Experience Manifesto

Last Day in Sydney

Another slow morning, although today was spent with my relatives here, so we did enjoy ourselves. About 1 or so, Sydney stayed behind while I decided to hit Paddy's Market and bring home some souvenirs for Kristen. Paddy's Market is a fairly large market that pretty much sells everything. Trinkets to clothing to food to, well you name it. The problem with a place like this is that I need to visit the entire place before I can actually make any purchases. You know, there could be a better deal around the corner! And once I've decided a specific vendor has the right item, then I have to find them all over again! I had given myself an hour here and then I was going to try to head up to the Paddington Market for their last hour. But, I soon realized that I was either going to drive myself insane or relax and just enjoy Paddy's Market and that's what I did. Got some Aborigine art t-shirts, some little things that we can use for grab bag & teacher gifts and even got a small didgiredoo for Sydney. If she really decides to learn how to play it, this could've been a big mistake! I did break down and buy a nice, Australian hat, so if you see me wearing it, make sure to tell me how good I look in it!

So, that was my last day in Sydney. Heading to my Aunt & Uncle's for dinner there, then packing and relaxing for tomorrow's trip. The Sharks, their rugby, team lost last night, so they'll be needing some cheering up. And there's nothing light the storytelling of a 7 year old to make that happen!

Tomorrow, we'll head to the airport and begin our journey home and back to our usual routine Monday morning. It's been a great trip, althought we could've spent a few more weeks here.

Tonight we're watching a semi-final rugby match between Manly and the Warriors and holy smokers what a strange and really rough game this is. All my relatives were very upset that the Sharks lost 28 nil to Melborne yesterday and we watched some of the games last weekend as well. Trying to figure out what's more confusing to me, this or cricket. But given the popularity of things like mixed martial arts in the States, I don't know why rugby isn't played in our country. Big guys, no protective gear and the game moves really fast. Nick Truelson, the product manager of the Essendon Football Club invited me out to Melbourne to see a game the next time I'm in town and maybe he can help me better understand how it plays. But right now, Manly's up, so it's been a great game to watch. Very surprised to see how they do sponsor logos on these games. For example, there's no last names on their uniforms, just sponsor names. Not sure that'd ever work in the States. And they never stop the game! Someone gets hurt and they just play around him. and they hit hard. I've been feeling the hits just watching the game!

Since this is my last real post from Sydney, I'd like to once again like to thank:

Mark, Suzette, Rosa and all of the team that put together the Experiential Marketing Summit. It was well run and I hope the participants enjoyed the program as much as I did. I'll get my notes from the program organized and up when I get back into office next week.

Stuart Norris of Magic Memories in Sydney for tickets to the Sydney Aquarium, the Sydney Tower and Wildlife World.

Jo Gilbert over at OgilyAction for tickets to the Taronga Zoo.

And the folks over at Mindz, for helping me take Sydney with me on this trip.

Maybe I'll get lucky and be invited back to speak at Experiential Summit '09 and we'll visit again. Or thanks to an off the cuff invite from George Shinas, that he'll either forget or regret, I might be spending my 50th the Shinas Estate, drinking good wine, having a barbie on the billabong and thinking once again, what a great country Australia is.

Sent wirelessly from Nokia 9500 & T-Mobile

Sydney Tower, OzTrek & Wildlife World

Thanks again to Stuart Norris of Magic Memories here in Sydney, we had passes to visit the Sydney Tower, OzTrek, the Wildlife Experience and the Sydney Aquarium, which we saw earlier this week. My Aunt Helen and Uncle Edwin joined us for the Sydney Tower and it was really nice to have someone who could tell us what we were looking at. Sydney is really a big city from this high up! We passed on the part of the experience where you walk on a glass floor like 40 stories high! Thankfully, you had to be 10 years old to do it, so I was able to deflect the blame from my fear of heights!

After spending time looking all over the city, we grabbed a quick lunch in their cafe. I was in the mood for a meat pie and their's was pretty darn good! I give them high food marks for a tourist attraction. Not only was it good (even Sydney ate her sandwich and believe me, that was a food miracle on this trip!), but it was also quite reasonable priced.

After lunch, we did the 2nd part of the Sydney Tower experience, OzTrek. I gotta' say, we really enjoyed OzTrek. We enjoyed the special effects and had lots of fun in the ride film! They start with something like the old House of The Future at Disney, where you move through four differents vignettes that describe different parts nof Australia. The ride film portion further extends this experience while putting you right into the experience. I thought they even had good storyline for a ride film, no shake and bake storyline here!

Next, Sydney & I went to the Apple store to do a quick iChat with mama back home. It's been fun for Sydney to be able to do that! We even did a video iChat with Sydney's class back home last week.

We then went to Wildlife World down by the aquarium. Quite honestly, I wasn't expecting much and I was really surprised at how much we enjoyed this attraction. It was well laid out with much more there then you'd expect. Sydney even liked it better then the zoo and we had a great day there.

The first thing you encounter is the spider exhibit -- I'm guessing they really like their spiders here. And some of these suckers are really big. Not just I'm afraid of spiders big. I'm talkin' the size of a small dog big. Big, hairy, ugly and, oh yea, the deadliest spider in the world. Don't they have Orkin here?

More encounters with kangaroo's here, again, in a pretty open area. They also had a great butterfly enclosure and Sydney had fun there. One big wombat and a very colorful thing that looked like an ostrich but was really a cassowary (not sure of the spelling) and was a lot more colorful. One of their guides (her name was Joy), really spent a great deal of time with Sydney & 2 other children teaching about reptiles and letting them play with a small python. Once again proving the importance of hiring great people.

Afterwards, we met Gavin Heaton (Twitter handle servantofchaos) at the Lindt chocolate cafe where Sydney had a hot chocolate that was one of the best she's ever had. I had to take pictures of the presentation -- a cup of chocolate, a cup of steamed milk and the cup to mix them in. Sydney said it was even better because she got to make it herself. We had a great conversation about all sorts of things related to social media with Gavin and David Wesson, a friend of Gavin's. It's fun to see someone in person when you usally only see them on twitter. Later, Sydney & I went to join the Sydney Twitter Underground Brigade. By this time, Sydney was getting pretty tired and the fact that she let me drag her to a networking event is credit to what a great kid she is. But, she was excited that she got to tell them all about Webkinz. Strange how few people outside the US know about Webkinz, given how huge it is in the States. But, if you're in social media and/or virtual worlds, you should know about Webkinz. E-mail me if you'd like to schedule a visit with Sydney to learn how it works.

Another great day in Sydney! Just really two days left, so we'll be doing some cramming! BTW, if you've noticed that I have less spelling mistakes in my Travels with David posts like this, you have to thank Sydney. She's been my editor on this trip and she's doing a great job!

As always, a special thanks to Mindz (http://www.mindz.com/) for making Sydney's trip possible!

Sent wirelessly from Nokia 9500 & T-Mobile

The Taronga Zoo

Keeping with our animal explorations, we're at the Taronga Zoo today (www.taronga.org.au). Big shout out to Jo Gilbert over at OgilyAction here in Sydney for hooking me up with some tickets for the day! They have a great set-up here, with many of the animals not really in cages, but sort of open. Not the dangerous animals of course, but many others. It's also a great location, across the way from Sydney and up on a hill. Some of the best views of Sydney are supposed to be from here.

We started in the Australian Wildlife area and got to see more kangaroos & wallabies. They were really in the open, so they could walk right up to you. They were busy eating so they weren't really all that interested in us, except for the ice cream that Sydney was eating!

They also have a good exhibit for kids that's set up to look like a house and a yard. Lots of good information for kids about the environment, recycling and taking care of the planet. They did it with a lot of fun exhibits that Sydney really wanted to explore, so I'd say it was a successful installation.

We saw a presentation about spiders that was pretty cool. I have arachnophobia, so I'm not always the best as these demos. Especially when they brought out the Sydney funnel spider, the deadliest spider in the world. It was much bigger then the spiders I'm used to seeing. Cocktail party fun -- turns out that spiders breath through their bottom. If they fall into a pool, they can't get out, however, the hair around it's butt captures air and they can actually stay under water for up to three days with their own air supply.

While we were looking at the snow leopard exhibit, Sydney was reading about how they've become endangered. She asked why people hunt them so much and I talked about how there were just too many people on the planet and we're using all of the resources. So she asked why we don't do something to limit the number of people on the planet. Surely brings up some interesting questions, that kid of mine.

Being an ex-theme park worker at Disney, I'm always amazed when I visit attractions like this and they close all of the gift shops down before the park closes. Don't they realize that people would spend more money if they were able to shop on their way out after they've seen everything? Guests hate to have to decide if they should see one more exhibit or go shopping. I bet they'd find the extra revenue would offset the additional costs and deliver a better guest experience.

After spending the day at the zoo, we relaxed a little before heading into the the area called the Rock to look for a place to eat. Food has been the one real challenge for me as Sydney's just a little picky. And after 5 days of eating McDonald's, Hungry Jack (their Burger King) and oatmeal we brought from home, I'm starting to lose my mind. So we stopped at a place called Zia Pina for pizza. We walked past it earlier in the week and there was a line out the door then too, so we figured it must be good. Or cheap. And it was both. And Sydney ate, so that was a bonus.

Heading home and we're both exhausted from a long day and lots of walking! Back tomorrow for lots more adventures! When I get home and back to having internet access, I'll get some pictures posted of our day.

Thanks again to the folks at Mindz (http://www.mindz.com/) for making it possible for me to bring Sydney with me on this great trip!

Sent wirelessly from Nokia 9500 & T-Mobile

The Sydney Aquarium

We're spending the day at the Sydney Aquarium, thanks to some free passes from Stuart Norris of Magic Memories here in Sydney. I'm trying very hard to do something I'm usually pretty bad at doing -- letting Sydney go at her own pace. Usually I'm running ahead of her pulling her in different directions. Today, she's exploring at her own pace.

The first thing we saw was the duck-billed platypus and boy, it's a strange looking creature! But it was cool to see and thanks to Sydney's need to ready everything in a musuem, we did learn a lot about the platypus! For example, it has waterproof fur and not skin and it closes its eyes, ears & nose when it goes underwater and when it catches things, it keeps it in a pouch in its mouth. Bet you didn't know that!

It's a nicely laid out and several of the tanks have an upper & lower viewing area,so that makes it more enjoyable. I asked Sydney what she thought of the place and she said it was fantistco! (That's an expression we use at our house.) They had a couple of petting tanks, which is nice because aquariums are notoriously hands off. So, we got to touch some starfish and coral and the like.

They had some learning stations around where we made sure to stop and learn. For example, we just learned that starfish feed by covering their prey and then extending its stomach outside of its body to digest. It's great to travel with a 7 year old because she's actually interested in learning things and that means I get to learn too.

We filled a good several hours and, given that it was a little cool & damp today, it was the perfect thing to do. I think it's a better place for younger children like Sydney, but it was worth the time to visit. Later in the week, we'll still do the Taronga Zoo, the Wildlife Experience and try to continue exploring Sydney.

Here's Sydney's review:

I loved it sooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!! much! my favorite part was the seal's!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In the evening, we had dinner with Iven Frangi and his wife Joanne and son Josh and we had a really enjoyable evening on a harbor overlooking Sydney.

Sent wirelessly from Nokia 9500 & T-Mobile

A Day About Kirraowee

We're visiting the Symbio Wildlife Park (www.symbiozoo.com.au) near my Aunt & Uncle's house today and having fun with the animals. It's a little more like a large petting zoo then a more traditional zoo, but that's what's making it so much fun. We've fed a number of different kinds of animals, including kangaroos, wallabies & ostriches, and even petted a kaola bear. We also got to see a Tasmanian Devil, which was pretty cool. Now we're getting ready to play with the reptiles and Sydney's pretty psyched. We also got to see one of Sydney's favorite animals in the world -- meerkats. They were actually bigger then I thought but not really any cuter. Later in the week, we're visit the main zoo in Sydney and we're looking forward to that too.

Since Sydney (my daughter, not the city) is very interested in being either a vet or working in a zoo, visiting wildlife attractions has been a major part of our plans here at Sydney (the city, not my daughter). We'll be visiting the aquarium in addition to the zoo later this week.

Yesterday we spent the day with Terry Savage ,Chairman of the Cannes Lions, his wife Cheryl Wannel, head of SAWA and their friends David & Lynne. Sydney got to play a little bit with their daughter Torie, while we ate a great meal and drank some wine. OK, we drank a fair amount of wine. It was really fascinating to hear the Cannes story from Terry and, suffice it to say, he's working on some very cool plans for the future. But I won't be spilling the beans before he does! In all, it was a really fun day and my first time meeting both Terry & Cheryl. I'm looking forward to spending more time with them in the future.

Back at my aunt & uncle's house and just relaxing right now. Sydney's watching a movie and the weather looks like we might have our first rain since we got here. We took a walk to explore a little bit & stopped in at a McDonald's Cafe for a little snack. We were at a McDonald's earlier today that advertised all burgers were "cooked to order," as did this one, so maybe it's something new they're trying. I like the McCafe's and can see where they'll give Starbuck's a run for their money.

Had a conversation with Sydney how creative she is and how many ideas she comes up with while on our walk. Like her idea to have two of every Webkinz, one that's robotic so it can go with you to places and one that's stuffed so you can still cuddle with it at night. She's looking to learn how to express her ideas better, so if anyone has any suggestions for how to help a 7 yearr old express her ideas, would you leave me a comment? Thanks in advance!

So, that's the end of our day here. Tomorrow it's back into Sydney for the Aquarium and Wildlife experience and then dinner with Iven Frangi, a customer experience specialist here in Australia. Looking forward to learning more about what's happening here!

So thanks again to my friends at Mindz (http://www.mindz.com/) for making Sydney's trip possible! Be sure to check them out!

Sent wirelessly from Nokia 9500 & T-Mobile

On the Road to Sydney

We're maybe 3/4's of the way through the flight and Sydney summed it up quite nicely -- I'm really excited, but I wish it didn't take so long! Our United flight has actually been pretty good so far, we even landed an hour early in LA. But, coach is coach and my whole body aches. My neck is going to be stiff for days! Now, I stopped flying United a few years back because they really lost my luggage and I didn't like the way they handled it. I've flown them just twice since that incident and they lost my luggage on one of those flights too, so we'll see where are luggage is before we decide if we'll start flying them again. Although between this flight and my recent trip to Warsaw (on LOT, a partner airline), I'm wracking up some good frequent flyer miles.

Sydney wasn't feeling well when we got off the plane in LA, but I guess after a couple hours of eating snacks, combined with the excitement of the trip, will do that to you. She can be a very picky eater and airline food has been pushing her boundaries. The food's been fine, but things like pancakes, which she loves, filled with apples & raisins, makes it something she's not sure she wants to try.

We both slept much of the LAX - Sydney flight, although I did watch bits & pieces of the movies. It's a lot easier to sleep in coach when you're Sydney's size. We had the whole row to ourselves, so she just stretched out and slept soundly. Her stomach seems fine now, so hopefully her problems in LA are behind us.

We're both excited to watch the sunrise this morning and they just announced it's about a 90 minutes until we land. Sydney's just been getting more & more excited, saying Sweet about every 10 minutes. She thought it was cool that the staff had their own place to sleep upstairs.

I have to give United real credit for one very important item. I've flown some international flights where the bathrooms looked like hell holes by the end of the flight. They looked worse the port-o-lets at a rock concert. But this United crew kept these bathrooms almost spotless. Maybe we were a very clean group of passengers, but I give the crew high marks for this. As you know from the bathroom blogfest every year, bathrooms can really make or break an experience.

We arrived at about 7 in the morning and got a really great tour of Sydney by our driver. Our room wasn't ready, so Sydney & I just did some walking around to get some lay of the land. We'll be staying with my uncle in the 'burbs next week, so we're trying to get some ideas about where to spend our breaks from the conference. And, I have to say, that Sydney may just be a special kid, but watching her skip through the city with a big smile on her face is really energizing to me.

Afternoon was spent doing work things like testing out the AudienceGames system and making sure I had all of my last minute tweaks to the presentation. We tried to go swimming, but they didn't allow children in the pool from 4:30 - 7:30. The hotel shares the pool with a health club and it's really a lap pool, so they don't allow children between 4:30 & 7:30, so Sydney was very disappointed. We'll try again later!

It's tough trying to keep her awake to get on a better time schedule, we're both fighting the time changes. We've been waking up a 3 AM and then we're tired by 5 PM and ready for bed! But, we're going to push through and I'm sure it'll get better! Conference starting tomorrow, so I'd better finish the presentation and get some sleep!

Sent wirelessly from Nokia 9500 & T-Mobile

ExitReality -- The Entire Web in 3D

Just saw this on an Australian news program, but not sure it works on a Mac. They have an intro video up that explains what they're doing and, if it works as advertised, it could be really cool. Has anyone tried them yet?

In a world's first, ExitReality is revolutionising the internet by instantly turning every single website into a global 3D virtual world.

"ExitReality goes far and beyond any other 3D destination ever created. With Second Life and World of Warcraft, users visit the one destination for a virtual experience, but ExitReality allows you to view not just that one website, but the entire World Wide Web in 3D," said founder of ExitReality, 36-year-old Australian Danny Stefanic.

"The free internet plug-in takes only 20 seconds to download, but opens up the user to a whole new universe. It transports you to a world where social network pages such as Facebook become 3D apartments users are able to decorate; a world where YouTube is transformed into the world's largest 3D cinema where people can watch movies with their friends; a world where photo albums become virtual galleries and music is played out of a jukebox. And it's not a solo experience - the user can see and share experiences with their friends while chatting with them and other people at either their own website or the other billion web pages," added Danny.

First conceived by Danny 13 years ago, the team at ExitReality has worked steadily since then to develop the concept into a staggering phenomenon that forges the way to the future of the internet.

The ExitReality 3D search engine operates in a similar way to other keyword-based search engines; however, ExitReality allows users the ability to search for 3D content. Users enter a keyword or a keyword phrase into the ExitReality search engine, and based on the relevancy of the keywords entered, a list of 3D content will appear as images on the screen. The search criteria can be narrowed down to 3D objects, 3D themes (3D apartment interior, 3D office space), 3D backgrounds (landscapes), 3D virtual worlds (3D worlds that have been created by others) etc.

In essence, the users are now able to enter any 2D webpage, transform it into a 3D webspace, and search for objects and themes to completely rearrange the environment that surrounds their 3D avatar.

Link: ExitReality - The Entire Web in 3D.

Link: ExitReality 3D browser launches - it's new, and it's Australian - Computing.

Link: ExitReality Launches With Carl’s Jr Deal .

Link: ExitReality Turns Social Network Profiles Into 3D Spaces .

3 Minute Ad Age -- Esquire E-Ink

I've been trying to find a copy of this issue on the newsstands, but haven't had much luck. So, until I can find a copy myself, this will have to do.

Experiential Marketing Summit -- Sydney

On Monday, I leave for my first trip down under and the Experiential Marketing Summit. Going to spend some vacation days there after the concert, exploring Sydney with my daughter Sydney. She's so excited to go to a whole city named after her! I'm getting to meet some family from my Mom's side that I've never met before, so that's pretty cool! Growing up, I heard all about how my Uncle Edwin had a train like the kind you find at zoos for kids that he built and it ran around his property. Understand that it's with one of my cousins now and Sydney's really psyched to ride on it!

So, if you're in that neck of the woods, give me a shout! And if you're going to be at the Summit, look for Sydney & I and make sure you say hi!

The 2nd Annual Asia-Pacific Experiential Marketing Summit provides marketers with the ideas, insights and strategies to create authentic, value-added brand experiences that turn customers into brand evangelists.

Featuring 35 speakers across 28 action packed sessions, Experiential Marketing Summit is the only forum of its kind in Australasia -- no other event features this many speakers or an agenda more dedicated to experiential marketing and brand experiences.

From live events, sponsorship and retail activation to branded content, word-of-mouth and digital – Experiential Marketing Summit delivers the leading thinkers, innovators and practitioners in 'engagement' marketing.

If you're serious about navigating the new marketing world, and want to learn more on how to get consumers to relate to, communicate with, and allow your brands into their lives, register for you place at Experiential Marketing Summit now.

Link: Experiential Marketing Summit.

Download esm08_brochure.pdf

TV SHOWS GOOD WHILE IT LASTED - New York Post

We say this over & over again so maybe, now that there's some proof, people will start to listen. You can use whatever tactic you want. You can go viral; use WOM; get yourself some UGC. If your product is crap, it WON'T MATTER. Dare I say, you can dress a pig with lipstick...

What's interesting is that in another story in the Post, they talk about the HBO show True Blood. This show had some of the best hype around. Cool billboards, viral ads, the whole magilla. And you know what? It was one of the worst premieres on HBO. It averaged 1.4 million viewers. That's a good youtube viewership!

The lesson. Make good stuff and people will come to you. Crappy stuff + great buzz generally doesn't matter.

BUZZ may be better left to the bees.

Turns out that shows which drum up vast amounts of attention before they debut are just as likely to flop as shows no one ever heard of, a new study reveals

Case in point: "90210," the highly-anticipated sequel to the iconic '90s teen drama.

In Week 2 of its much-hyped run, the show lost nearly a third of its audience compared to its debut.

How often does this kind of thing happen?

The answer is - a lot.

"The problem is that many times shows don't live up to their own buzz," says Steve Sternberg, executive vice president of Magna, the giant media buying company behind a new study of how much pre-premiere buzz actually helps shows.

"All the buzz in the world is only designed to get viewers to tune in once."

Remember last season, when new series ranging from "The Bionic Woman" to "Cane" appeared on every magazine cover, got heaps of attention on nightly entertainment shows like "Access Hollywood" - and ultimately ended up in the ditch after they drew big opening-night numbers?

Link: TV SHOWS GOOD WHILE IT LASTED - New York Post.