I delivered a speech today at the Airline Retail Conference 2012 in Singapore, around the topic of driving revenues and engaging customers using the latest in-flight entertainment and connectivity technologies. The focus was around leveraging three key shifts:

Gadgets in-flight – personal and those supplied by the airlines
The connected traveler – and how to drive engagement and revenue
Learning from other retail models – in this case Kuala Lumpur International Airport and Tesco in Korea

Sharing here my Prezi presentation. The recorded video will be available soon too, so please do check back!

The future of in-flight enternainment and technology on Prezi

(Photo Credit: Sergio Mello, Satisfly)

 

I had the opportunity to deliver a presentation and a MasterClass at the ACI Airport Exchange in Abu Dhabi, on the road ahead for social media for airports around the world.

While I focused on key business goals like driving customer service and non-aeronautical revenue, I shared case studies from this year’s SimpliFlying Award winner London Gatwick and nominee Changi, among others. During the half-day MasterClass, I shared in-depth case studies and gave the participants a feel of how using free tools like socialmention.com and Geochirp.com can make their job easy when trying to engage customers.

I share with you here my Prezi presentation from the conference. A video recording will be posted up soon as well. Would love your comments on this.
 

ACI on Prezi

[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/msjolund/status/141784071645835265"] [blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/Simillonpat/status/141775861463515137"] [blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/ACI_EUROPE/status/141841776901242880"]

 

It was an amazing day today, at the Social India Conference, in Bangalore, where my  presentation generated much appreciation and buzz. It was geared towards lessons learnt from the airline world, which can be applied to Indian context, as well as social organizations like Akshaya Patra, a beneficiary of the conference.

Sharing here my presentation (Prezi) and some of the tweets from the conference.
 

[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/happiestkhan/status/135245627306151936"] [blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/LHInsights/status/135248990504615936"] [blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/Thilak/status/135250466736050176] [blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/kapgup/status/135239383958818816"] [blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/ACertainSen/status/135239178349842432"] [blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/anish3075/status/135251624716288000"] [blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/#!/SeoHelpz/status/135361896248377344"]

 

Yes, you read that correctly. I did not write Web 2.0. Of course, that’s not because it’s not relevant – it’s terribly relevant – but because this newer term encompasses Web 2.0 and then some. So what exactly do I mean by Mobile 2.0 and why is it important? Cutting to the chase, here are some things we all know: first, ordinary feature phones are dying a fast death and smartphone shipments are rising as iOS and Android become increasingly popular with others, such as Windows Phone 7, hot in pursuit. Second, people are increasingly using their phones to do tasks they earlier used their laptops or desktops for: hotel search, ticket bookings, banking, emails, etc. Third, smartphones are creating an all new category of the always connected traveler – a web-savvy, social-networking geek who isn’t afraid to declare to his virtual networks what he’s thinking or doing.
The future is mobile
Given the rapidly changing interactional/behavioural habits of the traveler, it has become important for airlines to target them where they can be found. Close your eyes and think for a moment about what the word mobile phone means to you: I’m quite certain that most of the readers here …

 

Last week in Amsterdam, in addition to hosting the annual SimpliFlying Awards, I delivered a presentation on how the traveler lifecycle is evolving and how airlines and airports around the world are engaging travelers before, during and after travel.

I’m sharing here the presentation, with examples of how SAS Scandinavian gets their frequent fliers to start dreaming, how jetBlue helps plan and validate trip plans and how Estonian Air empowers travelers to share memories of their trips on Facebook. Enjoy!

 …

 

A couple of days ago we released an exclusive infographic on how The Future of Loyalty Programs will be powered by Social Media. Given the excellent response it has received on Twitter as well as the blogosphere, we thought we’d go ahead and offer some more detailed insights into the current loyalty game and how social platforms are becoming increasingly important to it. Before we move on to the presentation, I’d like to share a few thoughts on the state of social media with respect to loyalty programs and even vice-versa.

Navigating an increasingly connected world
The internet has ensured that the times we live in are constantly changing. Everything about the world, even the beacons we hold sacred on the internet are restless, dynamic, shape-shifting. At the heart of all this change lies the virtual socialization of human society: more than ever before we are interacting with each other and with businesses online. And the most important part of this change is the growth in two-way conversations instead of one-way advertisements; the instant and spontaneous back and forth between a company and its customers rather than force-feeding pre-determined messages; most of all, the ability of social networks to amplify …

 

I had the opportunity to deliver the opening keynote at this year’s Navitaire Customer Summit, which is an annual gathering of the world’s leading budget airlines commercial and IT executives. And I spoke about how airlines and airports can drive results and ROI from social media – sharing tons of examples of airlines from around the world actually doing that. I also delivered a MasterClass at the Summit.

And as with all my presentations, I’m posting the presentation here for your viewing pleasure. Feedback welcome, and if you’d like to engage us to help you with your social media strategy or speak at your event – just drop us a note.
 …

 

If you still need proof of whether social media matters or not, you only have to look at the turnout for this year’s votes for the 2nd SimpliFlying Awards for Social Media Excellence. By the time voting closed after 2 weeks of stiff competition, more than 30,000 votes had been submitted from over 4500 cities. And this was after having shortlisted the Top Nominees from close to 60 nominations. The finalists for each category have been announced and they’ll face off in Amsterdam on October 10.

The innovations begin

When airlines initially began their adventure on the socialscape, it was all about about feeling their way about on the social platforms of their choice. The primary focus at the outset was first, discovering how to drive traffic and building a fan-base, followed by the more important aim of utilizing the platform for customer engagement and provide them a real-time medium of information-dissemination and customer service. Slowly, however, they realized that social platforms could also aid them in driving revenue. Flash sales, deals and contests became popular to attract more customers. However, the real innovations were still some time away.

A changing landscape

That time, it seems, has …

 

Yesterday, we posted a case-pack on the Best Airlines in Social Media. Today, completing our roundup of the top nominees in the airlines/airports category of this year’s SimpliFlying Awards for Social Media Excellence, we’re bringing you the Top 5 Airports in Social Media as nominated for the awards.
We’ve already recounted how the response to these awards has been huge and humbling at the same time: over 30,000 votes from 4500+ cities is a good enough reason to make our hearts swell with pride.
But today is special: it’s the last day of voting so if you haven’t yet voted for your favourite airline or airport, now’s the time to make amends. Voting closes at 5 pm PDT today.
You can also go through our other case-packs on the Best Airlines Driving Revenue and the Best Airlines Driving Customer Engagement and Crisis Management.
Meanwhile, you can check out the latest standings and vote for this particular category below:

Best Airport in Social Media
Before we jump into the case-pack, here are a few takeaways from these categories:

Airports are keen to ensure that passengers who travel through them …

 

I had the pleasure of presenting at the APEX 2011 Summit in Seattle this week. I was opening the social media Education Track with a presentation that aimed to set the tone for the rest of the day – and worthy speakers to follow. Hence, I focused on the road ahead for social media at airlines.

There were four key themes I highlighted on how social media will impact airlines in the coming months:

The availability of in-flight wifi to 200 million people this year would change customer engagement models
Loyalty programs would evolve to include social loyalty, where virtual actions lead to virtual rewards, like badges, rather than just free flights
Revenue and distribution would adapt to the social graph to skip the GDS, like the Malaysia Airlines Facebook booking app, or Alaska Airline’s FlyingSocial
Customer service will evolve where people expect to do all actions through social media, that they now do over the phone with an airline. Hence our partnership with InterGlobe Technologies to launch a social media call center

Check out these trends and more, in the presentation embedded below (Flash required)….