15.04.09

This Blog has been Moved!!!

Posted in General & soca & Trinidad Carnival & soca Monarch & bunji Garlin & festivals & dancehall & reggae & Sint Maarten & Heineken Regatta & Interview & Corey Graham 2.0 & Drenalin & BoomTribe & Alt Entertainment & Crop Over & St. Lucia Carnival & Campus Carnival & Barbados & Trinidad & Rupee & Nurse Karen & Vincy Mas & st. lucia carnival & ATI & Great Fete & Great Fete & Antigua Carnival & Reggae Sumfest & Spice Mas & Cruise & Carnival Nations & Mas Bands & Caribbean & Drenalin & Nite Club & business & social Networking & marketing & festival & Mobile Technology & Blackberry & coverage & New Media & productivity & management & Blogging & review & Live Blog & personal growth & Network & thinking and ideas & Simone Harris & podcast | 23:25

This blog is now hosted at www.coreykgraham.me/bizblog - As you can expect I am ever evolving and when its time to move its time to move. 

Now if you are reading this message in an RSS Reader it would mean that you are not subscribed to my feedburner feed. This means that when I change feeds you would not have a seamless transition and you will have to subscribe to - http://feeds2.feedburner.com/coreykgraham.

Subscribe to my feedburner feed! It helps me to know who is reading which is certainly a motivation to keep writing.

This move is going to be a pretty silent one, no big splash. 

Subscribe in a reader

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30.06.08

2008 Summer Heating up at BoomTribe

Posted in General & festivals & Corey Graham 2.0 & BoomTribe & Crop Over & St. Lucia Carnival & Vincy Mas & Mas Bands & Caribbean & festival & Blogging | 09:56

The pressure is mounting, my things to do list is getting 10 times longer. SummerTime 2008 is here! The new Soca tunes are carnivalising my inbox. Tickets are being booked, promoters are getting their premium events in gear. BoomTribe wise that means things are getting hectic, time is drying up. Of course not too hectic to let my subscribers now what's on for the summer with BoomTribe.
 
Friday Night Clubbing at Jumbies, St. Lawrence Gap, Barbados
At the end of April we closed out "Happy Fridays", to bring something new and fresh for Summer 2008.

SEXXY its called. Its pretty simple. Every lady desires to be SeXXy and deserves to feel that way. So on Fridays we say Ladies take some time to let down your hair and be SeXXy
The first 12 groups of 4 ladies coming through the door enter free entry and get bottle of wine free!!!

Hmm ?
Now that's part 1

Part 2
We take photos of the SeXXy guys and gals on our SeXXy wall at Jumbies.  The top SeXXy ladies and top 5 SeXXy guys photos are posted online. In a poll! That's right we let the BoomTribe Community choose who is the  Sexxiest!

The top guy and the top gal get to bring 4 of their friends the following week along with a gift voucher at a clothing store!

Poll Week 1
Poll Week 2
Poll Week 3
Poll Week 4


BoomTribe Radio Show & Top Ten Countdown
We have reached the 100th Radio Charts, and that called for a little celebration. Yours truly intro'ed a little video clip of the 100th show - hilarious stuff!
Video 1
Video 2

Radio forum

Of course we have the top 10 charts still going strong and now proving their accuracy.  Look our for more developments there. Just look out!

Thanks to Nurse Karen for accepting my invitation to be on the show last week. She gave up the insight to the already buzzing Summer Soca Season.
You don't know Karen? www.coreykgraham.com/search
Search for Nurse Karen see what you find!


BoomTribe.com
We are ever evolving, after a recent upgrade on the site, things are getting back to business as usual. We are turning back of the steam and taking it to the next level.
Check out our latest video productions -
BoomTribe Visits Red Boyz Studio

Baje Launch

Live Blogging from Final Challenge

Roamin on CBS
We are preparing to close out season one of Roamin regionally and start the second season by the end of July.
Thanks to those of you across the Caribbean for watching and texting!
The big thing to talk about here is the Next VJ contest, I would like to congratulate Carlos Barrow and Keann Walters for winning the competition.  Lots more info at www.BoomTribe.com/vj

And finally
AWOL and DreamLand, Yup these are our major events for the year
AWOL is a military themed event and Dreamland the ultimate Drinks Free event!
AWOL Flyer

DreamLand Flyer

Yup, I just had to be sure I kept you updated with what's going in the office.
Of course I work directly with the website, and getting this information available to you on BoomTribe.com

That's what's up with me. What's up with you?

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16.05.08

Launching My Caribbean Entertainment Search Beta

Posted in General & soca & Trinidad Carnival & soca Monarch & bunji Garlin & festivals & dancehall & reggae & Sint Maarten & Heineken Regatta & Interview & Corey Graham 2.0 & Drenalin & BoomTribe & Alt Entertainment & Crop Over & St. Lucia Carnival & Campus Carnival & Barbados & Trinidad & Rupee & Nurse Karen & Vincy Mas & st. lucia carnival & ATI & Great Fete & Great Fete & Antigua Carnival & Reggae Sumfest & Spice Mas & Cruise & Carnival Nations & Mas Bands & Caribbean & Drenalin & Nite Club & business & festival & coverage & New Media | 16:24

Bring out the food and drinks to this nice cocktail party on my blog. This is the time for the Beta launch of another Corey Graham 2.0 innovation. Its an invitation only launch party. Lots of important and influencial people attending. These are my blog subscribers. Also appreciating the value of your time I am going to keep this launch within 5 mins. So let's get started. 

Meet and Greet and Getting seated (1 sec)
 Most of you are already sitting

Opening Remarks - (2 sec)
    Hi

History Behind this Moment - (2 mins)
 The Caribbean Entertainment Search started out as a personal tool which I developed to make my job easier. Its really a personal tool that I created around Trinidad Carnival time (February 2008). The list of websites to check for the info I wanted was getting a little long. I am good an google search but it was a bit annoying when searching for certian thing especially names of people in the Caribbean entertainment world. It was a bit of a pain sometimes to find some info you wanted quickly. Accomodation, car rentals, music producers, artiste managers etc. were definately not always the easiest thing to find. I used the Google Custom Search to tweak my search results so that I could see all the things I really want to see, in a single search.
After a little testing, it proved to be worth its salt from there I essentially built my own personal Caribbean Entertainment Search Engine. I only shared it with a few people who might ask for my help to find Caribbean Entertainment related info.
These ranged from people in the entertainment business to persons planning trips to Carnivals and other Festivals. One person who I gave the site to contacted me about a week ago ranting and raving about how useful the search was. It was then it hit me that I should share this search engine with other people wanting to find Caribbean Entertainment Information.
After all it will be one of the things which could go a long way in creating a more tangible Caribbean Entertainment Community, by allowing people to find the relavant information more readily. 

Feature Presentation (1 mins)

It took some time to package up, and it not perfect however its a useful tool. And I am constantly refining.

And now I present to you

www.coreykgraham.com/search  

  Its also available at

http://caribbeanentertainmentsearch.googlepages.com

Click here to add it to your iGoogle here

Vote of thanks (1 min)

I would like to thank you for attending this launch. I hope that My Caribbean Entertainment Search make life easier for you. I would like to also thank Out Of The Box Thinking for their continued support of my blog and different initiatives.

 

Thank you for coming see you at another of Launch Event before 2009! I just know there is going to be some other idea.

Corey Graham 2.0
http://www.coreykgraham.com/blog
http://mobile.coreykgraham.com

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05.05.08

Summer Time 2008 - What's De cool?

Posted in General & soca & Trinidad Carnival & festivals & Corey Graham 2.0 & Crop Over & St. Lucia Carnival & Barbados & Vincy Mas & st. lucia carnival & ATI & Antigua Carnival & Reggae Sumfest & Spice Mas & Mas Bands & Caribbean & coverage | 18:08

Yeah, yeah

Well summer is officially here.

My research department tells me that we in the Caribbean have 2 seasons, a dry season and a wet season. The dry season is from November - May and the wet season is from June - November (when we are likely to have tropical depressions, storms or hurricanes which generally means ALOT of rain!

Looking at this you would think that conventional wisdom would dictate our the summer falling somewhere in the dry months of the year especially when there is not much of a possibility of a hurricane. Another angle might be to argue that the longest days of the year must be summer. This would mean out summer is in the right place May - July months. Its possible though that the summer comes from a learned habit from our past European colonial masters? All the students in the caribbean have their longest vacation period during these months ... My research department is digging deeper. I will let you know if we uncover anything else...Something to think about.

Right so as I was saying summer is here, and lots going on Vincy Mas, St. Lucia Carnival, Reggae Sumfest (JA), ATI weekend (JA), Great Fete(Tobago), Crop Over (Barbados), Antigua Carnival, Spice Mas (Grenada) and tonnes of other shows and parties. I feeling the theme song "Out on De Road" by Zan

There is alot of buzz going on about this years summer, there are going to lots of new events and new chunes in abundance. My personal phrase for this summer is 

  Whas de cool?

Click here for the first Corey Graham 2.0 Podcast  -

It that simple,

Oh I have to give it a meaning?
hmmmm let me see

How are you toning down all this summer HEAT?

 

For those of you who might want to use this coooool idea - email me and get your cheque book ready we can talk.

Let me know what you think of my first real effort at a podcast

 

 

 

Corey Graham 2.0
http://www.coreykgraham.com/blog

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25.04.08

FaceBook's Impact On Caribbean Entertainment

Posted in General & festivals & St. Lucia Carnival & Vincy Mas & Mas Bands & Caribbean & business & social Networking & marketing & festival & Mobile Technology & Blackberry & New Media | 13:20

Facebook has been changing the rules of engagement of entertainment in the Caribbean in a fundamental way, which we might be taking for granted.

The more established promoters might be saying,

Yeah CG 2.0, I know what you mean.

 Facebook is allowing for alot more small time/first time promoters to put together a campaign that attracts the kinds of numbers they are not yet prepared to handle.
What ends up happening, is that lots of party goers are going out to these parties and having bad experiences. This is making it harder to get persons to come out to events. In some cases people are associating a particular venue with flop parties ... and they are tonnes of similar reasons.

Not Quite the Fundamental Shift
Yes this is happening ... but that is not the fundamental shift I am talking about.
That's already happening with music production, video production and the list goes on and on. Technology is making lots of things easier for the average person to do. Its doing a good job of lowering the overhead costs to get started, and as a result, more people are doing it.

FaceBook has brought a deeper Web 2.0 experience to Caribbean Entertainment.

What is Web 2.0?
For those of you who don't know   about web 2.0 you can read all about it here on how stuff works.com. I would advise that you do read about it. Its very, very interesting.

In my own words -
Web 2.0 is a term used to dub the developments in the internet, primarily when it comes to social networking websites, and the idea of connecting people together. Basically it defines the move of the internet away from websites which you visit to get or give information, to websites which you can interact with, you can interact with with other persons online and build up or be a part of a community.  
Elements of Web 2.0 on the internet today would be

• comments. Persons commenting  on articles e.g. regular newspaper articles now allow comments online.
• blogging and RSS feeds where users generate the content
• owning your own piece of internet real estate free e.g. Myspace pages - click here
• users rating products
• sites for users of a particular product/skill/hobby. A good example of this is the rapidly growing Digital photography school

Other buzzwords that are associated are collborations, user generated content, viral, community oriented and lots more.

In terms of business, web 2.0 is causing companies well the tech savvy ones to build their websites in such a way that their customers and fans can form their own mini community where the customers

• interact with each another
• share their experiences
• post their problems
• suggest solutions to problems to each other
• notify the company of issues
• help the company in developing new products by providing feedback to new ideas or coming up with the ideas themselves
• and lots more.
• Its an eco system really more on that in a future post.

 

 This exactly what is beginning to happen to each promotion company in entertainment.
FaceBook Events has now become the standard across the Caribbean. Facebook Events are a vehicle for Caribbean party goers to connect with each other and have a conversation relating to the event no matter which part of the world they are in! Even an ordinary club night is on facebook events. 

It used to be a little harder for the average person to tune in on the buzz for a particular event. Now, its just a few clicks away on your facebook. You can hit up the event wall and see what people are saying, drop a comment of your own and see how people respond. You can check out how many people are planning to attending, and look at who is not going. And we all know how much that info will help us decide if we are going or not

This is a big, big difference from looking passively at a flyer on

• www.BoomTribe.com
• www.whaddat.com
• watever.com
• www.islandMix.com
• www.toronto-lime.com
• www.triniscene.com
• Kadooment.com
• www.Bajandancehall.com
• www.partyaccess.net

The next step was calling 10 friends or talk to your neighbourhood entertainment guru to try to get feeling for the vibe of the party. The problem is that sometimes your entertainment guru is employed to by the event so it hard to tell if the event they are suggesting is really the happening thing. Whose is when your friend looking for some action and just going to the party to meet up a new "friend". You going to hear how great the party is going to be, because they want you there for "support". I don't know about you, but I not big on that kind of "support". lol lol.

 Anyways, FaceBook Events is the way its going down now. The 3 weeks of marketing blitz radio, websites, tv and newspapers ain't going to be enough anymore.

Its not that simple anymore, people are talking to people and listening to what they are saying about the event.
Its about getting out early so that you can allow for the viral element to kick in. Yeah, watch your event spread like a virus. Let the people to interact - decide if they going - get excited and sell your event to other people. 
You can keep your ear tuned into the conversation on your event wall and find ways to get people more excited and talking more.
Just like you would in a bar when you hear people talking and your eavesdrop to hear what they think of your event. Street talk makes you tweak your promotion/event to fit your market better. It's the same with the FaceBook Wall Talk.

I consulted with an event last year, it was on facebook early, a full 5-6 weeks in advance.
The artwork was not done, sorry it was not even conceptualused yet. We were early and we let the viral element kick in. Its influence spread like a virus with each connection made. It was supported with some small things that kept people excited. The little things activated more conversations and developed new strains to the virus. 

It grew and grew and grew steadily, and evolved each week, by the time week 3 came, its momentum was unstoppable, radio ads were just another a formality. It was going up against another event with a major artiste performing in the same venue the following night. This first time event without a big name artiste and much less radio presence was holding its own.

In fact the second event asked for the artiste to show up and do a small set to promote the party the following night.
I knew the event was safe when a brand manager of a popular alcoholic breverage actually wrote a request to be contacted on the event wall. Yeah that's right and it was 1 week before the event!

I also watched it happen again and again with other events. All in different islands.  
The events were out early and let their value build and build like a virus. In some cases some more established events were struggling because they didn't work facebook as hard.

I'm just calling it how I am seeing it.

Yeah and like if all that was not enough, today facebook chat finally hit the caribbean 2 days ago.

It was actually launched almost 2 weeks ago, but it was slowly rolled out to the different networks over time.
Anyways it finally landed hit the Caribbean this week. t was the "talk of the town".
I heard people who are not very technie asking for a mobile version to the all new FaceBook.
That got me thinking hmmm, facebook might be in the number 1 spot as the Most popular mobile site in the caribbean? yeah hmmmm.

Another interesting fact is that Facebook's mobile application for blackberry is doing well too reaching 1 Million on April 1. the App was launched on Oct 24th
Download from www.facebook.com/blackberry and www.blackberry.com/go/facebook 

 

Its actually alot smoother than I expected and rather easy to use.  It was alot easier to use than the google talk broswer based chat. I was impressed.
Everyone seem to be very excited about it. Talking about moving away from msn messenger etc. Only time will tell if facebook chat will adopted over msn or other im programs. Time will tell, time will tell.
The clear advantage facebook has in its corner though are the connections. Many people have more FaceBook friends than they do on msn or any other chat programs. And your facebook friends list is ever growing.

Let's schedule a follow up post in August sometime to talk about it! I would have said July, but July is the month with 3 carnivals in it! Vincy Mas, St Lucia Carnival and Crop Over.

Talking of summer carnivals, facebook chat might add another  dimension.....
So now we have facebook chat, Lets say you have a profile dedicated to customer service for Mas bands and events, add the profile as a friend and people can ask their burning questions all day long!

Think about it - we are talking about Global customer support !

Cost?
Well that would be a grand total of $11 million dollars to set up, this system.
$0 to actually set up and $11 million to CG 2.0 for the idea. lol just kidding my ideas are priceless and never ending.
Enough of me.

For those of you with light bulbs going off in your head, just remember its not only customer support, but you can find out the concerns of your customers and fix them before you hit the road. Or have a good backup plans in case things go wrong.

I found out today that one Caribbean Business I actually incorporating FaceBook Chat in their marketing, Its actually a photo printing business Photo Finish. They are advertising support for their online ordering on facebook, using facebook chat.

Lots of food for thought. Lets see how it will evolve.


Corey Graham 2.0
www.coreykgraham.com/blog 

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01.04.08

Cruise the Summer Carnivals of the Caribbean - From Vincy Mas to Spice Mas!

Posted in General & soca & Trinidad Carnival & soca Monarch & festivals & Corey Graham 2.0 & Crop Over & St. Lucia Carnival & Barbados & Trinidad & Vincy Mas & st. lucia carnival & ATI & Great Fete & Great Fete & Antigua Carnival & Reggae Sumfest & Spice Mas & Cruise & Carnival Nations & Mas Bands | 22:56

It has come to my attention that there is going to be a new option available for those of you planning to vacation in the Caribbean this summer. A grouping of Caribbean Tourism ministers, some of the major cruise liners along tour operators in the world have come together to offer cruises this summer which will see the packaging the summer festivals of the Caribbean into a range of cruises.
Caribbean Summer Festivals of Interest

• Vincy Mas - St. Vincent & the Grenadines
• St. Lucia Carnival - St. Lucia
• Crop Over - Barbados
• ATI - Jamaica
• Great Fete - Trinidad and Tobago
• Antigua Carnival - Antigua
• Reggae Sumfest - Jamaica
• Spice Mas - Grenada

Yes, yes I couldn't believe it! Can you imagine that? Ok let me paint a picture for you....
After parading in the Streets of Kingstown for Vincy Mas with the music of Zoelah, Jamesey P, Skinny Fabulous and crew. You stumble to your 'hotel room' on a cruise liner and the next morning you step out into Castries with car pasing blairing the sounds of Ricky T, Kakal and Alpha. Hitting the road for J'Ouvert and Pretty Mas with the bands Just 4 Fun and Red International. The next stop is to the Soca Bowl (Soca Monarch) on the East Coast Road in Barbados climaxing on Kadooment day with the sounds of Hypa Daug, Krosfyah and Alison Hinds. Down behind the Baje International or Power By 4 music truck.....
I think you get the picture.
Alrite, now let me make your blood boil now (esp. The Yankees DEM). This cruise will have what they call the "Premium Carnival Experience".

No, no! this is not just getting VIP tickets to the major events. I am talking about no hassles.

• No calling 10 people to secure tickets for your crew for the fetes.
• No saving scalpers numbers in your phone. And paying a lot more money for your tickets just cause you have a foreign accent.
• No getting lost for an hour of your valueable liming/party time.
• What about your costumes? Ladies do I really, really need to get into the mis match horror stories. Many of you know about jumping and not looking your best!

The Premium Carnival Experience
All passengers on the cruise will never have to touch a single event ticket!!!! Ever!
Every passenger will be banded once they get on the bus, wait let me re-phrase that! When the fully air conditioned coach arrives at the venue each passenger will be banded and will enter the fete in a special line. No lines and no designated drivers or navigators needed! Sorry!!! For you who look forward to being awarded that responsibility.
As far as Playin' Mas goes....Mas Bands, will be invited on board the cruise ship to deliver costumes and to ensure passengers are 'road worthy'.

Where did this all start?
Apparently this idea came up during talks regarding ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 held in the Caribbean....
....It came back to the basic rule all major promoters know. Its better to build up an annual event over time than run after a one time opportunistic events. The risk is just so much larger.....
So why just stop at cricket?
It didn't turn out so good but some of the Cricket World Cup discarded partying ideas made it into the Summer Festivals and did pretty well in that forum. This was the first indication that this idea has something to it.
Ok look lets at it

• tourism ministries and tour operators will now have a product with tremendous credibility and appeal to many more persons. No Hassles, less unknowns, no local connections needed.
• festivals will grow, with some cruise ships with a capacity of approx 3000 people, that is 3000 more people to experience the festival... Ok let me put to you like this way. If you put together the largest mas bands in Crop Over and St. Lucia mas you cannot fill 1 cruise ship!
• Cruise ships companies can now add another package to their current offering.
• Mas Bands and Promoters would have confirmed sales from much earlier and so they can invest more into producing a quality show and costumes.
• lots of other small businesses will benefit from the increased visitors on the island.

I understand that the details of the package still need to be worked out. However, the initial market research indicates that these cruise packages are expected to attract alot students, graduates and young professionals who have very few responsibilities.(e.g. children, Mortages etc).
Marketing Campaigns will be directed to the universities in the caribbean (UWI, SGU, etc). Also those in the diaspora McGill, York, Toronto, CUNY, Miami International, Howard and a few more. Its also expected to have a good response from the groups of Stella's out there looking to get their groove back on! Lol. And of course a good wine or wuk-up!
My take on it is that it will be a tremendous benefit to the economies of the Caribbean esp. the 'Carnival Nations'.
Now for those news reporters reading this, let me save you a call or email by giving you a quote now.

'Its a paradigm shift in tourism in the caribbean. Its a very innovative and very creative product which is well positioned to grow rapidly in the coming years. It embraces the new trend of cruising and carnivals worldwide, while leveraging the close proximity of isles of the Caribbean and the similarities of the cultures along with the great diversities in the cultures. You couldn't want it Better than that!' Said Corey Graham 2.0 'Also of course it is April Fools day and I just got you!' Laughed Corey Graham 2.0

Or did I really get you? Is this not an inevitable step? Maybe its just a conversation we have not got into as yet as a Caribbean Community.
I have started it here on my Blog. Now my question to you is ..... Will you join me in this conversation?

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