Ron Paul, at last a candidate for the American presidency that espouses what government should be, by the people for the people, not the other way round
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCM_wQy4YVg

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Lately when things happen to me the first thought that goes through my mind when something happens is… I am so blogging about this. But as usual life happens and within a day or two things get busy and you let it ride. Now and then something so ridiculous happens that you almost can’t let it go. During our recent visit to P.E. we popped in to the Boardwalk Casino. I had my trusty Nikon D70 (not exactly a small camera) over my shoulder on the standard black and bright neon yellow Nikon labelled strap (nor inconspicuous). The security Guard wands me, welcomes me and opens the door in welcoming manner. My wife joins me inside and enquires whether anything was mentioned about the camera because the female security that searched her purse specifically asked if she had a camera in her bag. I shake my head having, as usual, only half listened. After wondering the halls of the casino for about 15 minutes we were intercepted by a female, walkie talkie bearing, security guard. Judging by the obvious consternation and animated discussions taking place between said individual and nameless, faceless person on the other end, a serious breech of security had occurred. The serious breech, I was informed, was my camera laden body which posed a serious security risk. Needless to say I was unaware of the dangers camera laden bodies posed. I inquired as to the nature of the security reasons. It seems that I could use this dangerous instrument to take a photo of someone gambling and use it for nefarious purposes. I then inquired as to the security risk of cell phones in this den of inequity. Imagine my surprise when I was told that cell phones, even those bearing cameras are no security risk and perfectly permissible. However she was at a loss to explain why and so was the superior at the other end of the walkie talkie. We were escorted out.

So to the Boardwalk casino I have this to say

“Your policy has been outstripped by technology”

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Over the last few weeks I have consolidated some of my activities under a new banner. Allow me to introduce my new company …. Drumroll…..Webactiv8. A definition of activate is, to switch on and web well, obviously the internet. So in a nutshell that is what I am going to be doing, switching on the tourism industry to the internet. So far the strategy seems to be working. We have preached the gospel of internet marketing to over 170 delegates in just over 6 weeks. Not bad going if you ask me but then, I am biased. The delegate’s feedback has been very encouraging and that in itself has been rewarding.

Plettenberg Bay Seminar 04 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

The services we will be offering will include

* Training Seminars

* Consulting

* Search engine optimisation (SEO)

* Search engine marketing (ppc and adsense)

* Viral marketing campaigns

* Social Media Marketing

* Marketing strategies

* Strategic marketing assistance.

Most of the seminar dates and feedback will now be on that blog. If you are currently linking to my blog will you please consider linking to my webactiv8 blog as well? I would be happy to reciprocate. I will also appreciate any input on the blog design so pop on over and take a look.

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George Seminar 02 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

In conjunction with George Tourism we held our second internet marketing seminar for tourism establishments. The first was oversubscribed and Joan Shaw of George Tourism asked me if we could do a second seminar. I agreed. Fortunately, Loerie Guest House who hosted the first seminar agreed to host the second as well, although in a smaller conference facility. Seemingly smaller venues have a positive effect. The seminar was much more interactive than the first and ultimately we overran by two hours. But I do believe the delegates get more if the seminar is more interactive. I am seriously considering the possibility of changing the seminar from a half day to full day. At the same time making it a more interactive, more of a workshop than seminar.

I must congratulate the George Tourism Bureau team on their positive approach to internet marketing. Several of the committee members attended the seminars and already the go ahead has been given to draw up an integrated internet marketing plan. Joan Shaw, director of George Tourism approached me yesterday about involving me in the process and I think this will be an excellent opportunity to grow our local tourism.



I have invited all the delegates to comment on the blog and it will be interesting to see how many will actually visit the blog to comment.

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On Tuesday I held the Internet Marketing Seminar for the George tourism vendors. It was arranged by Joan Shaw from George Tourism and a great job she did to. It was hosted by Loerie Guest house and their conference facilities for this size seminar is fantastic. If you need a venue for a mini conference call them. The turn out was good and although the attendees where a little stiff in the beginning they soon started to get into the swing of things. I met some really interesting people and I hope they left armed with the knowledge to maximise their use of the internet as a marketing tool.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of addressing the Strategic Marketing Seminar convened by  Bitou Tourism. They had a fantastic turnout of close to a hundred people. I was really impressed with the mayor who I later had the pleasure to meet and chat with. My highlight was listening to Larry Gould. He is an excellent speaker and to be honest I could have listened to him for a lot longer. We had a brief chat afterwards and I must say what a charismatic man.I fluffed my presentation completely, my video clip would not run on their laptop and to top it all I was halfway only two thirds through my presentation and I was given a two minute time call. It was downhill from there. Everybody came back afterwards saying it was a great presentation but I know I it could have been so much beter. Below Larry Gould in action.

Larry Gould’s Presentation on The Garden Route of Golf on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Plettenberg Bay Strategic Marketing Seminar for Tourism 2007 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

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My domestic has recently been diagnosed as HIV positive. Really surprising was her reaction and I quote “I feel fine and I don’t really understand this thing.” I know she received comprehensive counselling as my neighbour sat in on the counselling session and was full of praise for the way it was handled. The counselling had covered every aspect I asked the neighbour about, including diet, ongoing blood tests and the possibilities of treatment with ART’s.

In the late eighties, early nineties, I worked for a company called Wellcome when they released AZT which was one of the first antiretroviral drugs available and which is still used in combination with other drugs to this day. So I regard myself as reasonably informed when it comes to HIV and Aids.
With so much information and education can one really still claim not to understand “this thing” I was obviously concerned for her and for her child of six (status as yet unknown) Was she in denial? I am not sure.

The next few days I realised something was definitely bothering me. Not the risk of infection or anything like that (I am informed enough to know this is highly unlikely) but this was the third person that my wife and I knew personally, that had contracted and/or died of this disease. I remember reading a prediction in 2002 that claimed that
in the next ten years, someone you know will die of AIDS. I remember thinking at the time that this was the usual magazine hype. I started having real difficulty sleeping (I normally have difficulty sleeping but this was worse). Perplexed I did some serious introspection to tryand solve this discombobulated feeling and there it was.

Just a whiff,not overwhelming but lurking under the surface……. FEAR. This event had
brought mortality to come a calling and I had to face the fact that despite years of self delusion… I was going to die. The fact is we alldie, you don’t need to contract AIDS or be attacked by a Great White, you just have to live and at some point, ready or not, you will die. Ithink we create the delusion of immortality so that we can function normally. Death is something that happens to us tomorrow and we all know tomorrow never comes. Well it was true for me anyway; I was immortal till last week. I lived with no fear as many who know me well, will attest.

Before the image in the mirror was that of a young man who was going to live forever, now I see the greying, balding, middle agedman whose time was running out.

It scares me.

Like the Normans in theAsterix story I had discovered the meaning of fear.

It is not a pleasant feeling.

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I held the first of a series of internet marketing seminars for the Garden Route tourism vendors yesterday at Kingfisher Restaurant in Mossel Bay. A big thank you to Riaan of Mossel Bay Marketing for his hard work in organising the seminar and secondly to everybody at Kingfisher Restaurant thanks and well done.
I tried to give them a basic introduction to
Google
Search engine optimisation
Web 2.0
Search Engine Marketing (PPC)
Social Media Marketing
Web site strategies
go2sa.co.za

I am now gearing up for the second seminar which will be held at the Loerie Guest Lodge in George on the 24th of this month.
I do hope the attendees of the first seminar will visit the blog and give me some honest feedback, but I don’t know, maybe I pumped their heads so full that it might be awhile before they get to blogs as a resource.

Here’s hoping

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For months I have been lamenting the state of internet awareness amongst  the tourism industry. Regular readers of my blog will attest to that. The internet marketing seminar held at the Tourism Indaba in Durban this year got me thinking. They were not just moaning they were doing something about it. It was clearly time to put my money where my mouth is. I contacted the various local tourism offices in the Garden Route and arranged several internet marketing seminars which will be held under their auspices, or those of a local tourism marketing body. Mossel Bay Marketing as usual was the first to react and have already requested a second date. I am not only amazed at the interest shown band am chiding myself for moaning instead of doing something sooner.

It is clear from the response that the industry is aware that the internet is an important weapon in their marketing arsenal they are just lacking the knowledge to use it effectively.

Below a schedule of dates and venues

18 July Mossel Bay (arranged by Riaan Jordaan of Mossel Bay Marketing)

20 July Mossel bay second seminar (arranged by Mossel Bay Marketing as it seems the first         is fully booked)

24 July George (arranged by Joan Shaw of George Tourism)

25 July Plettenberg Bay (arranged by Dianna Martin of Bitou Tourism)

For more information or if you would like to attend please contact me as there is limited space available

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I opened two new Nedbank accounts recently and asked that they be setup for internet banking. I received the form promptly but noticed that my two existing account’s internet banking cost me R20 a month and now I will be paying R95 per month to access internet banking for the two new accounts.

So today I phoned up Elmien my friendly E banking consultant who has, I must say, been very helpful in the past. Hoping to get a simple explanation as to why, since all four accounts are business, there is a difference in price.

My answer was four pointed

Security

security

security

security.

I asked her if she was therefore  telling me that my current Nedbank internet banking is not secure. Her reply shook my faith in Nedbank internet banking fundamentally.

“Secure enough for a retail client who wants to pay their Edgars and electricity but we are not comfortable with that security level for our business clients “ She said.

I have been using the retail service for two years and I was assured at the time it is completely secure. Forgive me but when it comes to my money, or yours for that matter, security does not have a grey scale. To me it is black and white, secure or not secure. So either Nedbank is admitting that their retail internet banking is insecure or they are trying to rip of the business client for more money.

So Nedbank. Which is it ?

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The Second Garden Route Geek Dinner took place last night at Dutton’s Cove. Dutton’s cove is the ideal place sip a brew or two while watching the sun sinking over Herold’s Bay. So it was a bit disappointing that the event started to late to take advantage of the spectacular view. The free flowing wine courtesy of Stormhoek Wines, who in true Stormhoek tradition continue to be an integral part of the geek dinners and the sparkling conversation more than made up for the darkness outside. We were fortunate enough to have Graham Knox from Stormhoek who shared how his company achieved marketing success via the medium of blogs. Their success completely flies in the face of conventional marketing wisdom and gives us all cause to pause and consider our current marketing strategies.

Graham and Chris Rawlinson also from Stormhoek road tripped from Cape Town and we say a big thank to you both. At this rate Chris is going to have a better attendance at the Garden Route Geek Dinners than most of our local geeks. Come on guys we can’t let the Cape Town contingent upstage us like this. At this point I must also give a big thank you to the staff from Dutton’s Cove who not only accommodated last minute change of dates but provided an excellent setting which combined with the good food and great venue really made the evening a success. To Stii, Charl and Bev who organised the event, well done guys and gal.

To view all the images click here

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