Mendip Geopark?

European recognition for the Mendip Hills AONB – Geopark status?

Viper Rural will be at an event on Thursday 19th November 2009 at Cheddar Caves and Gorge to consider the pros and cons of applying for Geopark designation for the Mendip Hills AONB.

The European designation is given to areas that have a particular geological heritage and a program of work to promote tourism based on the geology. The area must include sites of geological of particular importance. These may also be of ecological, historical or cultural interest. Local community involvement is essential in prioritising and delivering the cultural and economic revitalisation of the area. Viper are also part of Active Mendip, loads of Active Mendip members rely directly or indirectly on the geology of Mendip to give their punters fun and adventure.

The local economy already benefits from caving and climbing activities and has two major visitor attractions – Cheddar Caves and Gorge and Wookey Hole Caves based on geology interests. There is potential to develop the geotourism further but whether the Geopark designation is beneficial or necessary is to be considered. We're going along to find out what benefits the status brings. Access to European funding? At the very least this will be a great asset to positioning local adventure companies above others. Climb in a Geopark? Descend in a Geopark? Ride in a Geopark? Not many places can say that.

ViperMusic presents Miss Skarlet Album Launch

ViperMusic presents Miss Skarlet, Ryan Inglis and Mark Venus at The
Fleece, Bristol on 19 December 2009

Miss Skarlet debut album launch with 200 specially produced limited edition, signed launch CDs available exclusively on the night. Albums available for download on iTunes from midnight

Ryan Inglis website launch and the ever-popular Mark Venus, at the first ever ViperMusic live gig night. A true Christmas Party not to be missed

Tickets £10 available from the ticket hotline whilst stocks last 02032 399 941

Will Rangers Stay Relevant?

One of the most thought provoking images I created was a before and after shot of the Mendip Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The before shot contained the dry stone walls zig-zagging across the plateau. The after shot had no dry stone walls, courtesy of Photoshop. The difference was shocking; this could be anywhere, this could be everywhere. Now imagine a countryside without Rangers.

The South West Ranger Forum is a chance for these rangers to get off their patch and meet others doing the same job, share some learning and take stock of what’s happening in the world around them. The Forum was hosted by Viper Marketing & Communications this year at Folly Farm and supported by the Countryside Managers Association.

Clearly one of the biggest changes that will happen to the public sector is a reduction in funding. When decisions about priorities are made it’s fair to say that the countryside elements of local authority work are the easiest to reduce. All the more reason for Rangers to be seen and heard. You’ve got to stay relevant these days. If you don’t the whole world rushes on by you and you’re forgotten.

The Scottish Countryside Rangers Association (SCRA) are just about to launch their Continuing Professional Development Programme, with some help from Viper. SCRA are taking it seriously, they’ve got national outcomes agreed and now they’re positioning themselves as well-organised and well-trained and relevant.

Rangers from Dartmoor, Exmoor, the Quantocks, Cornwall and other areas came to Mendip for the Forum with this in mind. They were really keen to learn how digital technology can help them. A lot of them are using digital recording techniques on their patches. Wildlife habitats are mapped using GPS, individual trees are recorded and loaded on to databases etc. But the digital age is changing the way we communicate. Rangers will have to embrace the new tools to be seen and heard.

Fact of the month; there is more bandwidth in You Tube today than there was in the whole internet 9 years ago. This digital malarkey ain’t going away. It’s not about every Ranger suddenly Twittering and having LinkedIn pages though.

The lesson to be learned is that the visitors, us, are adopting this new technology at an ever-increasing rate. I can go for a ride, track that ride on my phone, post the track and photos along the way to a website for others to comment on. That’s a really powerful tool for us, the public, to engage with our countryside custodians. If people complain about the trail Rangers can now respond and open a dialogue, win some hearts and minds. Ignoring the digital age of communication is not an option. Quantock Hills AONB have a very successful Facebook page. The countryside is ‘open’ 24hours a day and so should access to information about these areas.

Most importantly for the future of Rangers looking after our most special areas is that a lot of these new ways of communicating with people are free. Just log-in.

A word of warning though, just because you can do it doesn’t mean you have to. The new social media like Facebook and Twitter are just tools. Do your communication planning beforehand to make sure you’re doing it for the right reason.

It’s not necessary to have big budgets for printing leaflets. A whole new audience is waiting out there who don’t want to access information through traditional means. New communities of people are getting active in the countryside, these communities are just as vital as the ones living in the countryside. In fact they may be the same people. Rangers must stay relevant to the new digital generations.

Viper are running the Digital Ranger course at Folly Farm in December. For more details click here

Marketing Futurology - Emerging Themes

Having just returned from an enlightening day with a room full of post-Graduate Diploma delegates developing their assignments in Emerging Themes I felt it worthwhile to summarise for a wider audience where we collectively felt there was a starting point for exploring the future of marketing.

Marketing Futurology, the study of the effects of emerging trends in markets, is a fascinating departure from the usual tactical, day-to-day focus that marketers endure in the workplace.

When projecting marketing thinking forward into the distant future a range of blue sky ideas come into play but it’s nowhere near an exact science and there are few if any benchmarks from which to rate your thinking.

So taking into account the views from those in the room coming from industries as diverse as avionics, consultancy, finance, telecoms, event management and retail a consistent pattern of thoughts came through loud and clear:

Segmentation - the key to focusing future thinking by establishing a clear process of always remembering the end user of products and services

Prioritisation - get it right and the future is manageable, measurable and potentially profitable at the same time as focusing resource into where it really matters

People Communicating - innovation should enhance the ever increasing ease by which people are communicating, anywhere, anytime and by any means

Consumer Power and Personalisation - looking forward the ultimate segmentation from a consumer’s perspective is 1-2-1. Totally bespoke services for each and every consumer

Blurring of Virtual and Real Worlds - current social networking is the tip of an exciting iceberg with in the future device-independent interaction anywhere, anytime by any medium to enhance human interaction on the terms of the individual

Generation Y - the future today is born of the attitudes, needs, desires and perceptions of those born since 2000.

Corporate Social Responsibility - increasingly important in the drive towards consumer power is the corporate response to their passing on of control to the customer in the relationship.

These are just snippets of a wider debate which for the marketing futurologist can grow and grow into the future itself. The key questions to kick off the debate are:

What keeps us where we are?

What moves us ahead?

What’s the cost?

If as a marketer you aren’t already thinking about these issues… perhaps now is the time, because the future starts today….

Four ways that Augmented Reality will change the countryside

Four ways that augmented reality will change our countryside;

There has always been a desire for the countryside to be free of clutter and man-made intrusions balanced against people's need for information about their surroundings to understand what they're looking at. Augmented reality could be the balancing tool - information provided with nothing on the ground. No more interpretation panels?

Visitors always say they 'want to learn more' about a particular subject. This may be true when they're on-site but that need rapidly diminishes after they've left. The result for ranger services is printed publications, to satisfy that demand for more, that very quickly become redundant. A waste of time and resources. Augmented reality provides the 'viewer' with the capability to drill deeper into a subject while on site, and later if required, but needs no physical resource. No more wordy booklets?

Interpretation panels are dull and unless designed very well are rubbish. You only remember 10% of what you read. Augmented reality will allow Roman legions to be seen stomping down the Roman road that is sort of visible under the field, Spitfires to take off from the airfield that's now rare heathland, cavemen to emerge from that hole in the hillside etc. More engaging interpretation?

Augmented reality allows a new generation to be involved and engaged with the countryside. The generation of Ipod users and console kids will grow up needing to know about the countryside, this is the way to engage them. New people in the countryside?

What's Trending Where on Twitter?

As Twitter continues its rampant surge into the hearts and minds of marketers across the globe so predictably location now joins the exciting feature set and opens up a whole new range of opportunities for creative types.

TrendsMap.com is the latest kid on the block when it comes to location and offers global coverage of trending topics by the geographic location at which they are most frequently originating. The blog which kicked off the spread of news about this service is here and gives a nice snapshot of all things TrendsMap plus links to where you can read more, a tutorial and of course the TrendsMap Twitter itself. So how will this impact on marketers? Well think of the immediacy of trending topics and knowing what people in a region, city or country are currently finding the most interesting. Think viral campaigns and how you can tweet, blog and spread your messages based on real time feedback and information from real customers. For PRs think about capturing hot news topics in real time as they spread and not having to wait until official news sources decide the time is right. They say that we are all becoming journalists and that the power of information distribution is now with the people... well now you can also see where they are.

iPhone Walking Guide?

Found this great use of an iPhone that can lead you on a walk while feeding you info along the way. On this app it's climate change but the source information could be on any subject.

The Jungfrau climate guide works on iPhone and is nothing less than a small information platform on the subject of climate change. The guide includes audio files which take you along seven paths in different parts of the Jungfrau region; you can listen to information about scientists’ current state of knowledge about climate change and at the same time see the impact it is having on the landscape in front of your very eyes. The climate guide also has a bonus section, which exploits other multimedia possibilities offered by the iPhone.

More here