Husband. Father. Hospitality Sales & Marketing Professional. My interests include travel, social media, tourism and emerging markets. I'm also fond of tacos, college football and beach bars. All opinions expressed are my own. | Management Tip: Don't Do What You Love
Today's management tip from Harvard Business Review turns conventional wisdom on its ear. Adopted from Dorie Clark, HBR boldly states: "Don't Do What You Love" for the following reasons:
- It's not your strength. You may love to do something you are just not good at. Because it can be hard to self-assess, ask for frank feedback from those around you to know where your strengths are.
- You're too emotionally attached. Passion may cloud your judgment. When you care deeply about something, it can be hard to be take criticism or let others get involved.
- It's a hobby, not a job. Sadly, you can't be paid for everything. What you love may not be lucrative. Instead find something you like that pays.
Clark goes on to document her rationale more fully in an extended HBR newsletter, but it certainly runs contrary to the traditional "do what you love" mantra that has been championed for so many years.
For me, I think the middle ground is the ideal spot. By "loving what you do", you can apply your passions and strengths towards fulfilling goals — both personally and professionally — without being hampered by the very real concerns Clark raises.
Luxury brands are big fans of Facebook, other social media sites
High-end brands have woken up awakened to the power of social media because of some compelling statistics. "Households earning over $100,000 a year are on the Internet 23 hours a week and on Facebook six hours a week," said Bernie Brennan, co-author with Lori Schafer of "Branded: How Retailers Engage Consumers with Social Media and Mobility." And 80 percent of households with annual incomes of more than $240,000 use social networking, primarily Facebook, said Brennan. Luxury brands now realize "there's a new way to communicate and if retailers or brands are not engaging in social media, they're missing an enormous market opportunity," he said.
Some of the world's most exclusive names are quickly becoming the world's most engaging brands. Why? It's simple really. Facebook is the social media home to millions of affluents.
These statistics are the sirens song to luxury brands:
- Households earning more than $100,000 spend 6+ hours per week on Facebook
- 80% of households earning more than $240,000 use social media, primarily Facebook
Luxury brands are realizing the intrinsic value of having both affluents and aspirational customers interact with their brand and products at a time and place of their choosing.
So it's little wonder that BMW, Gucci, Chanel, Ritz-Carlton and Louis Vuitton have jumped headfirst into social media, particularly through Facebook.
Burberry has used direct engagement – such as asking Facebook users to submit photos and videos of themselves carrying the signature raincoats and handbags – to boost "likes" to more than 6 million.
One facet of social media metrics that is vastly underappreciated, however, is influence. When a user "likes" a brand, they broaden the degree of influence for that brand.
Even if the user themselves is aspirational and cannot yet afford the brand, generally users will have another 10-20 Facebook users within their network that can afford the brand. By "likeing" the brand, they are spreading the luxury brands influence directly to all of the users within their network. When that "like" shows up on their wall or stream, it serves as a call to action for other users to engage with the brand.
For example, if I "like" a new car from BMW, it will post to my wall. It will be seen by my entire network and the peer influence fundamental will prompt my friends to "like" that BMW and engage with the brand. If the average Facebook user has 130 friends, then Burberry's 6 million fans potentially influence tens of millions of Facebook users.
Luxury brands, with historically smaller traditional footprints and touch points, are finding a home on social media. And with 83% of affluents now making purchases online, Facebook and social websites have truly become the new showcase for the world's premiere brands.
Retail Study: 1 Facebook Fan = 20 Visits To Your Website
A UK based study by Hitwise analyzed data from the top 100 retailers to find how much additional web traffic was generated by each Facebook fan. The metrics showed that each fan of a Facebook page produced an extra 20 visits to the website. In order to generate this number, Facebook traffic was analyzed and compared against Facebook Page data from Techlightenment.
The study also found that brands utilizing Facebook the most saw increased brand searches on Google, Yahoo! and Bing. A top UK retailer, Topshop, saw brand searches increase by 54% after a visit to Facebook. This was a trend that stayed true for all of the top 10 brands, with brand searches increasing from 19% to 54% if a user previously visited their Facebook page.
Travel Trends for China's Millionaires
The Hurun Research Institute has released The Chinese Luxury Travel White Paper, giving insight into the preferences of China's luxury consumers.
The study, which was created from one-on-one interviews with 463 Chinese millionaires and billionaires, sheds new light onto how the wealthiest Chinese make travel decisions.
I found several details to particularly interesting, including:
- Chinese millionaires average 15 days of vacation annually, including three trips abroad. One-third will take more than 20 days of vacation per year and 20% will travel abroad five or more every year.
- France is now the top travel destination, followed by the United State (which had been #1 in 2009 and 2010), Australia, Japan, and the Maldives.
- 4 out of 5 millionaires consider sending their children overseas for education, with the US, UK and Canada topping the list.
- 80% of Chinese millionaires prefer to travel on their own rather than with a tour group.
- 57% of the ultra-wealthy make their own travel arrgangements using a travel agent or professional website.
- Only 11% of Chinese millionaires book travel through a hotel website.
- When choosing where to stay, brand is the most important factor, followed by service, facilities, and location.
- The preferred hotel brands of Chinese millionaires are Shangri-La, Hilton, Park Hyatt and The Ritz-Carlton.
For US hotel companies seeking to gain a toe-hold in the Asian travel market, this study gives actionable insight in how to market to ultra-wealthy Chinese.
For example, with such a large number of Chinese considering an overseas education for their children, do you think proximity to major universities would be a consideration for the guest? If so, do your professional travel agents have a list of area universities? Is this information detailed on the top-performing international travel websites?
With such a high percentage of millionaires preferring to travel without a group, is your hotel prepared to host a single Chinese family? Without a group guide as a primary communicator for the guests, are your facilities and staff prepared to service a Chinese guest? For example, do you have community maps and guides printed in simplified Chinese? Are your restaurant and in-room dining menus availble in multiple languages? Do you provide multiple Mandarin television channels? Do you provide currency exhange services?
I think this study is truly fasciniating. Hotels and brands that implement these insights in their service standards and marketing stand to gain marketshare in this rapidly emerging market.
Who uses social media?
Pew Internet has released their updated social networking study and several of their findings are quite remarkable:
- 47% of adults in the US use social media sites versus only 26% in 2008
- The average age of social media users is now 38, up from age 33 just two years ago
- 52% of Facebook users and 33% of Twitter users engage with social media daily
- Myspace users tend to have the lowest level of education; LinkedIn users are the most educated
Within these findings, I'm most intrigued by the growth of middle-aged and senior users. While adoption by younger users tends to mark the start of trends, the growth among older users indicates mainstream acceptance. In other words, it's clear that social networking – particularly on Facebook – has officially arrived.
5 Simple Ways to Get the Most out of LinkedIn
At last count, more than 100 million professionals have registered on LinkedIn, but a much smaller number use the career networking site regularly. For many, LinkedIn is simply a place to summarize their resume online, but the reaility is that the site can be a substantial resource for expanding both your business and your career.
5 Simple Ways to Get the Most out of LinkedIn
1. Monitor LinkedIn's "Signal" feature to glean market and industry insights.
One of the new-ish features introduced by LinkedIn is "Signal", which allows you to filter and expand your "wall" beyond just the updates from your immediate connections. For example, you can easily drill down to find updates and posts by the greater LinkedIn community (2nd and 3rd+ connections), filter by geography or industry, or focus on specific companies. This is a great tool to see what your customers are saying about their own companies or industries.
2. Use LinkedIn Apps and Groups to establish yourself as an expert.
Becoming an expert in your field can be extremely lucrative and LinkedIn is a great way to establish your credibility. Not only can you post documents, white papers, or presentations to your own profile, but you can also use LinkedIn Apps to integrate your reading lists or blog posts directly into your online profile. Another great way to demostrate your expertise is by applying your experience and insights in one of the many LinkedIn Groups.
3. Download your Connections to your Address Book.
Being able to connect to industry professionals and peers is one of the most significant benefits to using LinkedIn, but did you know that you can export the contact information for the people in your network? Simply click the Export Connections link at the bottom of your Connections page to download your entire network into Outlook or any popular contact manager.
4. Quickly find customers and connections using saved searches.
One frequent criticism of LinkedIn is that there isn't a good workflow for many users to quickly find quality connections. While I think LinkedIn has a great recommendation engine in the People You May Know menu, you can also save up to three advanced searches as a free member. This is a great way to target your current and potential customers, as well as peers in your industry, for future connections.
5. Make yourself easy to find on LinkedIn.
It may sound basic, but you will not gain many beneficial connections if users can't find you profile. Verify your settings within LinkedIn to ensure that your profile is displayed in user searches. While your at it, you can customize your LinkedIn page link to promote your personal or professional brand and enhance your LinkedIn profile page to better connect with your customers and peers.
For more great ways to get more out of LinkedIn, read 10 Mistakes People Make on LinkedIn and visit this post on LinkedIntelligence.
Would you trade big brother for bigger savings?
Progressive Insurance has thrown down a new Scruples question: Would you give up privacy about your driving habits if you could earn a greater discount?
With the introduction of its new driving monitor, Progressive is offering a more subtantial discount on auto insurance – advertised as "up to 30%" off premiums – for users who install the company's device, dubbed "Snapshot". After a 30-day period, drivers return the device and Progressive may offer a discount which subscribers can keep as long as they are Progressive customers.
The device watches driving habits such as time of day, braking, and how many miles driven per day during a 30 day period. According to Progressive, those are the only metrics their monitoring, but there's really nothing to prevent the device from noting other items, such as top RPM, top speed, and other metrics.
So… would you trade-in a little privacy to save up to 30% on your car insurance?
NatGeo presents The Most Typical Human 2011
If you were to combine all of the character traits of the world's 7 billion people, what would be the typical profile for mankind? NatGeo knows.
The most typical human:
- is a 28-year-old, right handed man
- makes less than $12,000 per year, has a cell phone, but no bank account
- is Han Chinese
Of course, this won't be the most typical human for long. As trends and populations shift, the most typical human in twenty years will likely be younger, perhaps female, and Indian. Pretty fascinating, huh? NatGeo has even more details in this great video:
Keep your passwords safe from Hackers
How long does it take a hacker to guess your password? Less time than you might think.
| Length | Lowercase | + Uppercase | + Number & Symbol |
| 6 Characters | 10 minutes | 10 hours | 18 days |
| 7 Characters | 4 hours | 23 days | 4 years |
| 8 Characters | 4 days | 3 years | 463 yearss |
| 9 Characters | 4 months | 178 years | 44,530 yearss |
The best way to keep your password safe from hackers is to use numbers & symbols in your password. For example, "password5&" is much more secure than "password", in terms of hackability. Even if you just use a common/proper noun as your password, adding numbers, symbols or uppercase characters (ie "susie74!") can help keep your password from being easily cracked.
For even better passwords, create a sentence that you can easily remember and then combine the first character of each word with a series of numbers or characters.
For example, "Seven dogs ran around the lake & played with 3 geese. Weird!" as a password becomes "7dratl&pw3g.W!".
Remember, the better your password, the safer your data!
The Future of China
This is a really interesting (and lengthy) video look at the recent history of China and the evolution that is taking place throughout every aspect of Chinese culture. The perspective is uniquely Chinese – culturally proud, aspirational, and full of hope for what the future holds.
From the outside, it is easy to see areas where China could improve. From the inside, it's impossible to overlook the evolution that has taken place since the 1990s. It's important to keep both perspectives in mind, as both are correct.
The video accurately relates the perspective we found during our trip last fall. It recognizes that more work can and should be done to evolve the freedoms and opportunities for China's people, while maintaining the cultural hallmarks that are so uniquely Chinese.