Digital Down Day is tomorrow (Do something offline to serve your customers)
by Josiah Mackenzie on August 12, 2010
15 Comments
15 Comments
Tomorrow (Friday) is Digital Down Day. Those of us who are constantly plugged in are taking a day to unplug and go offline. This includes myself and my team – we won’t be around. 
Tony Sheih of Zappos has said the best social media tool is the telephone. Pick it up today and call a few your customers. Take them out to lunch. Better yet, throw a beach party!
Go offline and get outside!
[Photo credit: Sean McGrath]
You should enter your email below to receive new tips like this each Monday morning:
Article by Josiah Mackenzie // August 12, 2010
Josiah helps hospitality organizations use technology and the social web to provide better service and generate more profits.
+1 347 422 6784
How I’ll be serving our customers: Grad school students + ninjas vs. pirates themed party + random pinata and a mini-pool full of moon sand = months of linguistic inspiration.
You’re welcome, guys
Sounds like a great excuse to ditch the computer! The best part of my day was always chatting with the guests and I’d forgotten how much I always enjoyed it. I think instead of just doing it tomorrow, I’ll try to spend an hour a day just doing that – I probably come up with better ideas from them then from my computer anyway!
Thanks for the wake up call!
I thing this is nice idea!
Great idea but I think I had better check the on-line reservations mailbox at least. Fortunately we have a lot of face time with guests already.
Yes, that’s probably a good idea
Thank God I missed Digital Down Day
I really don’t know if I could actually ditch my computer for a whole day and still survive.
Unfortunately, for me and many other hotel marketers I know, our hotel marketing is based upto 90% on the web.
Cheers
Mihir
Haha – it’s true….it’s hard to ditch your computer for a day since we’ve grown so reliant on it. I wonder if we can build systems and procedures in place that allow us to take a few days “offline” each week though?
Hmmmm Systems and procedures seem a great idea…how do you propose we go about it ?
Cheers
Mihir
At the most basic level, scheduling blog posts and tweets to be published in advance….in your absence while you’re away?
Setting an automated “I’m out for the day, call (###) ###-#### if you need me.” email message is nice, too.
Another good case for occasionally unplugging…
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Outdoors-and-Out-of-Reach-nytimes-4046751837.html?x=0
Hi gang, I really like the idea of Digital Down Day (August 13?) and I see an opportunity for it to become a much bigger case. I was chatting about it with friends recently. As Josiah said, we grew in the past 10 years with a computer, internet connection and mobile phone attached to our ankle and became total slaves. Total addict. We cannot do anything anymore without these devices. I’m the worst case. If my phone battery goes flat I could start feeling unwell
Not being able to call, be called, check my emails makes be really uncomfortable. And it is only going to grow more and more. Only going to accelerate. I can see a trend starting in a couple of years time with people choosing to go the other way refusing to be addicted, ditching their mobile phone and unplugging from any kind of social media networks. Just to get back their life. Be free and focus on what really matters. I may be wrong but I cannot imagine the exponential growth of the digital world to carry on at the same pace. Or what will be left of the “real world”? Am I being stupidly nostalgic?
Ok, I just had Digital Down Week thanks to my stupid cell phone and internet service provider.
For a whole week, I was without unlimited access to my emails, my blogs or my tweets. And to top it all, my cell phone and internet service provider managed to goof up my cell phone registration. Which meant that I couldn’t even speak to anyone !
Thank goodness but I finally managed to get my internet back on track.
And I don’t know about you guys here but it sure feels good to be back on the net. I am really not sure I could have survived much longer
Cheers
Mihir
PS. That said, I did enjoy spending time under my apple tree, watching the sun set and playing with my neighbour’s two cats !
Fabrice — Thanks for the interesting insights; I agree that today’s technology can only consume our time and energy up to a certain point before we start seeking more “traditional relationships” again, and my theory/hope is that tech evolves to intuitively suit human nature, rather than trying to make the opposite work.
For example, finding the information and products that you’re looking for without wasting precious time searching all over, using tech to collaborate, share, and meet up with friends even faster, integrating tech into daily life to such an extent that we longer notice it, or feel bound to it, because it’s been engineered to be all convenience, no hassle and waste.
At that point, our society would be “reliant” on our systems, but wouldn’t feel “addicted” on a day-to-day basis (no more than we feel “addicted” to clean drinking water), because we wouldn’t feel the negative effects of our dependance on technology.
Mihir — Digital Down Week, yowch! But I’m glad you enjoyed getting back to nature. I’ve heard some really good ideas can happen under apple trees
Katie
Hahahahaha you always seem to find the right words Katie
No such luck under my apple tree though…an falling apple almost knocked me unconscious though
Cheers
Mihir