501 Places

There are great stories in each of us

There have been many interesting discussions in recent months that are related, in some way at least, to this question. Whether it’s the journalist vs blogger debate, or the controversy over press trips and the value of the content that results, the subject sparks strong opinions on all sides.

I did read one sentiment that stuck in my mind although I can’t recall who wrote it (speak up and take credit and I’ll add your link), and it’s hard to disagree with this as a principle. It is this: if you’re going to add something to the mass of content that’s already filling the online world, make it something that is of value to your readers. Good advice I reckon. So let’s probe this a little deeper. What gives a blog post (or any online content for that matter) that necessary value? Here are a few of my suggestions.

1. Tell a story. Yes, it’s my favourite subject, but a simple point to remember that makes any post come to life. We are all storytellers, and we all love to read a good story. Think about the great speakers from history or your favourite lecturers, and they’ll almost certainly be connected by one trait: their effective use of stories to paint a vivid picture of what they want you to take away.  The blog should be the perfect medium for a good story. A typical post only takes a couple of minutes to read and you can even add a few photos to illustrate the message. A good post will put the reader in that place and time, and for that short time make them relive your experiences as if they were there.

2. Be original. It can be very hard to come up with an original topic, but it’s not so hard to add your own angle to a well worn subject. Thousands of people write about a day out in Paris, and describing a trip to the Eiffel Tower is not original. Your experiences of talking to an old lady on the Metro who invited you into her home and showed off her photo collections from her younger years as a showgirl at the Moulin Rouge will make one hell of a story. It’s certainly harder to create original material without straying off the beaten track.

3. Challenge commonly held beliefs. I am often far more drawn to a headline that makes me uncomfortable than one with which I instantly agree. Seeing a title of a post about ‘Why I hate the British’ will immediately draw me in, and I’ll want to know what bad experiences this person has had in my home country. A headline of ‘Thai meal for $1′ on the other hand, will not grab my attention.

4. Make it relevant. ‘A walking trip around Lima’ will be relevant to those who live in Lima, have just been there or are planning a Peruvian trip. To others, this story might have limited appeal. The post could however describe what made that walk around Lima so special, the sounds, the smells, the reactions of others and why it’s so different from a walk around London. That way it will start to draw in those people who might never intend to visit the city, but who are captivated by the quality of the story.

5. Provoke a discussion. Sometimes the strength of a blog post is not in the author’s words, but in the discussion that follows. If the sign of a good blog post is that it touches its audience in some way, what better evidence of this than in a string of comments that agree or disagree with the author. If I see a post has 10+ comments, I’ll be more inclined to find out what it was that motivated others to add their opinions.

6. Give useful information. Many blog posts focus on giving tips rather than telling stories. This can be very useful if the reader is planning a trip to that place. But even in a factual post, the message sticks in the mind so much easier when there is a story attached to it. Karen Bryan’s post about a stay in a York hotel is an example of this. I still remember the name of the hotel instantly, and it’s purely down to the way Karen shared her adventures  using words and video.

I remember attending a presentation some years ago on ‘How to deliver a great presentation’. I left the room thinking the speaker had been ok, but not great. But I did take one message out of that session. He said that as a speaker you should have one aim when preparing your presentation to any audience: that they leave the room having changed their thoughts in some way. Maybe they’ll be more accepting of a situation of which they had been intolerant; maybe they’ll feel inspired to change their habits or behaviours or challenge their fears; maybe they’ll enroll in a public speaking course. As long as there’s a way in which you’ve made one change, however small, then you have served a valuable role. Surely that same rule applies to blogging?

Souvenirs for sale, Luang Prabang

Our house is full of stuff from our trips. As I type this post I have a set of Malawian drums on the shelf above me alongside a strange unnamed string instument from Uganda. On the wall hangs a cartoon map of Argentina and a watercolour from Bristol (of all places). There’s a pottery piece from Peru and a Sri Lankan elephant on the window sill. It’s nice to have these mementos, although they’re a nuisance when we decide to move house.

As the years have passed we’ve become more sensible about bringing these bits of junk back from our trips. We normally settle for a painting or a batik, mainly for the ease of rolling it up and stuffing it in the pack without adding to the weight of what we carry. But it wasn’t always like this.

Perhaps our most impractical gift was not even for us, but for my brother. We had just visited the Terracotta Army in Xi’an in 1995, and we passed on the chance to buy the $30 clay figurines that were being sold in the shop on the site. Outside the kids were selling what appeared to be identical figures, although our guide warned us against buying these as they had not been properly fired in the kiln and would break when exposed to frost. A strange objection, and one we chose to ignore as we were offered 5 figures for $3.

These must have weighed almost 10kg between them and doubled the weight of the pack instantly! What seemed like a bargain at that instant soon proved to be a millstone around my neck (literally) as I had to carry these clay pieces for a further two weeks around China. Fortunately, my brother and his wife were thrilled with the little men and they still adorn their living room 15 years later.

We see many ridiculously bulky items for sale to tourists as we travel. We came across thousands of large wooden dolphins in northern Cambodia (there were probably more wooden dolphins than there are tourists passing by in a whole year), we saw tourists buying large pots in Laos and opting not to ship them but carry them on their trip, and even strange animal statues that serve as garden furniture in Africa, again often seen at the airport being packed into the hold and thrown to the mercy of the baggage handlers.

There are countless opportunities to buy useless rubbish when we travel. The item that looks fantastic on a street stall in Bali can often turn into a embarrassing and tacky eyesore when it’s back home in Birmingham. But people must buy them, or they wouldn’t be there in the first place. Anyone care to own up?

Outside the laundry shop, Phnom Penh

I don’t know what it is about travelling, but we seem to be particularly aware of the extreme levels of service when we are away from home. We all have stories of the appallingly bad; whether it is imcompetence, incomprehension or service given with added undiluted hostility. Occasionally though we also experience the very highest standards of service, and often it’s found in the places where we least expect it.

One such case for us was in the suburb of Phnom Penh where we staying over Christmas. We were overdue for a laundry day, and needless to say the hotel we were staying in was not an option (it would have come to around $50; exactly what we paid for a night’s stay). Walking through the neighbourhood we didn’t find any of the $1/1kg laundry signs that were so prevalent in the tourist hot-spots of Laos. But we did find a place that looked as though they might wash our clothes (a general store with a clothes line hanging limply from a streetside pole along the side of the shop). I tried to ask the family seated around a table in the shop whether they do laundry but none of them understood a word and after many smiles and blank faces we walked away.

Undeterred, I returned later with a rucksack full of dirty clothes. It must have been around 5kg worth, and the main man greeted us and tipped out our laundry, carefully separating it into neat piles and all the while tapping numbers into his calculator. I feared the worst while he added the items and he seemed to add on many extra fugures before showing me the final figure: $4.81. I nodded with a poker face and he signalled I should come back at 8 o’clock the next morning.

And here’s where he excelled. When we walked past the shop that evening, we saw our washing hanging in the street. We went up and found that it was completely dry, so asked him if we could take it there and then. He was not happy for us to take it as he signalled that it wasn’t finished. After much persuasion he allowed Sam to take a couple of items she needed and he hung on to the rest. When I collected the remaining clothes in the morning, every item was neatly pressed and carefully folded. He was full of gratitude and the family later waved and smiled warmly at us when we passed the shop again during our stay.

Why have I shared this very ordinary story? For me he personified what it means to excel in delivering customer service. He could teach many businesses much bigger than his own about the essence of customer service. The pride he took in doing the job to the highest standards was striking. He could have easily let us take our clothes away and spare himself the extra task of ironing. We would have been happy customers at that point. But it wasn’t enough for him to leave it at that. He insisted on finishing the job properly, whether we appreciated it or not. How many of us will go the extra mile when our own pride in the quality of our work is the only reward?

Maybe I should have expected it. Others may have experienced it long ago. It was still a surprise however, to find my words on someone else’s site, without my prior knowledge and without any reference to my name or link to my website. Here’s the post I wrote on Saturday morning and here’s what popped up on the Themelis Cuiper website only a few hours later. My post, word for word. The only mention of 501 Places is in the permalink from my site that has been copied into the corresponding link on their site.

Should I be flattered that someone wanted to copy my article? Certainly not; it appears that this site has dozens of new posts every day. It’s easy to presume that the others might come from the same route, and that no-one actually read my post before it was posted on that site.

Should I be angry? I certainly was at first. How dare they!! But then I accept the reality that if you put your content on the web, there are thousands out there for whom copyright means nothing, and who consider all content to be theirs to do with as they wish. That’s just the way it is.

Who is Themelis Cuiper, the name behind this content theft? He appears to be a prominent internet presence. He describes himself as a ‘positive solution thinker’ and has a high profile on LinkedIn and Twitter. It would be fair to assume he is well versed in the etiquette of distributing others’ content online.

Should I take action? What can I do? Themelis Cuiper seems to be based in Holland. Do copyright laws apply across borders? Should I find out? In any case, keeping things in perspective, it’s only one blog post.

So what should I do? It seems like this is an occupational hazard of blogging. At some point, most bloggers will find their words sitting on another site and curse the cheek of the person responsible. It seems that a ‘Name and Shame’ approach might be the most pragmatic approach. It makes me feel better to get it off my chest, and it might just put a spoke in the SEO plans of these companies or individuals, presuming that is indeed the sole motive for their actions.

What do you think? I would welcome others’ advice, and also would like to hear whether this is an unusual occurence, or whether it is just goes with the territory of blogging.

“Social media is revolutionising our world. It is changing the way we interact with others, and the way in which companies and individuals do business.” “The old ways are dead; long live Twitter and Facebook.”

Presumably this brave new world comes with its own set of new rules. In search of these new commandments I have pondered my time spent reading others’ interactions and have gleaned a few observations (I’m sure I’ve missed many more):

1. Be nice. Thank people when they promote your work, give credit to those whose work you share with your connections.

2. Laugh and the world laughs with you. Having a positive (while realistic) outlook on everyday issues will attract others to listen to you.

3. If you’ve nothing good to say, say nothing at all. It’s easy to sling mud, especially when hiding behind a veil of anonymity. Nobody likes to lose face, and stepping back before launching a critical tirade can often preserve the dignity of all sides.

4. Like it or not, we are judged not only by what we say but also by the words we choose to convey that message. Filling our communications with profanities inevitably puts the messenger in the spotlight at the expense of their content.

5. It is very easy to add labels to ourselves. Guru, expert, no.1 whatever. I look at the self-written descriptions of the widely recognised leaders in a field. None of these words ever show up. Why? Because they don’t need to tell anyone how good they are; their achievements speak for themselves. If I see a person describe themself as a guru, an expert, or ‘The Leading’ whatever, my immediate impression is not a positive one.

6. Friends come and go; they will follow others for as long as it suits them and drop them when they no longer serve a purpose; people have their own agendas and when yours coincides with that of another more inflential person you can make great progress very quickly; it’s best not to take these things personally.

7. Nobody likes being sold to, but we all appreciate others who can listen and provide an answer that meets our needs.

8. It’s easy for anyone to shout. Loud enough and people will hear. The challenge is getting them to listen.

If you hadn’t noticed, I never used the term ’social media’ once in these rules, nor mentioned any technological platform. Isn’t that the point here? That the rules of how to use social media are in fact not at all new: they are the same rules that have applied to human communication long before the advent of electricity, the telephone and even the printing press.
Social media is not rocket science. While there are particular nuances to adapting our social skills to any new outlet, one basic principle holds true: whatever the next great new advance will be, the ability to communicate intelligently with others will always be the cornerstone to using it successfully.