Month: November 2009

Hello world! Happy Hotelier continues on a new server

Usually this is the first post of a new Blog. I’ll leave it here as a reminder to the fact that I changed server and had to migrate  the blog from one server to another server.

This didn’t go without difficulties. I started WordPress from scratch and exported the content from the other server via an XML export and then imported the content here. I believe this gives me the best result, but I’ve lost my links and categories. Well maybe it is a good idea to take advantage of the opportunity and restructure my whole categories department… some SEO gurus out there would advise me I had far too many categories. I tried it via a database export and import, but in one ore another way that gave constant errors.

I hope that I can easier work with PHP version 5 on this server because that is what WordPress advises. In addition I have more space available now and hope I can re install the translation plugin without going off limit.

Added November 24, 2009:

This is the post I got with the first installation on the new server. Now at least all posts both the last post of the old server the posts added in the first installation and those of the second installationare here. During a certain period of time the installation on the old server remains in place….for if I decide to port some nitty gritty.

Last edited by Happy Hotelier on November 24, 2009 at 11:02 am

Moxie

Philip-C-Wolf-of-Phocuswright-IMG_9490Philip C Wolf of PhoCusWright

What the hell is Moxie?

One of the gurus in travel marketing is the very passionate Philip C. Wolf, president and CEO of PhoCusWright, a travel marketing think tank. At one of his conferences, at ITB Berlin 2009 he teached his audience that under the present economic circumstances “You need a lot of Moxie”. I didn’t have a clue what that meant. It was later explained to me that maybe you can translate this into “You need a lot of balls” or, “You need a lot of creativity”, or “You need a lot of perseverance”. So far so good.

Until today another passionate marketing guru and gifted blogger and speaker, Seth Godin posted a story on his blog: Everyone is clueless about a guy with a lot of Moxie, John Ness of Galoco’s Soda Pop Stop in Los Angeles:

You don’t want to [adress] everyone. You want [to address] the right someone.

Someone who cares about what you do. Someone who will make a contribution that matters. Someone who will spread the word.

As soon as you start focusing on finding the right someone, things get better, fast. That’s because you can ignore everyone and settle in and focus on the people you actually want.

Actually that’s my whole point. That’s what I’m trying to as a hotelier when I want to convince someone to stay in my little luxury hotel.

At the end of the video below John Ness explains where Moxie comes from. You can drink it and he sells it: “It’s is the only soda that made it into the dictionary with it’s own meaning”.

Great story of John Ness. Wow! If only I could get such a thumbs up by Seth Godin:-)

So I learned a bit more about Moxie. Thank you Philip, Seth and John Ness for sharing this. (afterthought: John would be an excellent blogger)

How would you explain Moxie?

Winding down from 2009 WordCampNL – My Heroes

Happy-Hotelier-at-WordCampNLA rare photo of this photographer in action at WordCampNL.
Thank you Henk-Jan Winkeldermaat of PunkMedia.nl, of Flickr | Eventbranche and  @Punkmedia !

General
I attended the first ever WordCampNL. It stands for a Dutch WordCamp or a WordCamp in the Netherlands.

At first I had decided not to go, because I was very very busy. I do have to admit I thought a WordCamp would be a gathering of WordPress Newbies and/or Geeks and/or Nerds only. However, this first Dutch WordCampNL proved me wrong in that respect and in many other aspects! The people attending were normal people like you and me, some savvy and some very savvy, but all passionate in reaching out, connecting and sharing.

Unexpectedly three people gently nudged me to come… so I decided to come… eventually and last minute.

I’ll wind down in three posts:

  1. My Heroes part 1 – The Organization of 2009 WordCampNL
  2. My Heroes part 2 – The Speakers of 2009 WordCampNL
  3. My Heroes part 3 – The People of 2009 WordCampNL

Lessons Learned
WordCampNL confronted me and made me realize a couple of important things about myself in relation my attempts in proper blogging here at Happy Hotelier.

I’m not so much a talker by nature and I have to admit I’ll never be a talker. In addition I’m a two fingers typist. I’m more of an observer. I’m a reasonable photographer and I’m more than averagely interested in people. Portray photography is I the type of photography I like most. So I have to stop behaving as if I’m a writer. ll have to admit I’m more an observer who shares his observations. I think that is also important with respect to the styling and the lay out of this blog to acknowledge this more explicit that I did before. Thank you WordCampNL.

I’m not so good in multitasking as I would have liked. I cannot listen to presentations and tweet about it and make photos at the same time. It means that I also won’t be taking my eee book to future events and will not be twittering live from events. I will concentrate on taking high quality photos and adding some observations to the photos I’ll publish after the event.

The third thing is that it was a great opportunity to connect more with fellow Dutchman. Not that I didn’t connect already, but now even more so.

My Heros – Part 1 – The Organization of 2009 WordCampNL

The organization and the venue Seats2Meet in Utrecht were impeccable. What impresses me most is the “after sales services” offered. Unlike other events, the organization is still fully engaged and do their utmost to make the experience complete by providing after the event content. All keynotes in the main room were video recorded and will be published soon. There were approximately 170 persons irl and approximately 300 people following the event via live streams and twitter. I count already 465 photos of at the Flickr group WordCamp Nederland

The heroes of the organizing team:

@KoffieKitten-_MG_1524aLisa Rouissi (@KoffieKitten) of KoffieKitten and Orange Buzz NL. I had met her already at the first ever #TweetUpTheHague that she had organized together with Suzy Ogé. I still have a post about that somewhere up in my sleeve. She was on the organizing team. Constantly yawning we drove together to Utrecht via a deviant way as the road to Utrecht was blocked due to maintenance that early Saturday morning. She was one of the persons who nudged me on Friday. Thank you Koffiekitten!

Kaj-Rietberg-@-WordCamp-NL-by-@happyhotelier_MG_2028
Then we have Kaj Rietberg (@KajRietberg) of Kaj Rietberg.

@DeFries-@-WordCamp-NL-by-@happyhotelier_MG_1925
Joeke Remkus de Vries (@DeFries) of De Fries.

@ErnoHannink-@-WordCamp-NL-with-@LorelleonWordPress-by-@happyhotelier_MG_2001
Erno Hannink (@ErnoHannink) of Erno Hannink NL and in English Erno Hannink Com a fellow Thesis Theme user. Boy has that man a big smile! Here he is in dire admiration for one of the speakers, Lorelle VanFossen, @LorelleonWP of Lorelle on WordPress, who was the second person who nudged me that Friday. Thank you Lorelle!. @Punkmedia here in the background.

@JeanPaulH-@-WordCamp-NL-by-@happyhotelier_MG_1960

And, not to forget Jean Paul Horn (@JeanPaulH) of Textopus and Iphone Club NL who I knew already, but that’s another story. He was part of the team, acted as a great speaker and also as a sponsor of the venue.

A Great Thank You! to all of you for a great event!

Last edited Last edited by GJE on April 3, 2012 at 4:47 pm. I hope they put the publish button somewhere else on the dashboard in a future WordPress release. Accidentally hitting that button happens too frequent. In addition I realized in 2012 that I only did one post about the event in stead of the 3 I anticipated…

WP Meetup in Rotterdam

 

Shortly after the first WordCampNL some WordPress die hards found Lorelle prepared to privately give some tips and tricks in Rotterdam in what was believed to be the first WP MeetUp of The Netherlands. It was Cool. Again first the photos.

The first photo shows the Unilever head office in Rotterdam. Behind that was the place of the meeting. While I took the photo It was a bit in remembrance of my late brother in law who was in charge of organizing the delivery of this building on behalf of Unilever and who orchestrated the moving from the old head office to this building by Unilever. That was eons ago. i also remember his sleepless nights when glass panels started to fall from the building…

Hotel Managers have to be Critical and see Everything

Hotelier-about-Hotel-Managers-P1050506

A proud hotel manager showed a couple of fellow hoteliers an me the finest rooms of the hotel. I noticed this curtain hanging loose and took this picture. I was utmost amazed that the hotel manager didn’t notice it and didn’t apologize with a: “Oops I’ll have to put maintenance on notice…” which I would have done.

I showed the photo to the hotel manager’s boss later.

The hotelier answered:

“Thank you! Thant is good to know! But you know, when I was younger and was managing housekeeping in a hotel, this is what always happened to me: Once a week I had to do the hotel tour, checking the hotel with my boss. I just had checked everything myself half an hour before I took the boss around and you know what? There would always be at least one light bulb that ceased functioning in the meantime and the boss would always spot it! Sigh”.

That is a wise answer.

My Dear Wife, mrs Happy Hotelier, has the keenest and sharpest eye for details, details and … for details: She nudges me every day: ” Seen that? Repair it! Make it work”. I’m learning every day.

It could have happened to me. Thank you Mrs Happy Hotelier for teaching me to have a keen eye: I wouldn’t have noticed this loose curtain prior to your lessons:-)

This is the main reason I always check our guests in personally.

Life of a hotelier is not easy….

I hope guests reading this could give hoteliers a little bit of leeway in the future…