Viper Strategic

Beating the Volcanic Wave

Author: Neil Wilkins

Neil learnt his marketing with the likes of Orange, NatWest, BP Castrol and Ordnance Survey and now helps individuals and businesses to communicate more effectively. He trains and mentors marketers on professional Chartered Institute of Marketing qualifications through to post-graduate level.

You don't expect on a short city break to find yourself stranded with a simple text message saying "Your flight has been cancelled. Click here for a refund". Normally you might see words to the effect "Your flight has been delayed but we'll get you home if you can be patient and here's a nice voucher for a delicious meal in this restaurant whilst you wait. We are very sorry for the inconvenience this slight delay may cause."

Thanks to the omnipresent technology we can quickly check the departures board at the airport to see that each and every other flight and indeed many others across Europe have all been simply cancelled. OK, so we now know something's up. The iPhone tells us the full story through a variety of means and a fast decision is made based on the fact there will be a mass exodus across the continent when everyone else wakes up to the understanding that there are only so many trains, buses and taxis pointing in the right direction.

And so began a 29 hour step-by-step mini-odysey across Spain and France, with no tickets, no cash but a feeling that unless we were one of the first out that this could be a traffic jam of biblical proportions.

First step.... pause for breath. Second step... creative hat on. Think of the fastest route to each of the next points in the journey but adding in a single contingency if the first option isn't available.

And so we went on. Sleeper train, metro, bus, high speed train, coach, foot, ferry, taxi. In true Top Gear style we even had a moment to pause for lunch in a very nice little Parisian cafe. But that wasn't the point. It was all about speed and keeping the feeling that there was a tidal wave of people just about to do exactly the same as us, although they were about an hour or so behind. That kept the focus.

In many ways our mini-adventure home was like running a project. You know your end goal but you need to plan a way to get there. There will undoubtedly be obstacles, tough decisions and budget considerations on route, but essentially you need to forge on making decisions rather than procrastinating. Fail to make decisions and it's likely you'll be overtaken by the competition and we know what happens then.

When we look back now on what might not have turned out so well for us we'll smile, but importantly our Icelandic volcanic friend taught us lots of lessons and perhaps again very soon we might even try a self-inflicted adventure, just to push ourselves a little harder...

- Posted on Wednesday 21 Apr 2010 at 18:22 by Neil Wilkins

Tags: adventure (21)