Communication Revolutions

Dealing with tough times - Quotes from Churchill

Some good quotes from a man who excelled in times of crisis-

• Never, never, never give up.

• It is a fine thing to be honest, but it is also very important to be right.

• If we open a quarrel between past and present, we shall find that we have lost the future.

• A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

• It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see.

• True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information.

• It is no use saying, 'We are doing our best.' You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.

• Kites rise highest against the wind - not with it.

•  Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.

• One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half.

Never run away from anything. Never!

More Churchill quotes here.

On public speaking

• I'm just preparing my impromptu remarks.

• There are two things that are more difficult than making an after-dinner speech: climbing a wall which is leaning toward you and kissing a girl who is leaning away from you.

Crisis in Confidence

Consumer Confidence Plunges Amid Financial Turmoil

Consumer confidence plummeted to an all-time low in October as Wall Street turmoil hit consumers on Main Street.  

The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index plunged to 38 in October from 61.4 in September, falling far below economists' expectations of 55. 

The decline was due mostly to the turmoil that has hit the financial sector in recent months.

"The impact of the financial crisis over the last several weeks has clearly taken a toll on consumers' confidence," said Lynn Franco, Director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center. 

Behavioral Revolution

Interesting article on the behavioral revolution by David Brooks in the NYT

• Roughly speaking, there are four steps to every decision. First, you perceive a situation. Then you think of possible courses of action. Then you calculate which course is in your best interest. Then you take the action.
• Alan Greenspan - “I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms.”

• Perceiving a situation seems, at first glimpse, like a remarkably simple operation. You just look and see what’s around. But the operation that seems most simple is actually the most complex, it’s just that most of the action takes place below the level of awareness. Looking at and perceiving the world is an active process of meaning-making that shapes and biases the rest of the decision-making chain.

The grid

More on the evolution of "The Grid" from Times Online:

• The Grid is the latest evolution of the internet and the world wide web and computer scientists will announce on Friday that it is ready to be connected to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

• The Grid has the kind of power required to download movies in seconds, and the ability to make high-definition video phone calls for the same price as a local call.

• Scientists at CERN, where the world wide web was invented, created the €500 million Grid because they realised that a single computer would not be able to cope with the amount of data the LHC is expected to produce each year – 15 petabytes, or 15 million gigabytes, which would fill 20 million CDs.

• Processing tasks will be distributed between 11 gateway computer centres in ten countries, including Britain, which will share them out between more than 140 sites.

Travel Trends - August 2008

INTL. VISITS UP 11% IN FIRST 6 MONTHS OF 2008. The Department of Commerce said that 23.9 million international visitors traveled to the U.S. during the first six months of 2008, an increase of 11% over the same period in 2007. In June, total visitation was 4.0 million, an increase of 8% over June 2007. International visitors spent $69.9 billion from January through June, an increase over the first half of 2007. Overseas arrivals increased 10% year-to-date. Visitation from overseas markets has grown for 14 consecutive months. Canadian visitation grew 17% year-to-date, while arrivals from Mexico, traveling to interior U.S. points, increased 1% during the first six months of 2008. Details at 202-482-0150. (Special to TA)

--Reflecting the deepening downturn in tourism, the occupancy rate at Hawaii's hotels tumbled to a 10-year low in July, with the high-end market taking the biggest hit. Average hotel occupancy fell to 74.2% in July, down 6.5 percentage points from the same month a year ago, It was the fifth consecutive monthly decline and marked the lowest occupancy rate for any July since 1998 when it was 73,6%, according to a report released this week by Hospitality Advisors LLC, an industry consulting firm. The report showed average daily room rates declined by 0.8% to $211.53. The figures reflect a 14.1% drop in July visitor arrivals reported earlier by the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. (www.HonoluluAdvertiser.com/Business, 9/10)

--For the seventh straight month, Nevada's casinos amassed less revenue than they did a year earlier. The Nevada Gaming Control Board reported that gaming revenue fell 13% in July, as casinos collected $997.3 million, compared with $1.15 billion in July 2007. On the Las Vegas Strip, July gaming revenue fell 14.7%, from $608.4 million to $519.2 million. (www.TravelWeekly.com, 9/10)

--A new study paid for by Central Florida's biggest tourism bureau says that visitors to Orlando spent a combined $31.1 billion in 2007. That was up 4.7% from 2006. Domestic travelers made up 94% of the total number of visitors to the region but accounted for 82% of visitor spending of $25.6 billion. International travelers made up just 6% of the visitors but 18% of visitor spending, or $5.5 billion. The study was conducted by Global Insight Inc. for the Orlando/Orange County Convention & Visitors Bureau. (www.Orlando Sentinel.com/Business, 9/10)

Travel and Hospitality Trends

From HSMAI -

55 trends affecting Society, Travel and Hospitality.

looking around corners

Interesting report on Visual computing and the emergance of virtual reality 3D graphics on the web

The Price of Gas

Interesting analysis on the real price of gas from the LA Times

• After studying the average yearly price of gasoline from 1949 to 2007, and assigning the number "1" to the ratio in 1960, we found today's prices comparable to what they were in 1960 (1.35 today to 1.00 in 1960, with a high of 3.32 in 1998). The higher the gasoline affordability index figure, the lower the price of gasoline relative to disposable income.
• But perception is not reality where gas prices are concerned. By June of this year, disposable income had risen by an average of $1,627 per person over last year's figures, according to the Department of Commerce, while the average person's real expenditures on gasoline increased by about $490. Our incomes are still outpacing gasoline price increases. The problem is that our incomes aren't outpacing the increase in gas prices lumped together with increases in everything else -- air conditioning, food, etc. Our homes, meanwhile, are losing value.

Travel Trends - Fall 2008

A couple of recent travel trends:

Nationwide, hotel occupancy levels have been hovering around 65%, down about 5% from last year, according to STR. But business in particular areas--like Maui in Hawaii, which is almost entirely dependent on air travel--has "already fallen off a cliff," said John Arabia, an analyst for Green Street Advisors. (Page C1, New York Times)

AMEX POLL FINDS PERSONAL INTERESTS DRIVE TRAVEL. From jetting overseas for a culinary experience to a desire to learn life-enriching skills while on vacation, travelers are intent on continuing to pursue travel experiences that allow them to indulge in their personal interests despite the softening economy, according to a recent survey by American Express Travel. Indeed, 57% of the 501 U.S. adults surveyed indicated that the number of vacations involving one or more personal "passions" would either remain the same or increase over the next two years; of those, 28% indicated that they expect the number to increase. At least 60% of respondents said that even though they feel the U.S. economy is currently in or edging toward a recession, travel is so important to their mental health and lifestyle that they have not let economic concerns impact their plans. (www.ModernAgent.com, 7/30)

Why consumers want the brands they buy

Got a taste of Rob Walker's new Book The Desire Code in Brand Week - some excerpts

If brands and logos are mere symbols, empty of meaning, then choosing among clothing lines—or anything—becomes a largely rational affair. There are probably four, or maybe four and a half, factors to consider. One, of course, is price. Another is convenience. A third is quality. The fourth rational factor, I think it's fair to say, is pleasure. The half factor is ethics-

His point was that "most products are invisible," as is most marketing, and this means things must be made "remarkable" if they are to have a chance to succeed.

The Pretty Good Problem is even more acute at Magic than it is in the pages of Consumer Reports or, possibly, the picturesque pastures of France. The more narrow the range of actual differences in commodity attributes, the more important it becomes to create a different kind of value—one that transcends the merely material. This is the goal of branding.