I'm in the midst of a pile of research for a new body of work on the post-recessionary consumer.
In this process, I simply cannot believe the amount of re-cycling of old ideas is going on - the same concepts are being repeated in Web 2.0 format with ever more fancy new names; book designs that are ever more beautiful (thank you Creative Economy); and accompanied by slick videos that are easy to embed and syndicate.
One term that is rising to the fore in 2010 of all years is "Customer Centricity" as if the customer had just been discovered!! I can't disagree with the notion that success will only depend on selling something that the customer wishes to buy and that companies need to switch their focus from products to customer experience and support. I have always taken that as a given. Back in 2002 when Customer Relationship Management (CRM) was all the rage, I tried to identify why spending millions on software to continue to push products to people in a friendly way (ie the ability to insert a personal first name at the head of communications) wasn't working. At the time, Dancing with the Customer was our response. What I do take issue with is the way this most basic and obvious of concepts is being dressed up as new, exciting and so cool some 8-10 years later.
So in this context you you can imagine my relief in finding this short video clip of the co-founder of South West Airlines talk about their approach to customer care. Note: there's not a buzzword or piece of marketing jargon in the entire 3 minutes - just plain old common sense. For those of you who don't have time for the video, here's the essence. Be clear about who you are, what you stand for, hire the right people who align with those values and treat your employees in a way you would like them to treat your customers. Simple, eh?
“We don’t have any secrets; we are an open book. But every time these companies came in they would want to know ‘what are your programs?’ And I would say over and over—and you could see the shades go down because people didn’t buy it—we don’t have ‘programs’ it’s a way of life. It is who we are. We spend an incredible amount of time hiring the right people who want to do the right thing. But we don’t have programs for handling things.”
He argues that the new dividing line in politics is not between right or left but between expanders and restrainers: those who believe that there should be no impediments, and those who believe that we must live within limits. He goes onto to say:
The vicious battles we have seen so far between greens and climate change deniers, road safety campaigners and speed freaks, real grassroots groups and corporate-sponsored astroturfers are just the beginning. This war will become much uglier as people kick against the limits that decency demands.
While I dislike the language of wars and battles, I do agree with the fact the the divide exists, is growing and will widen before it shrinks.
Fear is the force that is driving a wedge between these two groups. The expanders fear loss of control, position, power, wealth, comfort, familiar stuff (the list goes on). Restrainers miss loss of access to cultural diversity, to well-being, biodiversity, health, community, security and happiness.
It seems always to be about fear. Fear will trump ambition every time. But even fear runs out of steam when people have lost all – as Victor Frankl showed in Auschwitz. The human search for meaning stays alight among some amidst the darkest darkness. It’s that sputtering flame we must each kindle…
I wish I could write as eloquently as Monbiot – he can be convincing, except that there’s flaw in his thinking that comes from a flaw of perception. There are colours in our world. He has identified two modes of thought but not seen the connections that link and unify.
I don't know about you, but there are also colours in my personality – at various times I am an expander and a restrainer. Some degree of expansion is necessary, or entropy would take over and we’d all end up in a useless heap under our duvets. Some form of restraint is necessary or we’d all burst from satiation. George rightly alludes to the fact that each of us harbours a capacity for great acts of selflessness and goodness and horrific acts of selfishness and evil. I am “all of us” but so are "you" too – and from where you’re standing, the view is different. Before WW2, Carl Jung warned of the shadow that exists within each and the dangers of denying it.
If humanity needs anything right now it’s to develop a universal capacity to grasp and feel comfortable with complexity, ambiguity even paradox. It’s the ability to say “yes and” not just “yes but”. But in the same way our psychology has difficulty handling gradual threats and responds best to immediate danger, the media we have created (and especially the new, digital social media) values the brief, the new, the instant, the “real-time”. Our thought processes are constantly interrupted, distracted and divided and our capacity to mull over an idea or article is reduced. Never was there such a need for our leaders to take time out to think (God forbid) but, when they do, we describe them as indecisive.
Another new and promising writer, Jane Young of The Resonance Blog, has tried to capture this need to handle complexity in a slide deck that should enjoy wide distribution. Her blog is well worth a read too.
I include it here not just because I enjoyed it but because it supports my last point – the dividing line (if there is such a thing) is not between people but modes of perception. People can shift back and forth between different modes of perception relatively easily. (In the illustration to the right, most of you can see an image of both a young lady in a fine hat, and an old crone clad in scarf).
One mode of perception views the planet as a living organism, a complex system continuously self-regulating and all forms of matter and energy as agents within that system, connected to and influencing all other agents. This paradigm necessitates a healthy respect for all other agents and an intrinsic, pervasive humility - the complexity of the interconnections means that we never know how they might impact each other.
The other model sees the planet as a storehouse of resources that any set of agents (any tribe) can exploit ad infinitum for its own personal benefit. This mode of perception has developed its knowledge based on a paradigm that divides subject from object; that underplays the deep connections that constantly link the two; and that assumes that agents can be neatly labeled, grouped, un-grouped and manipulated like the pixels on your screen. For as long as this paradigm “worked” (and it has for over 350 years) practicing humility was disadvantageous. What was needed was daring, courage, and boldness to break through barriers of ignorance and build new edifices that proved my tribe's superior intelligence and strength.
After 350 years or so, it’s not just the physical resources that have been plundered and are running low, but a healthy sense of wonder; a willingness to realize that there is far more we don’t know about our amazing universe than what we could ever know. As students of nature we are all in kindergarten where a bit more hand holding would serve us well. The old expansionist paradigm is losing its ability to describe our world accurately and predict the future - everywhere we read of systemic flaws, meltdowns and crises.
So, methinks a real paradigm shift is finally afoot.
If that's the case, then George, while I respect your passion, eloquence, intelligence, and wit, I reject your analysis of a new form of class struggle - even though I will fess up and state that I'm a moderate restrainer. If as you suggest, there are two mountains of thought separated by a chasm of misunderstanding, we need bridge builders and integrators not polarizers. Without such, it's gonna get a lot uglier….Let's not be responsible for that...It's not time for barricades but bridges......
Postscript
My tourism readers might be thinking - what has this to do with tourism? Well everything. For starters, I believe the tourism community can and should act as bridge builders. But I also see evidence for the perception division growing within our ranks as evidenced by recent press releases issued by the WTTC, the Ecumenical Council on Tourism and the UNWTO. More in next post!!
Here’s a superb example of tourism leaders re-thinking marketing in response to the down-turn and the emergence of social and rich media. CEO Rob Katz explains via video, of course, how Vail has completely re-thought its marketing strategy and relationships with skiers.
The full story is available from Advertising Age link here
The recession significantly shortened the planning time for the purchase and sale of ski experiences - decreasing from 4-6 months to 2-3 weeks. Vail also recognized the volatility in the marketplace and realized that print media restricted their ability to respond to short-term, even real-time demand.
Last year Vail had spent 80% of its budget before the vacation period so couldn’t respond to last minute demand. So they took the brave decision to pull 50% of their ad spend out of print and put in reserve. Vail now uses social media and operates like a political campaign to communicate in real time response to local market conditions.
It’s a brave call – their competitors are still present in the big ski publications with the conventional rich brand messaging but Vail has a war chest with which to strike as demand rises closer to the holidays. No wonder Katz likens himself to Braveheart!
If it works and the gamble pays off, you can bet others will follow – hopefully the print community possesses similar gutsy leadership within its ranks. They’re going to need it.
Indirectly and directly Lester B Pearson, Prime Minister of Canada (1963-1968) saved many American lives and put this country on the international map. During the depths of the Vietnam war, it was customary for some American backpackers to sew the new Canadian Maple`flag (which Pearson introduced) on their backpacks to avoid being recognized as Americans. Pearson also introduced universal health care, student loans, the Canada Pension Plan and helped raise Canada's status as a country and sustain its reputation as a peace keeper concerned about the developing world.
How things change. Now many countries in the Commonwealth wish Canada to leave and the green backpackers are likely removing the maple leaf from their packs. Our international reputation and appeal as a country is in quick descent as evidenced in the Guardian article here and a few concerned citizens have assumed responsibility for presenting Canada's brand to the world - see previous post on Reputation.
Increasingly Canada' s pristine image of wilderness stretching inifinitely into the horizon is being tarnished by scarred images of black, bitumen encrusted deserts. as described by John Vidal in this four minute video here:
While Harper's policies were in alignment with the Bush administration - the world is literally and metaphorically a lumberyard to be exploited - the new US administration are expressing a different view (even if they are constrained by a conflicted Congress) and even China is shifting its position..
But this is not just a tale of two men but two countries. While Harper and the national government are dragging their feet on issues like climate change, Canadian leaders at the community level (across provinces, in cities and on First Nations lands) are actively stewarding the land and acting responsibly. While men in suits prevaricate in cities, hoards of caring individuals with varying levels of political status are showing they care about the land and are protecting Canada's vast forests as best they can as described in another article here. There are plenty of reasons to be both proud and stand on guard for Canada.
Canada's boreal forest - all 1.3 billion acres of it - stores the equivalent of 27 years' worth of current global greenhouse emissions, soaking up 22% of the total carbon stored on the earth's land surface. If that dries out, the release of greenhouse gases would be catastrophic.
So given that we Canadians may have lost any right to tell the world what to do and how to behave (and appear to have little appetite to do that anyway), we can focus on conserving the precious green resources that provide the scenic backdrop to every tourist photo, provide succour to many of our iconic critters (beaver, moose and bear), soak up our carbon and provide the clean air we breathe. This is no longer a philanthropic action on the part of the tourism community but vital to its long term survival and credibility. Regardless of whether you believe climate change is occurring or even caused by human activity, simple housekeeping logic suggests that failure to take care of the food in the larder avoids hunger or sickness.
Kudos to ABTA, British Airways, Carnival UK, Co-operative Travel, The Travel Foundation and TUI Travel plc and Forum For The Future for leading the way towards some really thoughtful and intelligent debate on the future of outbound tourism.
The report, Tourism 2023, available here, should be mandatory reading for every tourism destination. It’s highly readable, full of substance and deliciously thought provoking.
Even though it doesn’t quite achieve its own objectives – i.e. “to set out a clear vision of a profitable, successful future in which the travel and tourism industry recognizes its wider responsibilities to society,” it does makes a very good start. While designed to help the signatories identify and address the complex environmental, social and economic issues affecting outbound tourism, it contains enormous food for thought for all places that attract visitors.
The talented team at Forum for the Future apply a scenario planning approach to paint a picture of four possible futures based on the inter-play of two key variables: the appeal of overseas travel and the presence of inhibitors to overseas travel.
The four scenarios represent a caricature of a possible future but are described with compelling detail and logic. Sadly, none is particularly attractive!
1. Boom and Burst describes a world in which mass tourism continues to grow fast and furiously based on disposable incomes rising in developed economies and the middle classes of emerging economies exercising their right to roam the planet. It’s a similar forecast to that outlined in the HBR article: Tourism: The Ticking Time Bomb and describes overcrowded, congested iconic destinations and the disappearance of wilderness.
2. Divided Disquiet describes a different world in which devastating impacts from climate change, resource scarcity and social unrest have rendered the planet as unstable and hostile; protectionism is rife, yet where the most popular form of tourism is “doomsday tourism” with a few tourists wealthy or brave enough flock to see places before they disappear.
3. In the Price and Privilege scenario, high oil prices have also caused the cost of travel to soar. Many companies couldn’t cope with the efficiency gains needed and went out of business. Capacity shrank and long-haul travel reverted to the aspirational luxury status associated with the turn of the century.
4. Carbon Clampdown describes a possible future in which the high cost of carbon , combined with growing environmental awareness and concern, make travel both uneconomic and anti-social. Tradeable carbon quotas restrict demand and economies are more localized.
I simply cannot do justice to this useful piece of work in a short blog post, so will likely revisit the topic – often. I am also loath to be critical as I would hate to discourage others from showing such thought leadership. But there are some serious limitations – most likely reflecting the fact that a consortium commissioned the work and each company would probably like to think and respond to its findings privately.
While no one can argue with the six motherhood principles for creating a sustainable future, the three areas where they say urgent action is needed sound lame and self serving:
The industry needs to demonstrate and monitor the economic benefit tourism delivers to destination communities to help protect them for the future and increase their appeal and value to customers. (The insertion of the word NET before benefit would have made this objective so much more credible as it’s the destinations that generally bear the external costs and not the tour operators)
Low carbon innovation – the industry needs to focus on trialling new technologies and taking them to scale; increase energy efficiency, reduce waste and use more renewables. (Of course, but why not set a big hairy audacious goal and say that enterprises based on the grownd will go carbon neutral while we strive to find less harmful ways of getting airplanes to stay airborne?)
Driving Customer demand – develop further insight into what will motivate people to take sustainable holidays. (At no point is a “sustainable holiday” defined nor is the problem addressed. Vacationers could all stay at low impact facilities and drive around in hybrid or electric cars but if the industry as a whole continues to grow at 5% per annum and increases its demand for concrete and kerosene at the same rate, it wouldn't qualify as sustainable)
Tourism 2023 does conclude with a proposed strategic approach that outlines the areas above in slightly more detail and provides one important target – that the outbound industry will sign up to the WTTC target of a 50% reduction in emissions by 2035. It also references the Global Sustainable Criteria but doesn’t go as far as Walmart, for example, in setting a Sustainability Index for the members of the supply chain.
In addition to the good content and imaginative scenarios, the report does, however, throw down the gauntlet to the managers and policy makers in tourism destinations everywhere. These are the agencies that should be doing this kind of work – aren’t destinations supposed to determine the kind of tourism they wish to attract and help their businesses operate in a sustainable and beneficial fashion and ensure that their communities benefit not suffer from the influx of tourists? It’s sad and ironic that such public agencies have been upstaged by a handful of tour operators but not necessarily a bad thing….over to you DMOs...... The stage is now set for some action from you…..How are you thinking about the future?
It was love at first sight – a multi-purpose device that kept me connected, soothed my spirits with its music, entertained, educated me during long flights with its videos, brought me up to date with the activities and musings of my Facebook friends while standing in front of the baggage carousel, prevented me from getting lost, told me how much to tip and did the currency conversion, even taught me some useful Mandarin phrases. But the real appeal was and is its design. It’s so pleasing on the eye and functional….wistful sigh….
So why my headline – well it works fine at home but when I need it – i.e. when I am roaming around the world – it’s too expensive to use. I look longingly at the 20 downloaded applications but can’t use them
After one week in Vancouver, I received a text from my friendly but monopolistic UK service provider informing me that because of over use, they were restricting my service. They gave me a number to call but when I tried it, I was informed that the number was inaccessible from outside the UK! So much for being in touch while mobile….Then, when I got home, I discovered a bill of £799.00. So much for falling in love…..
So I can’t fault Apple for that – or can I? In the UK they initially did an exclusive deal with O2 who have made a mint out of people like me….Let’s hope Vodaphone - who will now compete with O2 - can give them a run for their money but, as I am tied into a contract, I am not yet free to move.
Now I have just spent three weeks on the road (three countries – Finland, Australia and New Zealand) and, as you can expect, turned data roaming OFF! So much for the benefits of 3G. But that makes one utterly dependent on wifi availability and nothing prepared me for the challenges of traveling down under where wifi seems to be considered an alien from outer space. Broadband is not a commodity down here – it’s treated as a scarce jewel. Few hotels offer it and the Ethernet connection in the room, which ties you to a desk and computer, is expensive, IF you can get it. Even if there is a wifi connection in the lobby, you have to sign on in your room first so that renders access by iphone impossible.
Here in sunny Auckland the sky may be blue but I can't access the cloud while I'm out enjoying this delightful city. So much for software as a service and the rise of cloud computing - if you want to be part of that revolution that is supposed to be the death of distance, you'll have to huddle together in cities with high speed broadband.
Now it’s not my nature to blame. The problem is that none of the providers in this connecting ecosystem seem to acknowledge that they are in the connecting business nor realize their inter-dependence, nor the impact on customers. Apple sells its phones, mobile providers get their monthly pound of flesh, and hotels source an income to replace their dwindling mini bar sales.
Douglas Wright has written an interesting piece called Destinations and Online Marketing Disconnect. A good article, but IMHO the problem goes deeper. Tourism destinations are in the connecting business big time but many haven’t realized that to be really supportive of their customers they are the ones who should be putting pressure on the telecoms industry and their own members to ensure blanket free coverage of wifi in all major connecting places; airports, hotel rooms and lobbies, cafes, public spaces and meeting rooms etc etc.**** Or be really imaginative and offer a local SIM card that provides really useful visitor information, acts as a privilege pass and accesses special offers. I’d happily pay for that on arrival as the time saved from endlessly logging in and out of multiple systems, remembering arcane passwords, or paying for wifi in one hourly increments might make it a good investment…..
If, as Charlene Li suggests in Groundswell, as many as 84% of customers rely on the opinions of people they know before making a major purchase, then surely the objective must be a). ensure existing visitors want to rave about their experience and b). make it easy for them to do so while their positive feelings are fresh? In short, if visitors are our partners on whom we depend upon to rave and refer and share their experiences, isn’t it time we made it easy for them to do so?
**** Postscript - the good news is that New Zealand's new government is rectifying this situation as quickly as it can with a mammoth investment in broadband to match the stellar attractions and hospitality that Kiwis are famous for!
Climate Change is the greatest threat our national parks have ever faced. That's the conclusion of a new report we're releasing today, along with the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization. National Parks in Peril highlights the 25 national parks most at risk.
The "we" referred to above is the NRDC - that has issued a comprehensive report on current and future impact of climate change on the national parks in the US. Given that National Parks in Canada are likely to experience greater warming levels, such a study for Canada's parks would be timely. Please let me know what might exist. Go to the NRDC site for the report and check out the interactivity supporting this map showing the impact on western US.
The livelihood of thousands of people involved in tourism around such parks in North America will be negatively affected over the next 20 years and, given that during that short period, we know that global energy demand will rise by 50%; global demand for food will rise by 50% and water availability will decrease by 30%, the impacts on scenic values, ecosystems and biodiversity both in the Parks and out of them will sadly worsen. Whether the tourism industry acts to avoid such changes depends on whether it really does care for future generations.
Any state, provincial, or national DMO that fails to include a strategy for carbon reduction in its future strategies is failing both the industry it serves and the future generations that might be their clients.
Here's another load "shock and awe" video designed to jolt traditional marketers out of their lethargy. But how accurate is it? Also funny how, in an age of connectivity, collaboration and sharing, authors still feel the need to apply a Trademark to a term - Socialnomics - whose lifespan might be a matter of months. He also provides no credits, reference or sources....
The accuracy of many of the statements has been investigated by Robert Cole in his blog on Voodoo Economics here - do please read. It seems that in the rush to jump on the bandwagon, catch some celebrity glitter, or be first to publish, authors are in danger of jettisoning critical thinking. This won't help the cause of changing traditional mindsets and there's no need for it either.
The pace and scale of change is great enough - there's no need to exaggerate. Perhaps Robert should have called his post Voodoo EGOnomics.....
PS - I think you'll be able to better concentrate in the content if you mute or turn sound down before viewingg!!
For years I have been arguing that residents are an under tapped source of of both local knowledge and enthusiasm about the unique attributes of the place they call home and that visitors experience as the destination. There are now a host of independent companies emerging to tap this resource in an intelligent way - and I'll review more later.
But today Geobeats caught my attention a.) because of the quality of content. I believe there has to be a filter to ensure that everyone's home movies, regardless of taste, topic or visual quality, are not thrown in my unsuspecting direction and b.) because of the ease with which I could embed the player. The whole process of finding Geobeats - thanks to a tweet from @lynnerosie, reviewing their site, embedding the player, and writing this post took 15 minutes.
I selected Siena as my choice of place as it happens to be my favourite Italian community but their coverage of places is growing fast. Beneath the video player is a frame grab of the embedding process (I even inserted my logo onto the beginning of the video).
Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) and Convention Visitor Bureaus (CVBs) are embracing “social media” (notably Facebook fan pages and Twitter accounts ) at a noticeably faster pace than their adoption of the internet in the 1990s. That’s the good news.
The bad news – for those that haven’t entered the brave new world of microblogging – is that “time waits for no one”. The twitter, social media tide continues to flow fast. Twitter’s new home page, announced yesterday and illustrated below, is designed to make Twitter less confusing to newbies. More importantly, it contains a search engine that can be accessed by any browser (having a twitter account is no longer a pre-requisite of search).
As ably addressed by Colin Schaal in his blog post today, this “changes everything” yet again. If search is the primary source of traffic to travel sites and browsers can now get real time information and offers directly from the source, we can expect Google’s domination of search to feel some pressure and the stakes to be raised for DMOs
As I write this, the Destination Marketing Association International (#DMAI) is having its annual conference in Atlanta and a handful of delegates are tweeting – there’d be more than a handful but the poor wifi reception is apparently hindering some efforts?!? Twittering is bound to be a subject of conversation...
Nathan Kam (@nathankam) has kindly assembled and updated a list of over 350 DMOs and CVBs that operate Twitter accounts – his current list here appears to cover mostly North American destinations..
GoSeeTell here has compiled a list and applied a ranking that's published in their June blog
DCI, a place consulting firm, has recently published a report, The Twitter Elite. Congratulations Baltimore, Greater Fort Lauderdale. New Orleans, San Francisco, and Tampa Bay.
Unfortunately, there’s no easy way of tracking, comparing and evaluating the success of these efforts or, indeed, of ensuring that the lists are complete. So we must express our gratitude to these tracking pioneers and their willingness to share.
Destinations like Denver (@iknowdenver) that have invested significantly in a twitter strategy are not included in Nathan’s list; Greater Philidelphia (@uwishnu) was excluded even though this DMO has pioneered social media in the USA; and Travel Portland (@indpx), while listed in Nathan Kam’s inventory, does not rank in the top 5 of DCI’s elite despite pioneering the innovative Twisitor Centre that both GoSeeTell and Travel Portland developed.
But it’s early days, the pace of change is breathtakingly fast, and twitter account names are sometimes ambiguous. Have you secured yours?
It’s an English summer, pouring with rain and cold (!), so I thought I’d add a little research of my own. I took a quick look at four national destinations – all of whom have positive marketing reputations to maintain. They just happen to be Britain and three of “her” former colonies!
VisitBritain is active on Twitter having safeguarded the brand name (@visitbritain) and has attracted 3,866 followers. The national DMO has emulated an earlier New Zealand initiative and encouraged browsers to follow an individual travelling around the "Edge of Britain". But their twitter page laments - twice in one day, no less, that no one is following "Scott".
It took a while to find out who Scott was (@scottyramsay) - his twitter address is buried deep within the Visit Britain site as part of a campaign called the Edge of Britain. Please follow him asap - the weather's lousy and he must wish he were in New Zealand, Australia or even Western Canada where the temperatures are soaring.
Australia has lead the way with Facebook – its fan page attracts some 246,000 fans and its Twitter account (@seeaustralia) has posted over 398 tweets that have attracted 3,436 followers. Impressive considering that the main Australia site does not announce either its Twitter or Facebook presence on its customer facing site.
New Zealand appears to be playing catch up as far as Facebook is concerned with the 100%PureNew Zealand Facebook presence attracting only 4000 fans but their Twitter account is older, richer in content (632 tweets) and its name has greater brand integrity (@purenewzealand), attracting over 5000 followers. The Kiwis also seem reluctant to promote the twitter account on their home page.
Canada is lagging slightly compared to its southern competitors with no Facebook presence. The national marketing organization does have a Tweet account but its name, @ctccct, is unlikely to grab popular attention. Despite the official and mysterious name, some 1623 followers have signed on. What is also surprising given the hold that policy has on decision-making is the fact that a French only version wasn't deemed mandatory (significant if you work for the federal government, that is). There’s no reference to any interactive social media on the CTC home page but there is a direct link from the separate media centre site to the twitter account which appears to be both a responsibility and initiative of the media centre.
So given the rapid rise in the number of Twitter accounts - as well as the number of dormant accounts (some 20% have no tweets at all), we can also expect growing confusion in the marketplace as to which Twitter accounts and Facebook fan pages are being run by “official” DMOs – or does this matter? If, on the other hand, if place brand integrity and quality assurance are important, then DMO’s will need not just to be tracking mentions and tweets but keeping an eye on responses too. All point to more labour intensive work at a time when most DMO and CVB budgets are under real financial pressure.
It's an exciting time in tourism marketing history to be involved and I defy anyone to predict with certainty how this explosion in twitter chatter will evolve. But like any good party, best not to be a wallflower...isn't it time to dance with the customer or, in my case, go "singing in the rain"?!
In subsequent posts I hope we can start a rigorous discussion about the more complex and strategic issues associated with the implications of social media. In the meantime, I'd welcome your comments.
If you have, as I hope you you do, detailed, practical questions of practitioners, as to what works, what doesn't or why when it comes to implementation, then I suggest you contact the bloggers in my blogroll or the authors of the sites listed in this post. If you want help convincing your boss or Board that this is an area you can't ignore or starve of resources, then I'd be pleased to help!
