This disposable mask provides oxygen for breathing persons who cannot tolerate demand-valve oxygen regulators or when two divers need emergency oxygen.

Adult Nonrebreathing Mask (also called Constant-flow, non-rebreather mask)

• Low-resistance check valves prevent rebreathing and allow exhaled gas to escape
• Clear, soft vinyl for patient comfort and visual patient assessment
• Complete with 7-ft. oxygen supply tubing
• Adjustable nose clip assures comfortable fit

As a reminder, this mask should be used with/on the constant flow barb of your regulator with a MINIMUM setting of 15 lpm to try to maintain a high concentration of inspired oxygen.

Only F$20.00 each + VAT (plus shipping $5 within Fiji)

This mask consists of a mask that has a reservoir bag attached. The bag is separated from the mask by a one-way valve that prevents air and patient exhalation from diluting the oxygen in the reservoir bag. When the patient inhales, the valve opens and the patient breathes primarily oxygen. There are also one-way valves that cover the holes on the mask to allow patient exhalation to escape without allowing large quantities of air to enter the mask.

These masks have this one-way valve on both sides of the mask. Care must be taken beacause if both sides are covered and gas flow ceases, then the patient will not be able to breathe because the valves keep air from entering during inhalation.

The common high oxygen concentration mask has a one -way valve on only one side so that if gas flow ceases, the patient can still breathe.

At a minimum oxygen flow of 15 L/min, as long as the reservoir bag is kept filled and a good seal is maintained, this mask can deliver 60 – 75% oxygen to the patient

But remember, for denitrogenation we need the highest possible concentration of oxygen, so, although this system is better than nothing, all efforts should be made to supply accident management kit with a demand system.

Go and check your Oxygen Kits and see. These masks go ‘that sticky feel’ all by themselves in the bags and Pelican cases.

Only F$20.00 each + VAT (plus shipping $5 within Fiji)

Contact Stuart directly on 997-5416 for orders or more info.

Earlier this week, we shared that 41% of businesses surveyed in AT&T’s Small Business Technology survey are currently using Facebook and that this represents a 51% increase over last year. As more business are starting to use Facebook, marketers will be faced with the challenge of blending their personal and business lives online.

For many, this adjustment is a hard one. We all have things we want to share with our friends, that we might not want our co-workers.  Facebook lists are a wonderful way to separate your personal friends from your business acquaintances, however many don’t know how to use them.

Here is a helpful video to walk you through the process of setting up a limited profile list in Facebook, and adjusting your Facebook Privacy Settings to ensure you are only showing your best side.

Read more: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/12067/How-to-Optimize-Your-Facebook-Privacy-for-Business.aspx#ixzz1XVa2Fx9b

Social sign-in is a wonderful technology that allows users to connect to a site using their social network credentials. It completely avoids the tedious process of having to re-enter your email address, choose a username, click on a confirmation link… and it also means users are far more likely to make constructive comments, because they’re no longer anonymous.

Obviously, this isn’t suitable for all situations and websites, and you should still provide an alternative method for those who simply don’t have a social profile. In general though, I think it can be safely said that letting people register or log in to your site with one click is a good thing.

So how does one go about adding social login to their WordPress blog? Simple, Janrain is here to help with a basic free plan, which enables you to have up to 2,500 users – far more than many of us will need I suspect. When the time comes to scale, you can easily upgrade to a paid plan.

What Do I Get?

Firstly, the login component is the most important. You’ll get a simple widget that can either be embedded on the page itself, or can pop-up in a modal box when a user clicks a link.

In the comments area of your site, you’ll also get a share link. When users click on that, they can share their comment.

One feature that separates Janrain from its competitors is the ability to post or share items to multiple networks at the same time – something that compulsive sharers will really appreciate.

Read full article at Make Use Of

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/add-social-signin-wordpress-blog-free-janrain-engage-plugin/

So what attracts the potential customer to your product, service or activity? When they visit your website or read your printed marketing material, what is it that sways the decision to use your business over your competitors? The importance of having well designed marketing material, whether online or offline, and a level of integration and synergy between them cannot be argued. However, content is king. What does your content say to your potential customers? Is it generic marketing text that is not targeted to the behaviour and language of the target markets you are attempting to serve?

The use of images, photos and videos is essential in the tourism industry, where experience is everything. Interactive media formats are the perfect medium for telling the story, rising emotive decision making processes in consumers and creating a virtual sense of demand. The use of colloquial, descriptive, emotional and experiential text is just as important in spurring the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for consumers to purchase your products and services, or at least qualify your offerings to be in the final decision set.

Social media offers all tourism businesses the perfect platform to share and promote the experiential based tourism product through the use of interactive mediums. Image sites such as Flickr and video sites such as YouTube are obvious sites to utilise. Although not considered as a pure social media tool, these sites have developed over the past several years to include interactive and communication capabilities that are conducive to social networking. However, these could be considered the first steps of social media.

In comparison to sites such as Twitter or Facebook which require a constant level of activity as far as engaging with the audience, Flickr and Youtube can be used simply as a platform for presenting interactive media about your business, the activities, accommodation, customers enjoying their EXPERIENCE. There is the option to engage with other like minded people and current and potential clients though the joining of groups, engaging with conversations and participating in the community, but it is not as essential in other social media platforms. And for this reason, these platforms are the perfect place to start for the novice, even the sceptical tourism operator to dabble with social media.

Here is a simple example of how an activity based tourism operator could utilise either Flickr or Youtube (or both) to build the visibility of their business, utilise experiential based marketing mediums, create a valued personal level of customer service and engage in a basic level of viral marketing: Let’s take the case of a four-wheel drive motorcycle operation. When the customer purchases or attends the activity, get their email address. Before, during and after the activity, take lots of photos and/or videos (basic digital camera is all that you need). Once the activity has finished for the day, upload the photos/videos from the camera to your Flickr/Youtube site, then email the customer saying thank you for using us and having a great time and inform them that you have posted photos/videos of them enjoying their experience.  This proactive level of customer support will impress the customer, leading to greater levels of satisfaction, developing a brand ambassador or who will surely create a level of word of mouth marketing for you. But it doesn’t stop there, the customer will then view their photos/videos on the sites, they will have their experience rekindled and be likely to email and tell their friends of their experiences and direct them to the URL address where the photo is held, your Flickr and Youtube sites. Now you have the start of a viral marketing campaign, where the customer’s friends are viewing the photos/videos and spreading the word about your business.

If you are a tourism operator attempting to gain a greater market share, identifying methods to increase customer satisfaction and support and want to start engaging with social media, implement an experiential and emotional strategy to your online and offline marketing mediums, increase the use of experiential based photos and videos, utilise descriptive text and consider utilising some of the most basic social media tools to promote your business and brand.

The Need for Experiential Content in Tourism Social Media

Obtaining online bookings for you property is much easier…and cheaper… than you may think. And it can be achieved in days – not weeks or months. This  four pronged approach will ensure your online bookings increase as well as allowing you to maximise revenue from each booking.

So, where do you start? Easy. You can achieve 75 per cent of your online strategy very quickly, cheaply and effectively. The remaining 25 per cent (if you need it) will take more thought and external assistance, but achieving the majority of your objectives instantly allows you to focus on getting the last 25 per cent right.

The first 75 per cent :

The first three  prongs of the approach require you to sign up to an effective channel manager, get yourself a top performing booking engine (a commission free one), and spruce up your website (the last thing you want is a great looking booking engine on a tired old site).

That’s the first 75 per cent of the strategy. Can it really be that simple? Yes, and here is why:

1. Channel Manager

This clever little piece of technology will allow you to list on a multitude of top performing online booking sites worldwide.  The good ones will also link to wholesalers, corporate booking sites and the like. Why is this so important?

Let’s look at a site like Expedia. Expedia invests many millions of dollars on internet search, TV and radio, travel agency relationships, affiliate programs and social media to ensure that your property is put in front of consumers worldwide. Not many accommodation providers can afford to give their property this kind of exposure, so allowing leading booking sites to do it on your behalf is a great way to participate, particularly since it is free to sign up, easy to manage through your channel manager, and you only pay a success fee when a booking occurs.

Have you ever wondered why the property down the road gets more customers from Asia or the UK than you? It could be because they are using their channel manager to update Agoda and Booking.com, the two  leading sites in Asia and the UK respectively.

So what to look for in a channel manager?

• Make sure your channel manager offers a rich selection of major overseas sites; you are limiting your success if you can only update local booking sites
• Make sure you go with a trusted name, that has a significant support team behind them and offers extras like weekend support.
• Ensure your channel manager offers a 2 way, pooled inventory system where inventory is automatically adjusted on all sites when a booking is made on any site. This will maximize your chance of getting bookings while minimizing overbooking risk. Tools that force you to split your inventory across sites and only offer one way updates are yesterday’s news.

2. Online Booking Engine For Your Own Site

This is the one you really want to get right. This determines if people coming to your site with the intent to book, actually end up booking your property or abandoning the booking and going elsewhere. Results from a leading online research company reveal that more than 40 per cent of all bookings on a hotel’s own website are abandoned during the booking cycle due to a complex booking process, as well as sluggish performance by the booking engine on the site (wait time).

So what you are looking for is a booking engine that is:

• Commission free (don’t pay someone else for bookings that are rightfully yours)
• Offers an easy to use, 2 step booking process
• Offers extremely fast response times.

It also won’t hurt if your booking engine looks sexy, allows rich media content like photo libraries of your property, rooms and online maps, and allows you to customise and colour match your website theme to ensure consistency of your brand.

3. Your Own Website

This is the face of your hotel to the entire world. Invest a little to make it appealing. It will pay you back many times. There are companies out there that can provide you with a quality hosted website, at a very reasonable cost.

One golden rule to remember when getting a new website is MAINTAIN OWNERSHIP OF YOUR OWN DOMAIN NAME! If you let your website provider own or take control of the ownership of your domain, you will be tied to them for life and at the mercy of whatever prices they want to charge you.

Owning your domain name means you control the destiny of your own website.

The last 25 per cent:

So, you now have 75 per cent of a solid online booking strategy. The last 25 per cent (the fourth prong of our approach) is a detailed and in depth subject, but is equally important as the first 75 per cent.

Assuming you are not 100 per cent occupied after getting a channel manager, quality booking engine and spruced up website, then you will want to consider: search engine marketing and search engine optimisation strategies (SEO and SEM), social media strategies (if applicable), and other direct marketing strategies to drive business to your own website – where of course your new booking engine will do a fantastic job of converting bookings.

If you do not have the expertise to devise and execute such strategies, then it is advisable to engage an external, independent online marketing expert to assist you.

An important note: If you intend on engaging an SEO expert to assist you in the future, then it is worthwhile engaging them prior to your new website being built. The website content and structure can affect SEO results significantly. The website designer/builder does not need to be the same person, but they should work together on the website to ensure best results.

Do not be scared of this last step. You do not have to spend thousands upon thousands – you can spend as much or as little as you want to achieve varying results. With SEO, you should ensure you establish a pay by the month deal so that you can stop at any time. On average, expect a time period of about six months for an SEO strategy to make a difference to the traffic coming to your website.

Original post here: Implementing an Online Booking Strategy

This question prompted me to ask fans on my Windmill Networking Facebook Fan Page as to where they go in 2010 to read up on social media advice and news excluding Mashable.  I exclude Mashable because they have, in essence, become the CNN of social media, so needless to say they are one of the most important sources for news & information.  If you want to find other sources and different perspectives of advice, news, and unique insights, where do you look?  Here’s how my readers voted, in descending order of importance (and what percent voted for each particular website):

1.) Social Media Examiner (18%) – Created by Michael Stelzner, a blogger, business author, and also the person behind big social media events like the Social Media Success Summit, the secret behind Social Media Examiner’s success is that many thought leaders in social media contribute to the blog, including Mari Smith (the Queen of Facebook and co-author of Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day), Chris Garrett (co-author of ProBlogger), and Jason Falls (who is #2 on this list!).  A look at the current popular posts shows that while the content covers all of social media, Facebook-related posts seem to be the gems.  Check out their excellent Facebook 101 for Business which they just published this week for an example of their content.

2.) Social Media Explorer (17%) – This blog is the brainchild of social media consultant Jason Falls.  How can the blog of one person be voted into the #2 position on this list?  By consistently providing high quality and relevant content.  A look at some the categories of his blog gives you a good feel for the blog content: Public Relations, Social Media Monitoring, Search Marketing, and Advertising & Marketing.  Yes, not everything Jason blogs about is pure “social media,” but the secret to his success is that he also blogs about disciplines (Marketing, Advertising, Public Relations, Search) that heavily overlap social media and provide us broader insight.  For an idea of his writing, check out his How to Make LinkedIn Answers Part of Your Routine.  I should also point out that Jason took this cool picture of windmills networking outside of Chicago that he sent to me which I hope you enjoy as well:

3.) Read Write Web (14%) – Read Write Web has been around for awhile, but don’t let that fool you into thinking that they are “old school.”  Its history began as a team of international journalists covering the changing Internet, and their coverage in terms of blog posts goes way beyond the mere topics of sites such as Facebook and Twitter to include diverse internet-related topics such as mobile technology, augmented reality, and structured data.  As social media, after all, is based on internet technology, it’s always nice to get a broader perspective of things that Read Write Web provides us.  One recent post that I recommend you read: Social Media Use Cases: Arcade Fire.  They’re a great Canadian band, by the way.

4.) Social Media Today (13%) – SMT is actually a company that helps businesses manage online B2B communities.  They are obviously able to deliver the goods with the impressive community web site that they have built themselves surrounding social media and their ability to aggregate high quality blog posts from featured bloggers including Brian Solis (his own blog finished #7 in this poll), Ford’s Scott Monty, small business marketing expert John Jantsch, Jason Falls, and personal branding guru Dan Schawbel.  There are many thought-provoking blog posts that I could recommend you read, but I’ll start with one for you bloggers out there: Want More Comments on Your Blog?  Spend Less Time There.

5.) Hubspot Blog (9%) – Hubspot is the Internet Marketing company that created the term and concept of “Inbound Marketing” that describes a lot of what social media marketing is about.  It’s co-founders wrote one of my Top 15 Social Media Books of 2009, Inbound Marketing.  As a company, Hubspot continues to pay it forward and educate us through their numerous free webinars, e-books, and excellent blog posts.  Their blog posts are extremely practical as well as educational.  If you’re looking for even more resources for social media blogs, check out their post from earlier this year on 36 Awesome Social Media Blogs Everyone Should Read.

6.) Chris Brogan (8%) – The co-author of the New York Times bestseller Trust Agents, it seems that Chris has been blogging forever, but he still amazingly continues to deliver on providing great and timely content to all of us, always providing unique and a very educational perspective on how professionals and businesses should be using social media.  He also tends to create a lot of though provoking posts that end with questions and generate a lot of very interesting comments.  One example is his recent post Reading Your RSS Feeds is Not a Job.  What also differentiates Chris is that he is also one of the most genuinely approachable people in social media, which no doubt adds fuel to his social media fire of creativity, content, and popularity!  Don’t believe me?  When he was recently in Orange County, my friend Ted Nguyen contacted him asking for an interview, and below is the result of that.  Social media rockstars don’t get any more approachable than this.

7.) Brian Solis (8%) – If there is any one blogger who is constantly creating compelling and insightful content with regards to social media marketing these days, I’d have to personally vote for Brian Solis.  Author of the book Engage and co-author of Putting the Public Back in Public Relations, his writing has both a refreshing academic nature to it, mentioning and bookmarking plenty of statistics and studies to back up what he writes, as well as a provocative “Wake up and smell the coffee or die” feel to it.  I loved one of his recent blog posts which I recommend you check out as well: ROI Doesn’t Mean “Return on Ignorance”.

Note that the top websites for 2010 listed above were chosen by me, not the poll visitors, and that the “Other” category got 11% of the vote.  I suspect that some sites that could have been considered for the list that you should also check out, amongst many others, would include: TechCrunch, Open Forum, and Social Business One.

Where do you go in 2010 to find out the latest and most insightful information on social media?  Is it listed above?  Please share other top websites and blogs that you highly recommend for us!  Thanks!

Originally posted here: 7 Great Social Media Websites and Blogs for Insightful Advice and News

Simply put, a channel manager is Internet-based software that allows accommodation providers to manage availability and rates across a multitude of online channels from a single easy-to-use web page. The real benefits to the accommodation business are many and significantly outweigh the investment requirements to get up and running on this vital piece of software.

As an accommodation provider, the major business benefits accruing to you include:

• More accurate availability and price parity on online booking channels – by making a single change, your staff can update multitudes of websites immediately. This means availability and pricing across sites will be current, accurate and require minimal staff training to maintain.
• The capability to list on many more online booking channels with little or no additional effort for each channel you add. The result is increased distribution without increased cost and you are able to put your rooms in front of millions of consumers around the globe.
• Free and easy marketing for your property – the major booking site players have the money and the will to market your property effectively online, so let them!
• Increased accuracy with your availability and rates, coupled with increased exposure to local and international online booking channels means increased bookings revenue and more dollars on your bottom line.
• Elimination of double bookings. Any channel manager worth its salt will automatically adjust inventory across all sites when a booking occurs on any site. This means you can have all your availability on all sites all the time and feel secure. This is known as the Pooled Inventory Model and it means you can maximise your chance of being booked without being overbooked.

So, we’ve established that a channel manager will increase your online bookings but what should an accommodation provider look for when selecting among the multitude of offerings on the market? Look for:

• A product that is based on the pooled inventory model, where the tool automatically adjusts inventory across all sites as soon as a booking occurs on any site – this will maximise your inventory and reduce double bookings.
• A product with no transaction fees. Channel managers that work on a flat monthly fee are the best value for money
• A product that allows you to manage inventory on your own website’s booking engine as well as on the third party booking sites.
• A product without lock-in contracts. A channel manager with no lock-in contracts has confidence in their ability to service your business and backs their own product – this is a good sign. Rapid changes in technology you could be left behind if you are locked in to a sub par product.
• A product that does all their own product development in-house – they are more likely to be able to respond to the changes your business needs and adapt their product to a changing online distribution landscape.
• Ensure that you select a channel manager that is backed by a significant support team that can ensure all your needs are taken care of under one roof.
• Ensure your channel manager updates all the major international bookings sites. The local sites are not enough and the international majors are spending up big on marketing your property to the world. Remember, you have to be in it to win it!
• Last but not least, it is advisable to pay your channel manager a visit and view their operation first hand. Many accommodation businesses are doing more than 40% of their business online. You cannot afford to put this business with a fly-by-night company. Remember, you are choosing a long term business partner, not just a product.

So what does the future hold for channel management?

Channel managers are rapidly evolving as the one-stop shop for all your online distribution needs, dis-intermediating some of the more traditional electronic distribution channels.

Channel managers are already connecting to online booking sites, wholesalers, traditional travel agents, GDS and inbound tour operators. Many additional channel options will be connected in the future and booking channels not connected to a reputable channel manager risk being left out in the cold.

The future will see the leading channel managers increasingly connected to more property and central reservation systems, providing seamless connectivity between the property management system and the online bookings channels. Facilitation of automatic delivery of all reservations from online channels directly into the property management systems, is an important capability of the future channel manager. Such a solution completely eliminates the need for the property to recapture online booking channel reservation emails into the property system.

With the proliferation of channel managers and similar distribution switch networks of the future, distribution and acquisition costs to accommodation providers will be dramatically reduced. Channel managers are a far more cost effective option than older distribution systems and these systems are already finding their market challenged with the new kids on the block.

The accommodation providers that embrace the right channel management technology today will have reap the benefits of increased online bookings, lower acquisition costs, increased business efficiency and ultimately, higher profit margins.

Can you afford not to?

Original post on Tourism Industry Blog.

When people working in the Empire State Building twittered that they were craving ice cream delivery, New York local chain Tasti D Lite was there to listen and meet their need. When electronics buyers look for good deals, the Dell Outlet Twitter account helps them save money with exclusive coupons. When Houston’s coffee drinkers decide where to get their daily dose, many choose Coffee Groundz, which lets them order via Twitter. Read on to learn what Twitter is and to get detailed examples of how companies are using it. On these pages, we’ll also reveal how Twitter can help your business right now.

So what does Twitter do for businesses?

Twitter is a communication platform that helps businesses stay connected to their customers. As a business, you can use it to quickly share information with people interested in your company, gather real-time market intelligence and feedback, and build relationships with customers, partners and other people who care about your company. As an individual user, you can use Twitter to tell a company (or anyone else) that you’ve had a great—or disappointing—experience with their business, offer product ideas, and learn about great offers.

So how does it work?

Twitter lets you write and read messages of up to 140 characters, or the very length of this sentence, including all punctuation and spaces. The messages are public and you decide what sort of messages you want to receive—Twitter being a recipient driven information network. In addition, you can send and receive Twitter messages, or tweets, equally well from your desktop or your mobile phone.

When you combine messages that are quick to write, easy to read, public, controlled by the recipient and exchangeable anywhere, you’ve got a powerful, real-time way to communicate. And real-time communication is turning out to be ground-breaking for users and businesses alike.

Tip: To listen in on the conversations happening right now, search Twitter for the name of your company, product or brand. If you have a Twitter account already, your home page has a handy search box on the right side. If you don’t yet have an account, try typing in the box below or go to search.twitter.com.

e.g: Starbucks

So how do businesses use Twitter?

Twitter connects you to your customers right now, in a way that was never before possible. For example, let’s say you work for a custom bike company. If you run a search for your brand, you may find people posting messages about how happy they are riding your bikes in the French Alps—giving you a chance to share tips about cyclist-friendly cafes along their route.

Others may post minor equipment complaints or desired features that they would never bother to contact you about—providing you with invaluable customer feedback that you can respond to right away or use for future planning. Still others may twitter about serious problems with your bikes—letting you offer customer service that can turn around a bad situation.

You don’t have to run a bike shop or a relatively small company to get good stuff out of Twitter. Businesses of all kinds, including major brands, increasingly find that listening and engaging on the service leads to happier customers, passionate advocates, key product improvements and, in many cases, more sales.

But Twitter isn’t just about useful immediacy. The conversational nature of the medium lets you build relationships with customers, partners and other people important to your business. Beyond transactions, Twitter gives your constituents direct access to employees and a way to contribute to your company; as marketers say, it shrinks the emotional distance between your company and your customers. Plus, the platform lends itself to integration with your existing communication channels and strategies. In combination, those factors can make Twitter a critical piece of your company’s bigger digital footprint.

For instance, let’s say you run a big retail website. In addition to learning more about what your customers want, you can provide exclusive Twitter coupon codes, link to key posts on your blog, share tips for shopping online, and announce specials at store locations. And you can take things a step further by occasionally posting messages about fun, quirky events at your HQ, giving others a small but valuable connection with the people in your company.

Tip: Twitter can be “ground-breaking” for businesses—a big claim. We truly believe it because we’ve seen lots of examples, many of which we share here. But if you’re new to Twitter and still wondering what all the fuss is about, hang around the site (or a good third-party client) for a week or two and give it a few minutes a day. Twitter almost always delivers “Aha!” moments for people, but it can take some getting used to before you have your moment of enlightenment.

Go deeper

These are just a few of the ways Twitter is helping businesses serve customers; you’ll discover more. If you’re new to Twitter, head over to Getting started for tips on twittering successfully. If you’re already on board, check out Best Practices and Case studies for ideas to get the most out of Twitter.

Read the rest of Twitters advice here…