Last night, the family decided to watch a film that included Venice in its storyline – Only You. Made in 1994, and starring Marisa Tomei and Robert Downey Jr., this is a beautiful film about destiny and finding your soul-mate. [140 Mins]

But I was struck, as I watched Tomei’s character Faith sending a telegram home from Italy, about how much has changed in the way we travel in the 17 years since this film was made, and the (literally) far-reaching effects of internet technology.

Goodbye to the Telegram

OK, there are probably people reading this who have never seen or sent a telegram, other than perhaps when sent to a wedding. But even in 1994, fax machines were only just starting to appear in home offices, and internet access was still a relative novelty. There were only around 10,000 web sites, and most access was through dialup modem. IDC statistics estimate only 16 million people, or 0.4% of the world’s population, were using the internet in 1995. Today, the figures are closer to 30% of the world’s population, with almost 80% penetration in North America.

The good old guidebook

We came across a 1997 vintage guide to Italy in a charity shop before we left on our trip. It originally retailed at £20. Of course, some things in that book were timelessly unchanged, such as the interior of San Marco’s Basilica in Venice, or the Roman Amphitheatre in the heart of Verona. However, the choice of restaurants was very limited, and none of the hotels listed had a web site or email address. To book a hotel, you would phone one of those listed, hope your Italian was up to scratch, or their English good, and perhaps give them your credit card details, with any confirmation, if it came, being by fax. [20 Mins] If the hotel had a fax, of course. And think of booking your flight – you’d head off to a flight shop or travel agent, explain where you want to go and when, and they’d post you out tickets a week or so later. [90 mins] You might have been given a choice of one or two airlines for your route.

How do you hire a FIAT to Rome?

In the film, Faith and her girlfriend have to hire a car as there is a National strike taking place in Italy, and she needs to get to Rome from Venice. She’d have asked her hotel where the nearest car rental office is, and gone there to arrange the hire. [50 Mins] Of course, given the idiosyncrasy of Italian road signing, she gets lost, and runs out of petrol on the way. [120 mins]. Luckily, some passing Nuns (it’s a film) help her out with a fuel top-up, and she finds her way to Rome. On arrival, she drops off her car at the rental agency, and grabs a taxi to take her to the Roman hotel address she’s been given. As it turns out, the taxi ride is very short, as her destination turns out to be just the other side of the same piazza. [20 Secs]

So, Faith is still looking for her elusive soul-mate, but needs somewhere to stay. A local businessman recommends a little Pensione a few streets away, and accompanies them there, where, of course, being the movies, a room is free and the place is wonderful. [5 Mins] Her trips around Rome are initially by Taxi, and then she needs to buy a guidebook in order to locate all the hotels nearby where her elusive soul-mate might be staying… you’ll need to see the movie to find out what happens next.

Fast forward to October 2011

Being a canny Scot, I start with Skyscanner to find the cheapest flight to ‘Everywhere’ around the school half-term dates. Italy is near the top of the list, with direct flights to Bologna. After discussion with the family, I pay extra for 1 piece of hold luggage, and book online. [15 Mins]. I check in online with all passport details transmitted, for both outward and return flights, and print my boarding passes. [5 Mins] I decide to stay two nights in Bologna, before we join friends in Verona, so head to Tripadvisor.com and book the second-most-recommended hotel in Bologna. The best rate I find is through hotels.com who also have an iPhone app, for which I recall from their newsletter gives a 15% discount if you use a promo code in their mobile app. I use the same app to book Verona – this time in the same hotel as friends we’re meeting. [10 Mins] For both, I can print or store the PDFs for confirmation, which have maps to guide me there. I’ll need to hire a car after staying in Bologna, so I search via an online broker for the cheapest deal, and it turns out to be from Avis. Google Maps show me it’s easy to get to their downtown rental office from my hotel, so I book it, and choose a one-way hire, to drop the car at the airport on the way back. [10 Mins] After a serious amount of time investigating hotels available in Venice (notoriously small and expensive), we make our choice after reading reviews at Tripadvisor.com on their iPhone app, and book again through hotels.com. [10 Mins] I add my bookings and flights to Tripit by forwarding a few emails, so that I have my details in my iPhone as a backup to paper copies. [2 mins]

Driven to distraction

Of course, if you have ever driven in Italy, you’ll know that road signs can be a problem, with the signing concept of ‘primary destination’ being slightly alien. Seeing ten-plus destinations at one junction is also not all that rare, but direction confirmation signs are, meaning it’s easy to get on the wrong road without knowing it until it’s far too late. Such was my fate in Verona. [40 mins] I couldn’t find the SR11 out of town from the centre. So I admitted defeat, switched on data roaming on my iPhone, and asked my Maps app to take me from my current location to the hotel address. My wife read out the turn-by-turn moves as I drove. [11 Mins]

We hadn’t booked anything for a night in Padua, but on arrival, while my wife and child checked out a hotel that looked good, I checked their prices and reviews on my iPhone as I waited in the car. [5 Mins] My wife negotiated a better deal because I texted her the online cost, and she got also got parking thrown in.

I knew where to park in Venice thanks to a little prior research courtesy of Google, and I knew also to get the Number 2 waterbus into town for the cheap and very scenic route. The subsequent walk to our hotel was as per the Google Maps instruction – but we did have to ask a Gondolier for help at the last turn – we laughed when we saw that the hotel sign was right above our heads. The hotel was amazing, as per the reviews – and they were able to upgrade us free to a canal view as I’d requested in a comment when I booked.

We avoided some of the worst tourist traps, and discovered some off-the-track gems with a little free Guidepal app of Venice, which even had an Augmented Reality ‘point and find out what’s interesting nearby’. No data roaming needed, as the hotel had free wifi – as did every one we stayed in.

But the serendipity of travel is not all gone. Our last night was spent at a little hotel in Ferrara which was recommended to us by the girl who served us our lunch – it was just around the corner, and it provided the best breakfast of our holiday. [40 mins] Turns out it’s ranked #2 out of 43 in the city at Tripadvisor…

This blog originally appeared at EnergySys

Follow @energysys

Buy Age of Conversation 3 today

• Buy the Hardcover at Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Age-Conversation-Its-Time-Busy/dp/098247394X/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0
• Buy the Paperback at Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Age-Conversation-Its-Time-Busy/dp/0982473974/ref=tmm_pap_title_0
• Buy the ebook for your Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Age-Conversation-Time-Busy-ebook/dp/B003KGBMWQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=digital-text&qid=1272982016&sr=8-2

Today is Blog Action Day for Water and it’s also a call to action to get this book onto the Top Sellers’ List at Amazon!

I’ts important that you realise three things:

1) This book is an amazing resource for anyone using social media for marketing. When I say it’s my book – it’s not written by me, I’m simply one of 171 authors who created a 400-word contribution. I’ve ordered my copy today.

2) You need to buy your copy TODAY to ensure we raise the maximum amount of money, and get the maximum amount of attention. We’re aiming to get onto the Amazon Top selling books list.

3) All proceeds go to charity:water, where 100% of public donations directly fund water projects.

Amazingly, just $20 can give one person clean water for 20 years. An average water project costs $5,000 and can serve 250 people with clean, safe water – so purchasing a copy of the Age of Conversation 3 really can make a difference to someone’s life!

Age of Conversation 3 captures the distinct shift from social media as a hypothetical consumer loyalty tool, as it was considered only a little more than a year ago, to its current state as a staple in the modern marketing toolbox. Although the book covers more than just social media, the topic is ubiquitous among the book’s 10 sections: At the Coalface; Identities, Friends and Trusted Strangers; Conversational Branding; Measurement; Corporate Conversations; In the Boardroom; Innovation and Execution; Influence; Getting to Work; and Pitching Social Media.

“We have seen an incredible shift in the role of social media over the past three years. It has moved from an outlier in the marketing mix to one of the strategic pillars of any corporate marketing or branding exercise,” said Drew McLellan. “And it doesn’t end there,” adds Gavin Heaton. “As the many authors of this new book explain, the focus may be on conversation, but you can’t participate in a conversation from the sidelines. It’s all about participation. And this book provides you with 171 lessons in this new art”.

These are the 10 sections in the book: -

1. At the Coalface
2. Identities, Friends and Trusted Strangers
3. Conversational Branding
4. Measurement (You’ll find my contribution here)
5. Corporate Conversations
6. In the Boardroom
7. Innovation and Execution
8. Influence
9. Getting to Work
10. Pitching Social Media.

The first Age of Conversation raised nearly $15,000 for Variety, the international children’s charity, and the Age of Conversation 2 raised a further $10,000 for Variety. This year’s proceeds will be donated charity: water.

If you’d like to support this by tweeting, donating, or blogging, please see the resources at Age of Conversation 3.

• Buy the Hardcover at Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Age-Conversation-Its-Time-Busy/dp/098247394X/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0
• Buy the Paperback at Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Age-Conversation-Its-Time-Busy/dp/0982473974/ref=tmm_pap_title_0
• Buy the ebook for your Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Age-Conversation-Time-Busy-ebook/dp/B003KGBMWQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=digital-text&qid=1272982016&sr=8-2

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We can predict the future.

Image: br3akthru / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

This blog contains “forward-looking” statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 regarding business strategies, market potential, future financial and operational performance and other matters. Such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the anticipated benefits of the transaction and other statements identified by words such as “may,” “will,” “intend,” “should,” “expect,” “might,” “dunno,” “maybe,” “guess,” “like, who knows, man?” or similar expressions.

These statements are based on management’s current expectations and beliefs, warped, hopelessly blinkered and woolly as they may be, and are subject to uncertainty and changes in circumstances, including, but not limited to, the satisfaction of the closing conditions to any transaction and the parties’ performance of their obligations under the agreements; changes in our plans, strategies and intentions; the competitiveness and quality of our products and services; our ability to retain, hire and develop key employees; shit happening; the intensity of competition; just dropping the ball, or blabbing during a big drunk in Vegas and those big guys in the morning saying they had photos and video but god that girl had such a sweet ass.

Any forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and actual results may vary materially from those expressed or implied by the statements herein, due to changes in economic, business, competitive, technological, strategic and/or regulatory factors, as well as factors affecting our operations and businesses. Like being total pricks who’ve been insulated in some dumb private school and business-school make-believe cosy bubble since we were about 10, and who don’t know our ass from our elbow in the real world of business and commerce, and have the MBAs to prove it.

More detailed information about these factors as they relate to us may be found in the section entitled “Shit and the Fan” in our Annual Report on Form 10-K, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. They never read that stuff anyway.

We are under no obligation to, and expressly disclaim any obligation to, update or alter the forward-looking statements contained in this blog, whether as a result of new information, future events, the bloody obvious, alien invasion, or otherwise. And hey, we don’t have a f**king crystal ball, you know. However, we might just change it later to make it look like we were smarter earlier, because it’s pretty easy to do that in WordPress.

Inspired by an AOL press release.

But it is important, because your friends and family are the most important people in the world to you. And social media is where you can share with them any time, be surprised to see them again, to see what they are doing, or to learn what is new. And you can respond any time, and see their news real-time.

Through social media, you can also make new friends all over the planet who share your interests, passions and causes. That’s hugely empowering and also politically important. But it’s not all that important.

This image hangs in the head quarters of Google, Microsoft, Facebook, WordPress and Yahoo! Japan, among many others, and is worth looking at to put things into context in terms of the Interwebs. It’s also a very beautiful and accomplished piece of graphic art – take 2 minutes to look at the full-scale image – it’s quite fascinating.

Although you can still find me there, I’ve deactivated my account more than once, and there are still a number of reasons that I’m not very fond of Facebook. I thought it worthwhile recording the five main factors that make me say I really don’t like Facebook very much….

1. I still don’t like your terms, Facebook.

Here’s a story I wrote in early 2009, about why I was suspending my facebook account after they proposed a change in their terms of service. The company has failed repeatedly to win my confidence. I don’t want them to own my stuff – I am happy to let them use it to share with my network, but not to own it, sell it, hustle it, rehash it and generally just take things.

By the way, that’s my photo of Mark Zuckerberg – the winning caption was “Yeah, we change our TOS so much we are now known as AboutFace-book.”

Here’s a nice quote:- -

You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.

You do know what irrevocable and perpetual mean, don’t you, Mr Faust?

2. I know you’re going to sell what you learn about me to people who want to sell me stuff.

The fact that I like Simple Minds, live in Edinburgh and have read ‘The Black Swan’ is something I mention in the context of facebook because I’m intending those facts to be of interest to my friends and associates on facebook. But you’re going to take all that kind of information, and use it to place ‘appropriate and relevant’ content in front of me. Like ‘Hurry! offer ends Thurs’ for Sky TV. And the more I tell, the more you sell.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Online social-networking service Facebook Inc., which recently boasted that it had topped 500 million users, will pull in an estimated $1.28 billion in advertising spending this year, according to a report published Thursday by eMarker.

What’s in it for me then? Where’s the reciprocity, the give-and-take? Where are my rewards?

3. I don’t think you take important things seriously.

Earlier this year, a few people raised concerns about protecting young people using facebook, after the jailing of a sex offender who kidnapped, raped and murdered a 17-year old girl he befriended on Facebook by posing as a teenage boy. They suggested a ‘panic button’ be made available, so that an operative online could be alerted when someone felt unsafe, or threatened by the behaviour of another facebook user.

The initial response was (18 March 2010, BBC): ‘Facebook rules out ‘panic button‘ – then (13 April 2010) ‘Police back Facebook panic call‘ and then finally, after UK Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre Ceop, the government law enforcement agency tasked with tracking down sex offenders, spent months negotiating with Facebook, we finally saw (12 July 2010) ‘Facebook unveils child safety ‘panic button’‘.

Let’s see. March April May June July. And only with a government agency leaning on you. Outstanding.

4. You’re never going to give me anything useful. You’re always full of crap.

I don’t want to poke people. Or throw sheep at them. Or run a toy farm. Or have them tell me about great real estate companies I can ‘friend’ or ‘like’.

And I seem to get a lot of this kind of stuff which I can’t say is hugely relevant to me: -

“Good day! Amongst all the personal & business life transformation events I’ve ever attended in the past two decades, I’m about to attend the most powerful one… “

5. Next time you get hacked, and I mean hacked properly, you’ll be out of business.

I’m amazed to see I’m linking to a Daily Mail article – but here we have it: – ” | Mail Online”">Cyber-criminals steal identity of one of the world’s top security chiefs using Facebook”

And remember the small matter of those 100 million personal details made availabel on Pirate Bay?

Facebook, the social networking site and its founder Mark Zuckerberg are under pressure over its’ privacy settings after an online security consultant Ron Bowles who allegedly used a simple code to collect data from the site, published the information on the worlds’ largest file sharing website Pirate Bay.

But of course it’s safe to chat with friends in Facebook privately, so no need to worry there. Oops, perhaps not: -

“A glitch in Facebook security may allow your friends to view your chat history and pending friend requests without your knowledge or permission. This should make you think twice about the juicy gossip you choose to share over the “secure” Facebook messenger.”

In conclusion, here’s my favourite page on facebook.

Buy Age of Conversation 3 today

• Buy the Hardcover at Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Age-Conversation-Its-Time-Busy/dp/098247394X/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0
• Buy the Paperback at Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Age-Conversation-Its-Time-Busy/dp/0982473974/ref=tmm_pap_title_0
• Buy the ebook for your Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Age-Conversation-Time-Busy-ebook/dp/B003KGBMWQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=digital-text&qid=1272982016&sr=8-2

Almost three years ago, an online conversation between two marketing pros, an American and an Australian, evolved into a collaborative writing effort by more than 100 bloggers from nine countries, and was aptly titled The Age of Conversation.

Fast forward to today and the abstract experiment is now a concrete treatise on the state of social media and marketing best practices as a whole. With Drew McLellan and Gavin Heaton still firmly at the helm, the third book in the Age of Conversation series has become a veritable “who’s who” of the world’s leading marketing bloggers.

Age of Conversation 3 (202 pages; hardcover; paperback; Kindle; ePub) was published by new digital publishing company Channel V Books (www.ChannelVBooks.com), and is now available through all major online retailers, as a Kindle e-book, and will soon be available as an ePub for other digital readers.

Age of Conversation 3 captures the distinct shift from social media as a hypothetical consumer loyalty tool, as it was considered only a little more than a year ago, to its current state as a staple in the modern marketing toolbox. Although the book covers more than just social media, the topic is ubiquitous among the book’s 10 sections: At the Coalface; Identities, Friends and Trusted Strangers; Conversational Branding; Measurement; Corporate Conversations; In the Boardroom; Innovation and Execution; Influence; Getting to Work; and Pitching Social Media.

“We have seen an incredible shift in the role of social media over the past three years. It has moved from an outlier in the marketing mix to one of the strategic pillars of any corporate marketing or branding exercise,” said Drew McLellan. “And it doesn’t end there,” adds Gavin Heaton. “As the many authors of this new book explain, the focus may be on conversation, but you can’t participate in a conversation from the sidelines. It’s all about participation. And this book provides you with 171 lessons in this new art”.

The genesis for the series itself has all the makings of a thrilling read: regular correspondence between people around the world; a proactive collaboration between 15 countries; and two marketing professionals who have never met each other face to face, scrambling to learn how to publish a book from the ground up.

It all started when McLellan blogged about a similar collaborative book effort and Heaton wrote to him to suggest they get a few fellow bloggers to produce a marketing book in the same vain. Three emails later, and they had named the book and set what they thought would be an impossible goal: 100 bloggers. Within seven days they had commitments from 103. Back then, the marketing industry was abuzz about how citizen marketers were changing the landscape, whereas the second two editions have revolved primarily around the growing field of social media and how its methodologies have affected marketing as a whole. What all three books have in common is that they each capture a uniquely global vantage point.

These are the 10 sections in the book: -

1. At the Coalface
2. Identities, Friends and Trusted Strangers
3. Conversational Branding
4. Measurement (You’ll find my contribution here)
5. Corporate Conversations
6. In the Boardroom
7. Innovation and Execution
8. Influence
9. Getting to Work
10. Pitching Social Media.

The first Age of Conversation raised nearly $15,000 for Variety, the international children’s charity, and the Age of Conversation 2 raised a further $10,000 for Variety. This year’s proceeds will be donated to an international children’s charity of the contributing authors’ choosing. Please help to make sure we raise something extra this time around…

• Buy the Hardcover at Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Age-Conversation-Its-Time-Busy/dp/098247394X/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0
• Buy the Paperback at Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Age-Conversation-Its-Time-Busy/dp/0982473974/ref=tmm_pap_title_0
• Buy the ebook for your Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Age-Conversation-Time-Busy-ebook/dp/B003KGBMWQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=digital-text&qid=1272982016&sr=8-2

“Meetings are an addictive, highly self-indulgent activity that corporations and other large organizations habitually engage in only because they cannot masturbate” – Dave Barry

I don’t do meetings any more. I used to do a lot of meetings. But not any more.

Follow @clarocada on Twitter

The change from meeting to tweeting – where a series of brief exchanges (each a maximum of 140 characters) can make up the content – has been brought about by a variety of factors over the past 15 years or so – but here are the ten factors that I think are critical.

1. IN GOOGLE TIME
   I no longer have a phone book, business directories or yellow pages. Those were essential when I started my first corporation in 1993. But now, I use Google. On my Nokia N86, as I move.  As a result, I have less patience for slow ways of doing things – I am impatient. I demand speed, efficiency, and immediate results.
2. HOLA FONEROS
   I have a laptop computer and a mobile phone, I can work from a cafe terrace in Banyalbufar just as easily as anywhere else. As a result, I don’t have the need to restrict myself to doing business with those who are within easy reach of where I live or work most of the time.
3. HOME OFFICE DRESS CODE
   I don’t need to have an office in the city centre to get my work done – I can do it from my home office. As a result, I don’t need to spend time travelling, and so I use that saved time productively. I also find wearing a suit in my own kitchen a bit pointless, so feel there has to be a very good reason to dress up to go somewhere – and my carbon footprint’s lower.
4. MY ONLINE VISIBILITY
   Whereas I used to have to push information out to people in brochures, newspaper interviews, in meetings, at trade shows, I now have online profiles at LinkedIn, Xing, Facebook, Hyves, Flickr, Friendfeed, MyBloglog etc, and I have blogs and web sites that I can update easily in seconds. As a result, I don’t have to spend so much time introducing myself, and explaining what it is that I, or any of my enterprises provide – people find out about me before they meet me, or get to know me through following my activities online. People can meet me at airports because my photo is online. They can also decide whether they need to waste their time meeting me. People ask me to speak at events without having ever met me or spoken to me.
5. I HATE COFFEE
   I don’t really like coffee any more. But I still drink it. And I especially never liked paying £3 for a cup of it unless it was refilled all day and came with free wi-fi. As a result, when someone says – let’s have a chat over a coffee, I say “No. Let’s save the time and money, and spend five minutes now working out if we need to meet – and if so, what items on the agenda we can dispense with before we need to have a meeting”.
6. MEETINGS ARE GETTING SHORTER
   I arranged a meeting in London (yes, I do still sometimes meet people) with guys coming from Amsterdam and from the USA without ever using a phone – and although we’d not met before, we have already shared dozens of pieces of information that made the business of the meeting last about ten minutes – and then we ordered some food and drinks. We then talked about other interesting stuff and new possibilities – not just ‘the business we need to discuss’.
7. CUT THE CHIT-CHAT
   I can get to know people online by following their updates – or by looking at what they’ve said, or who they’ve been talking with, or who’s been talking about them – and so with this background, a lot of ‘chit-chat’ becomes unnecessary. As a result, I can filter out people, or filter them in. I still enjoy the random, however, - I had two great ideas on the bus this morning, just following my twitter stream and listening to music.
8. YOU CAN DO THIS TOO
   You are reading this blog. You can send me emails, you can send me stuff without a courier, you can clarify things in Skitch, you can speak on Skype for free, you can send an instant message or a twitter. But you can do this as suits your agenda – and not be dragged into it by another party with an unknown agenda who wants 100% of your attention – NOW.
9. I NEVER WANT TO SEE YOU
   I can now have customers who I never meet. That used to be very difficult. But now, I can see people, talk to them in real time, swap messages and files, send them sound files and presentations, have a video-conference with them… whether they are half a world away or live around the corner.
10. LIFE’S TOO SHORT
    A friend of mine died suddenly this year. David was 42. He did not suffer fools gladly, and could summarise biblical volumes of information in a pithy, witty phrase. But he ran out of time. We all will. Mr Williamson, I’m thinking of you each day when I open my eyes, pull my first waking breath, and smile.

“I prefer email and tweets and other online communications over telephone and face to face meetings because it allows me to manage my own time. When I’m meeting face to face the other person will automatically assume they have an hour of my time, which seems to be the standard meeting length, and will take all of that time to talk TO me.

In an email I might grasp their concept within 2 minutes and be ready with a reply. Other times I need to think about their message overnight. All of this is impossible in face to face meetings where an immediate reaction and 100% dedication is demanded.”

- Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten

So if you want to have a meeting with me here’s how to start the conversation:- Let’s tweet.

But what about you – what’s changed the way you handle meetings over the past few years?

Please, don’t tell me you’ve not changed things, or let other people push your time around. Tell me it’s not so. Life’s too short. I’ll be working at http://tweeting.me.uk from next month.