Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Commentary’ Category

Usually when I go off on a short break there are a few new entries on the B&B and self-catering listings sites but this time I returned to something of a bumper crop which took me most of the morning to catch up.

In theory, the process is quite automated but in reality there’s almost always a little work to be done to get the new entries online. Most of the time, it’s a matter of a few minutes but now and again you get someone that just puts “see website” and, of course, their website is rarely in a form that allows a straight copy and paste to get it online. In fact, this time it was worse as they’d their whole website typed in uppercase letters so I’d to retype it all and correct the grammar too for that matter.

That grammar problem is quite strange really. You’d think that people would put the effort into their site to get both the spelling and grammar reasonably correct but now and again you come across a site that you’d think had been written by a small child which surely can’t be an attractive proposition for a potential guest, can it?

Strangely, it’s usually the foreigners who are writing in their second or third language who get both the spelling and grammar correct and this morning was no different: the entry from Italy was perfect apart from one word which only needed to be changed to put a truly English-English spin on the phrase they’d used.

From about October through to March each year anyone who rents out holiday accommodation is usually innundated with offers for free trial listings from a range of listings sites around the world.

One thing that almost all of the free trial periods have in common is that they limit the facilities available on your entry as compared to the paid subscription version. Usually, that’s done by a very simple restriction: they don’t publish your website address.

The reason behind that is simple as without that website address most people will use the contact facilities on the listings site to get in touch with you and you’ll know that they’ve done that ie that the site is working for you. The downside of that is that many more people won’t bother contacting you and will instead go to other properties who do have their website listed so overall you get fewer bookings. Fair enough really as you’re not paying the site to list you at that point.

Some would say that if you get one booking enquiry that way then you should take up the paid subscription (which is usually at a discount during the trial period) but I feel that it’s better to wait for the second e-mail from a site in that the first one could just be spurious. If people find you twice on a site then that’s a good indication that the site is going to bring you business and it’s probably best to sign up on receipt of the second booking enquiry.

The only problem is that once you’ve signed up then you will no longer get the direct feedback that the site is working for you and it’s only by looking at your website stats that you’ll know if they’ve sent you any traffic at all.

Surprisingly given the market conditions, the number of people picking up posts from the blog on real estate is growing daily.

Why is that though? Surely with a relatively depressed housing market you’d think that less people would be interested in it? I suspect that the reason is that everyone is looking to catch the market turning upwards and hence the interest is even more intense now than it would ordinarily be during normal trading conditions.

Of course, the fact that a lot of people are looking for that upturn probably means that it’s some way off and certainly the messing around on the share markets recently isn’t a particularly hopeful sign.

Much as you might think that video production was for film studios in fact there are a number of small production companies which target the corporate video production market.

Of these, 522 Productions confines itself broadly to the Washington DC area along with those neighbouring it of course. As it’s in the capital area many of the productions that it has created are for non-profit organisations and there’s a surprisingly wide range of work in it’s portfolio already.

They even run to quite an interesting blog which looks at many of the issues concerning video production these days as, of course, it’s rarely as straightforward as producing a video tape since people will often want a flash version for online distribution along with the possibility of running streaming videos and distribution via YouTube. Naturally that range of outlets makes it important to consider just what outlets you are likely to be using before you start shooting: the grand production that you originally thought you needed might not be suitable if many people will be watching the quite small video sizes that are generally available online for example.

School administration used to be a fairly simple affair but it has become more and more complex over the years with additional tasks added tacked on as time as gone on.

Many of these additional tasks fall under the remit of management of the school rather than the educational side of things which has traditionally been where school principals have come from and schools are pretty complex beasts to manage as well. It’s therefore becoming more and more necessary to call into play software that can keep a handle on what’s going on.

For example, the organisation of school trips used to be quite straightforward but these days they’re logistical nightmares involving negotiations with overseas accommodation, transport and entertainment. All that before you even consider the business of keeping track of who is actually going on the trip!

Fees are more and more common of course too and with fees comes the need to draw on marketing resources which in turn leads you down the path of contact management and following up of leads. Naturally these days that may entail e-mail marketing programmes in addition to the calling of bygone days.

Management and allocation of resources from teachers to classrooms, transport, etc. is of course still part of the normal school activity but no less easy to do simply because it’s better known by those involved in it. And, of course, you need to keep track of how everyone is doing so that the various performance statistics demanded by the educational authorities can be presented in the appropriate format.

However, with all those complications it’s perhaps surprising to know that there aren’t a lot of integrated school management systems around. One of those that seems to be doing quite well internationally is TEAMS which is produced by a relatively small Australian company.