HotelChatter

I don't do all this by myself. Blake Little, who is 24 years old and works on our global communications team, helps me with all the technical aspects of my blog. When I want to do a blog, she comes to my office with an Edirol by Roland digital mp3 recorder and records what I want to say.

Sometimes I write out just what I want to say, sometimes I use notes and sometimes I speak off the top of my head. I come up with a lot of the ideas, but people in our company also have some topics for me to consider.

When I'm through recording, Blake transcribes everything I've said and then posts the text and the audio file on my blog, along with a nice picture. She also views my comments I receive online and then prints them out for me to read. If there are any I feel I should respond to, I tell her what I want to say and she responds for me.

As you can see, being a technophobe like me adds a lot of steps, but I make it work because I know that it's a great way to communicate with our customers and stakeholders in this day and age.

Um and it's a good thing that Bill overcame his technophobia in a way because Marriott attributes over $4 million in bookings to his blog. Hello!

Although, we have to admit we're kinda sad that our imagined protocol for Bill's blog--secretary, stenotype pad, typewriter, interoffice memo--wasn't a reality.