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This is Abbot Christopher Jamison from Worth Abbey, a monastery deep in the Sussex countryside. Author of the very popular book – Finding Sanctuary – he’s actually my old headmaster as I went to the school the monks run down there, but he’s now moved on to a loftier role, and is a bit of a celebrity here in the UK, having let cameras in for 40 days and nights to film a kind of reality TV show a couple of years back.

The Monastery saw a group of guys from different backgrounds enter the monks’ inner sanctum and live like them with some stunning results.

At the time Christopher had asked me to promote their website while the show was on TV, so I set him up with a Google Adwords account. He was especially keen to appear on keywords to do with vocation discernment for which they run spiritual retreats as well as a  special course called Compass. All these quickly became oversubscribed.

A few weeks back he called me up and said they’d hit the jackpot! Not sure what he meant as I’m pretty sure Do Not Gamble is the 11th commandment, but he went on to explain that because of our search campaign, a guy had come along to one of the retreats, found some kind of “calling” and was now going to become a monk!!!

He even wrote down a testimonial which went something like this:

And so I began to feel that God might be
 calling me to the priesthood.

I felt I really needed to talk to someone,
but I had no idea who to turn to.

Well, I turned to Google. I think I typed in something
like ‘retreat’ and ‘religious vocation’.
Top of the list was “The Monastery” website.

If it hadn’t been for THE INTERNET…
I would probably still be a software engineer!

So what is Microsoft or Google’s loss is God’s gain……

Just goes to show that it’s not all about cheap loans, holidays and digital cameras. People are actually using search engines to find a completely different way of life.

I’m en route now to Seattle from Las Vegas. Watch out for a post on PubCon 2007 later, but today I just want to wrap up The Travel Convention I attended in Tenerife…..

I had met Paul Evans from LowcostBeds on the plane who gave me a bit of advice:

Be short, be funny (erm thanks Paul) and to not think of the delegates as a bunch of travel agents (very few of them were) but as the travel community.

Just as well really because my part of Riding The Wave was to outline what is going on with Web 2.0, communities and social networking.

It was broad brush, high level 20 minutes, littered with facts, figures and off the wall stories about how the web is changing people’s lives by connecting them in so many different ways, and how companies like Microsoft and Google are helping advertisers connect with those audiences.

This kind of set the scene for Kevin may to go macro and talk about the travel industry, letting the conference know that perhaps they weren’t embracing this new way of doing things, suggesting some things hadn’t changed much.

The screen shots of Expedia’s homepage were telling – not changed in 10 years! Citing a couple of new sites that were doing thing’s slightly differently helped to hammer the point home.

Kevin posted on the Travolution Blog his main bullets and encouraged a discussion which has seen people initially disagree with him but end up talking themselves round – check out the thread here.

The travel industry is a very much a tight knit community – everyone seemed to know each other and boy do they party hard!

Thanks to Kevin, Simon Ferguson and Charlotte Davies for the opportunity to get out there and spread the news.

Thanks also to Dan Robb and Robin Frewer for picking up the dinner tab. Always nice when Google pays!

You can find our travel presentations here.

And if anyone bumps into Paul, let him know I was short, people did laugh, and I hope I’m now an honorary member of their community.

Can’t wait for next year!?

So I felt like a bit of a plum last night as I came back into the Wynn Hotel, having spent a couple of hours blowing $300 on slot machines at Treasure Island. I foolishly thought the change of scenery to a hotel across the road would change my luck, as I’d blown $200 the night before at The Wynn.

As I enter the hotel and I hear Rand Fishkin and Gillian from SEOMoz calling me from the other side of a yucca plant in the lobby. I told them I’d lost some dough – enough to pay the tiler for some work on my kitchen – and they felt sorry for me and took me for a slap up Italian dinner, which was jolly nice of them.

Fast-forward 22 hours….

I get back from the convention centre where PubCon 2007 is being held, (watch out for coverage later!) and walk through the casino to get to the lift (elevator) to my room.

In amongst the heaving throng of elite gamblers I spot my favourite slot machine, which has a kind of Wheel of Fortune thingy on the top. I hesitate because this one has a minimum stake of $5, and you have to bet $10 per spin to get a chance of spinning the wheel and collecting a fortune.

So like an idiot I get $10 out and stick it in!!!

The wheels spin for what seemed like eternity……………………Bar…………..Triple Bar…………………….FORTUNE SPIN!!!!!!!

I look up and I see I’m going to win AT LEAST $100 – not bad for a $10 stake – so I press the button and wait………..

The wheel stops on $500!!!!!!!!!!

So I “high 5” the nearest attendant (who tells me the biggest win he’s ever seen was $100k!) and cash out 🙂

Now I’m still only half way to the lift and I happen to pass another Wheel of Fortune machine which has a minimum 25c stake, so I think “it’s only ten bucks” and shove it in.

30 seconds later………….$252.25!!!!!!

So I’m now $250 up and never going to gamble again………….ever!!!

Just goes to show although gambling does not pay, persistence obviously does!

Read at the weekend that Stephen Fry thinks Tim Berners-Lee is the greatest living Englishman.

Who do you think is? Ian Botham gets my vote every time!

Also he makes an interesting point as to the .co.uk domain extension for our websites.

Why do we not just use .uk?

Sue Unerman’s column last week in Media Week: Is direct mail facing redundancy in a digital world? is most timely….

A couple of months back I posted on my Media Week Blog I was having trouble with The Royal Mail posting rubbish through my letter box.

Well now an estate agent in the area has found a cunning way around the “no flyers” policy in my apartment block. Last week I received not one, but two hand written envelopes bulging with offers to sell my flat.

I used to put all direct mail in the post box at the end of the road, but now I’m saving it up to give the manager of this estate agent a less than green Christmas present.

If I’ve asked for it, then fine. If I haven’t, then expect a “dialogue”.

I have arrived in Vegas now.

A lady on the plane asked if I lived here. Without thinking I said “god no!” loudly enough for the passengers that did live here to overhear me……oops 🙁

Staying at The Wynn, which is very nice, at the conference rate, which is even nicer.

But where do they get off charging $25 just to use the gym?

I’m also $5 up having dabbled on the slots while I waited for my luggage to arrive at the airport 🙂

Passing through Phoenix airport on the way to Las Vegas for PubCon, I was stopped at customs, and when I said where I was going, they asked me whether I gambled for a living!

Let the mayhem begin!

Still writing up the conference summary but Kevin May’s just sent me a podcast we did a few minutes after we got off stage.

Riding The Wave Podcast – Travolution & Microsoft

Myself and Kevin May from Travolution have just done our slot at The ABTA Travel Convention – Riding The Wave – Out in Tenerife.

Over a 1000 people in the audience and they appeared to love it!

Jeremy Vine from the BBC is a nice guy – much taller in real life and a real pro at MCing the conference.

He did complain about his mobile phone not working properly though, but then acknowledged Windows Mobile 5 probably wasn’t in my remit, so we talked about Genesis and OMD instead:)

Full round up tomorrow – got to catch a flight!

Kevin May – Jeremy Vine – Me!

Very Impressive Staging