brought many visitors just before the end of the summer season. I highly recommend visiting this fascinating event next year. For forward information visit the St. Moritz Art Masters official web site http://www.stmoritzartmasters.com.

Irina Trofimovskaya

Project Partner
Manfred Ritschard & Partner LLC
Corporate training & Marketing
http://www.manfredritschard.ch

Why Dubai if Barcelona is even closer?

Yes, it looks similar to the Burj Al Arab in Dubai but this hotel is in Barcelona: the brand new W Barcelona.

It has 2.500 sqm (26.910 sq ft) of meeting space to accommodate a small gathering or a large group. Launching W's only Great Room with unobstructed views over the sea and over 1.000 sqm (10.000 sq ft), W Barcelona does redefine meeting experiences in Europe.

Creative in approach and innovative in design, W Hotels engage and energize meeting attendees. Their unique Sensory Set Up® gets ideas flowing with mood music, signature scents and more. It stimulates all five senses with mood music, aromatherapy scents, thought-provoking placecards, creative catering, retro candies and inspiring games.

Plus, all rooms are fully wired with the latest technology for Wi-Fi and more.

Hotels to Stay in Before You Die

Concierge.com published today a great list of 13 hotels throughout the world of "must stayed before you die" properties.

One of my favorite Hotels is the OBEROI UDAIVILAS, Udaipur, India.

This is the text of Concierge.com which comes with this hotel:

So your friends say they're not sure about going to India? If they could only get a load of you now, overlooking the gorgeous Lake Pichola from your perch in a magnificent palace fit for a maharaja. In fact, some of the world's best hotels are packed into the country, especially around the northern desert region of Rajasthan. Our pick: Oberoi Udaivilas. Built in 2002, it feels like it's been on the lake for centuries, especially with its series of turrets and fountains that could be plucked out of the Mewar period. The design is equal parts sublime and decadent, with gold-leaf domes, exquisite chandeliers, and gorgeous Indian textiles. The grounds are enormous—30 acres—and include an animal sanctuary with peacocks that parade through the gardens. Ask for a Premier Lake View room with a private patio overlooking the water and steps that lead right into a semiprivate pool (five suites come with completely private ones). Not to be missed: a sunset boat trip around the lake followed by a private dinner on a floating dock—it'll make you the star in your own Bollywood flick.

OBEROI UDAIVILAS, Udaipur, India
Tel: 91 294 243 3300
Doubles from $745

Special venue for your next Management meeting

This is your perfect venue for your next management meeting:

Bonefish Cay, Bahamas

Location
This 13-acre island is located in the Abacos chain of islands in the Bahamas and takes its name from its interesting shape and the amount of bonefish in this region.

Accommodation
2 guest villas with 6 suites and the impressive master bedroom and a large Main Lodge (a total of 7 double rooms) can be rented to a total of 14 guests. Each double room has modern bath and finishings. The main building of 5,000 sq. ft. is the centre of this island paradise and the meeting place for eating, drinking, for a game of pool, or for taking your chances at a round of poker. The 30-foot-high cypress cathedral ceiling brings a feeling of majesty to the main house. The entertainment area also features a stereo system and home-theatre system with satellite television and large-format screen for comfortable viewing.

Activities
There are island boats always ready for your excursions. The island manager will give you a tour of all the nearby highlights, and you may even greet dolphins along the way. Professional diving tours can be arranged with the neighbouring island. Snorkelling equipment as well as ocean-going kayaks are provided for your use. Take a swim at low tide around the island's own coral reef and see the multitude of coral and fish. The island has two long, sandy beaches, and paths over the island. There are many shells and native plants that make a stroll interesting. Reservations for golf (18 holes) on the neighbouring island of Treasure Cay can be made on request, or a game of tennis on Spanish Cay.

Getting there
Flights from Fort Lauderdale fly daily to Treasure Cay, where you will be picked up by car, delivered to a private harbour and then taken by boat to Bonefish Cay. Or charter a flight from Miami or Nassau to the neighbouring island, Spanish Cay, where there is a port of entry and 5,000-foot runway

Rates:
From EUR 50,000 per week plus local taxes for the entire island for up to 14 guests, including gourmet full-board, service and use of all water-sport facilities. Alcoholic beverages, diving, golfing and flight transfers are at guests' expense.
20% surcharge for peak season rentals Christmas/New Year.

Not happy with my suggestion? See here more options for Islands to rent: Vladi Private Islands