Why I love Volcanoes & Virgin Holidays!

On April 13th I flew with my family on holiday to Dubai. Our friends booked the holiday as a group booking for the 6 of us and boy oh boy are we happy they did it with Virgin Holidays!

We booked just a 6 day holiday as we were staying in The Atlantis Hotel on The Palm and it's not the cheapest hotel in Dubai.

On arrival at the airport we all said we wished we'd booked for a few days longer.

Confusicious said: "Be careful what you wish for!"

Little did we know the Icelandic volcano was to affect us and so many other air travellers around the world.

It was soon apparent from watching Sky and BBC news in our room that the affects of the volcanic ash were far reaching. But even when the UK airspace was closed we didn't envisage the closure would be more than a day or so.

Our Virgin Holidays Rep, Fares Malaeb, was at our hotel everyday at 11am to book excursions etc but as the situation worsened he was the bearer of the bad news that we were unable to fly home. Initially, there was drama as we imagined the implications but the next day our Rep explained that Virgin Holidays would be paying for our hotel room and breakfast for every day we were stranded! 

Fares was incredible. He was excellent and did a very good job keeping us all in touch every single day. Many of the others contacted him day and night by mobile and also text and Fares was unwavering in his service. 
On one particular morning, when the situation had once again changed, there were a few, very angry customers who were quite rude to Fares. But Fares was always polite and he was excellent at calming people down. He of course had me there to help too! On a few occasions I argued with some of the Virgin Holidays customers explaining that these were unprecedented circumstances and that Virgin and Fares were doing everything they could etc..


Virgin Holiday, you have an excellent rep. I hope Fares Malaeb receives the recognition he deserves for his tireless hard work and sleepless nights.

As you can see from the photo on the right, the pool was lovely and it became my working office each day. I had my iPhone and free wi-fi from the hotel so I was able to handle emails and phone calls. So I could have happily stayed for a while!

We watched all the doom and gloom on the news and whilst I have a huge amount of sympathy and some empathy with my fellow, stranded tourists; I appreciate our situation was no where near as bad as many of those stuck at airports or those who had to take on a plane, train and automobile type of trip to get back home.

So a huge THANK YOU to Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Holidays and to Fares Malaeb, for looking after us so well and taking the panic and strain and stress out of our situation.

I will defintely be booking ALL future holidays with Virgin Holidays. Any chance you can make sure Fares is our rep each time we travel with you??!! ;-)

Right I'm off to finish opening my 2 weeks worth of post and emails and get back to all my customers' requests.

I love volcanoes and Virgin Holidays!! 

P.S. My mate has a video of me whizzing down the "Leap of Faith" slide screaming "I love Virgin Holidays!" I'll upload it here as soon as he sends it to me. :-) 

Monitoring Social Media for Business - Is it a White Elephant?

I had the pleasure of meeting up with Trey Pennington at the Monitoring Social Media Boot Camp 2010 in London on March 31st.
I was interested to find out more on the monitoring side of things and what different options there were for people to start using monitoring systems. I was also intrigued to know more about the different providers.


This video is by Trey Pennington and you can read some notes from Trey at his website - www.treypennington.com

But I think I came away from the day with more questions than I started with and my initial feeling is that this whole Social Media Monitoring trend could be the latest White Elephant!

Let me explain.

DRoA - Domain Name Scumbags - who's up for stopping them?!

OK, we've put up with the Domain Renewal Group for long enough. It's time for some action.

I wrote a post back in April 2009 - Domain Name Scam!

DRoA are still sending these letters out to thousands of Registrants (owners of domain names) and duping them into paying inflated renewal prices and attempting to get unsuspecting consumers to transfer their domain names to DRoA.

I sent a Tweet to Rod Beckstrom the CEO of ICAAN last week and he replied saying "Form a group to take them on if you wish!".

There MUST be something we can all do together to stop these letters being sent out by the Domain Renewal Group.

I am going to be contacting some of my peers within the ISP industry with a view to forming an action group. I will also be contacting the leaders within the domain name Registries.

Please post your comments here if you have suggestions and would like to get involved. This malpractice has gone on for far too long and MUST to be stopped!

In the meantime, please let everyone you know, know about this Scam so they don't become the next victim.

Your Domain Name & Website - 3 Questions You Must Ask Yourself

As we move further into 2010 and beyond we are becoming more and more reliant on the web especially if we have an online business.

If you are running your own online business and relying on your website to bring you in new business then you NEED to think about these 3 questions:



If this video raises any issues for you please get in touch and I will be really happy to help you get your domain name or website issue resolved.

Drop me an email to dickie at dickiearmour.me.uk or add a comment below.

Domain Name Scam or Clever Sales Tactic?

We hear about online Internet scams everyday but a little bit like the Domain Registry of America scam I wrote about in April 2009; this latest one is more of an underhand sales tactic than an out and out scam.

A client of mine who runs and owns bristolvaleting.co.uk & bristolvaleting.com contacted me recently panicking about a trademark issue. He had been contacted by a company in Hong Kong who told him someone was trying to register bristolvaleting.com.hk and bristolvaleting.cc and he asked me what he should do.

He was genuinely worried that someone was trying to steal his brand and thought that they might be able to "grab" his .com domain name too. But because the email he received was from a company in the Far East he was also concerned about the legal aspects of it.

See a copy of the email below. I've fudged some of the information to protect identities.

Click the image to see a larger version

I told him not to worry about it all and to just ignore the email.

This email is very common and used by many domain name registration business in Hong Kong and China as a sales tactic to get UK, European and US businesses to buy domain names.

As I said to my client, why on earth would anyone in the Far East want to register bristolvaleting as a domain name? It pretty much says what my client's business is - he's a car valeter in the Bristol area. I don't think owning bristolvaleting.com.hk would help him win any more local business!

But many companies do fall for these sales tactics. Make sure you check the source of the enquiry before panicking and don't get puffed into buying anything you don't want.

If you ever need any help or advice with anything Internet related then please get in touch. I'll be happy to help and I won't even charge you! My advice is free.

The Social Media Train Journey - What to do Once You're On Board

OK, so the train has just left the station and you've met up with a few nice people on the way to your seat.

There's a real buzz going on down in the buffet car - you should definitely have a conversation with the following movers and shakers in there:

(Listed as I go in no particular order)

• Chris Brogan
• Trey Pennington
  
• Gary Vee
  
• Olivier Blanchard
• Gemma Went
• Caroline Bosher
• Eric Swain
• Kristi Colvin
  
• Daren Forsyth
• Chris Hall
• Jamie Forster
• ThomasPower
• PenneyPower
  
• Robin Grant
• Nancy Williams
• Bernie Ritchie
• Phil Begnett
• Scott Gould
• Drew Ellis
• Mazi
• Andrew Gerrard
• Daniel Priestley
• Jangles
• Glenn Le Santo
• Jeff Pulver
• Chris Voss
• Jacob Morgan
• Rich Baker
• Paul Dawson
• Nick Armstrong  
• Viveka Von Rosen 
• Joel Comm

If you feel you should be on this list, then please comment and I'll be happy to add your details. Sorry in advance if I missed you out! 

On you way back from the buffet car it's worth checking out the #likeminds Twitter carriage; you'll hear the buzz as you approach! :)

First Things First

On a usual train journey if you're like me you'll find a seat and sit there, keep yourself to yourself and read the paper, work on your laptop or read a book. You'll be able to hear snippets of the conversations going on around you but even if one of the convesations sounds of great interest to you; you would never dream of getting up and sitting down to join in with those people talking! Can you imagine their reactions!

On the Social Media Train you can listen to other people's conversations too but the real difference is when you find an interesting topic on which you have something to add; you CAN jump in and join the conversation. Using the search function on Twitter you can actually search for specific conversations around your industry or a subject matter close to your heart. That might be a conversation on a completely different Social Media carriage and it might even be on a train in another country!

Listen
So take time to find those people who are having conversations that interest you and begin by just listening. Yep, that's right - just listen. It is socially acceptable to eavesdrop on other people's conversations on social media platforms. They are using a public platform for their discussions and know that other people will be listening, so they won't be offended. In fact people welcome others to join in and contribute to the conversation.

Wouldn't your train journey whizz by if you could just jump in and out of conversations in every carriage of the train?!!

Contribute
Now you've found a few people who are talking about subjects which interest you, take the plunge. Have a think about how you can enter the conversation and make a contribution.
Don't just broadcast a sales type ad message:
"Hi there. I hear you like skiing. I run a ski holiday company called Ski With Us Now. Book your skiing holiday with us; we're great!"

Instead offer something of value such as your expertise:
"Hi, I see you're thinking of skiing in France. I really recommend Les Deux Alpes or Chamonix. I can recommend some great hotels too."

Perhaps you could also tweet a few links to some interesting websites - not yours. They can find yours via your profile details and they'll respect you more if they see that you are NOT plugging your own stuff.

Know - Like - Trust
As you start to contribute and have more and more conversations with people you will get to know them and begin to like and slowly, over time you'll start to trust them.
The same is true of the realtionships they'll be forming with you. They will be getting to know; like and trust you too.

This is when the Social Media Magic happens; the sparks begin to fly and before you even realise it, you'll be doing business together!!

But people won't do business with you if you just listen and they definitely won't do business with you if you just broadcast. You have to take part in the conversations. You have to contribute and over time people will get to know you, they'll like you and eventually they'll trust you.

And just remember - we're on all the train journey together - so let's have some fun too along the way.

I'm off to the buffett car. Look forward to meeting you there!

Christmas is a time for giving - But who is buying this BS?

It never ceases to amaze me how generous some people can be and especially at this time of year. Christmas is a time for giving but I had begun to think folks had forgetten this. You see all the ads on TV and the children and parents who all want, want, want.
"Daddy, please can I have that? Oh please Daddy."

"Oh darling, it's only 3 carats, Pretty please with a cherry on top!"

We are such an on demand society that I thought the era of giving was dying. But this week I've been amazed at what people will do for others. And not just any people. Complete strangers seem to be incredibly generous.

Today I got an email from a lady called Amanda Guld from West Africa. She emailed completely out of the blue and she told me that she had a cheque for me for $900,000! I nearly fell off my chair. She said she had been trying to get hold of me with no luck. I couldn't understand this as my name "Dickie Armour" is easily looked up on any of the search engines and all my email addresses work and I've had the same telephone numbers for years. But Mrs Amanda Guld was having trouble. I guess the Interent in West Africa might be a little slower.

Anyways, she told me she had deposited my cheque with a UPS Courier called Daniel Cole and I was to get in touch to get my cheque. I am so excited. I've pretty much got all of the $900,000 spent already. Aston Martin DB9 Volante will be arriving any day now.

Aren't people just so generous?!! The other thing I'm truly excited about is a complete stranger called Martha Smith emailed me this time last week and has promised me that she can help me pull in over $40,000 a month using her easy to follow system! Now this truly is great news because as soon as I spend the $900,000 that Amanda Guld's sending me I'll need some more bucks, so I'm quite excited about this new online marketing system. It sounds like a no brainer. Hey, Martha I will be in touch real soon.

So that's my good news about two incredibly generous strangers but as if this wasn't special enough, my mate called me yesterday to tell me he had won £2.6million in the Dutch Lottery. He got an email from them telling him he had won. Can you believe that?! And what was really staggering about my mate winning this? He hadn't even bought a ticket! He was so excited and is convinced a friend or member of his family must have bought the ticket for him. And like me he's got his Aston Martin DB9 arriving anyday too.

So Christmas 2009 has been incredible - so many nice strangers getting in touch with me to give me loads of money!

Merry Christmas you scumbags!

Please tell me you are not someone who buys this BS when you get an email from a complete stranger? Well if it's not you then who is being taken in? We all need to wake up and stop being so gullible! Surely as people who Blog; use Twitter; Facebook; LinkedIn; Ecadeny; Flickr; YouTube etc we should be educating all our friends and family NOT to get sucked into this crap?!

So which one of you hasn't told all your friends and family?

If we all stop being so gullible and we stop responding to these idiots surely this problem will eventually go away? Please promise to do your bit in 2010 and spread the word through your friends and family. If they haven't bought a lottery ticket then they have not won!
If they get an email from West Africa, Nigeria, Russia, China or any where from a stranger claiming they are holding some long lost family inheritance, please tell them not to respond.

And if they are promised some clever system will make them the next Internet gazzilonaire, then tell them not to bother. Or perhaps do like I do and get in touch and ask them to prove it by letting me use the system free for 6 months and if it's as good as they claim, they should be happy to put their money where their mouth is!

But best of all, tell your friends and family that the next time (and sadly there will be a next time) they get an incredible, too good to be true offer from a complete stranger, they should simply hit the delete button and carry on with their day.

You can read more about other these and other well known scams in this article I wrote in January 2009.