Talking about standards can be mind-numbingly boring, and I should know – I talk about them all the time.
It’s my job, and usually I like it; sometimes though I’d rather just talk about the weather.
But talking about standards at the Tnooz #tcamp2 this week in London was not boring; it was, amazingly, fun.
You probably think I’m exaggerating or at least taking a bit of editorial license, but I’m not.
It was great to be surrounded by experts in travel distribution whose opinions were shaped by experience, good and bad, working with XML-based standards and who, with beer in hand, were more than willing to share those opinions.
We started off by agreeing on the general usefulness of standards.
After all, light bulbs work in lamps because the manufacturers agree on standard fittings and wattage, and we can all play music on our various players because of the MP3 standard. Can’t argue with that.
We moved onto how standards can stimulate innovation, but here opinions diverged a bit.
The argument was put forth that standards could stifle innovation, but a counter-argument was made that standards are usually created for a generally commoditized product (a light bulb) or service (providing information or availability for a tour or a resort or any type of travel product via some electronic means).
Standardizing the commodity and re-using it (in our case, transmitting information via standard XML messages) frees up intellectual and financial capital to innovate the non-commodity – like the lamp and the lampshade, or more to the point, the presentation, servicing and fulfillment of the tour, resort or other travel product.
How much a given company should standardize, especially in a non-regulated industry like travel, is of course a business decision that can only be made by that company, and lots of heads nodded at that statement.
And everyone knows there is no monolithic “travel industry”; adventure travel is very different from cruising, which is very different from renting a car.
Electronic distribution is a continuum, from the most basic online information on one end (hours of operation, for example) to complex transactions on the other.
Travel products land on that continuum based on the type of product, the supplier and the market, and do not have to move toward the transactional end.
Just because the rental car space heavily utilizes standard transactional XML messages doesn’t mean eco-tourism can, or should, to the same degree.
Standards shouldn’t force a company to distribute its product in a way that doesn’t meet its business needs, and an effective standards body should heed that message.
Sounds great, doesn’t it? Go ahead, admit it - now you wish you’d been there too.
Talking about technology standards can be mind-numbingly boring, and I should know – I talk about them all the time.
It’s my job, and usually I like it; sometimes though I’d rather just talk about the weather.
But talking about standards at the Tnooz #tcamp2 this week in London was not boring; it was, amazingly, fun.
You probably think I’m exaggerating or at least taking a bit of editorial license, but I’m not.
It was great to be surrounded by experts in travel distribution whose opinions were shaped by experience, good and bad, working with XML-based standards and who, with beer in hand, were more than willing to share those opinions.
We started off by agreeing on the general usefulness of standards.
After all, light bulbs work in lamps because the manufacturers agree on standard fittings and wattage, and we can all play music on our various players because of the MP3 standard. Can’t argue with that.
We moved onto how standards can stimulate innovation, but here opinions diverged a bit.
The argument was put forth that standards could stifle innovation, but a counter-argument was made that standards are usually created for a generally commoditized product (a light bulb) or service (providing information or availability for a tour or a resort or any type of travel product via some electronic means).
Standardizing the commodity and re-using it (in our case, transmitting information via standard XML messages) frees up intellectual and financial capital to innovate the non-commodity – like the lamp and the lampshade, or more to the point, the presentation, servicing and fulfillment of the tour, resort or other travel product.
How much a given company should standardize, especially in a non-regulated industry like travel, is of course a business decision that can only be made by that company, and lots of heads nodded at that statement.
And everyone knows there is no monolithic “travel industry”; adventure travel is very different from cruising, which is very different from renting a car.
Electronic distribution is a continuum, from the most basic online information on one end (hours of operation, for example) to complex transactions on the other.
Travel products land on that continuum based on the type of product, the supplier and the market, and do not have to move toward the transactional end.
Just because the rental car space heavily utilizes standard transactional XML messages doesn’t mean eco-tourism can, or should, to the same degree.
Standards shouldn’t force a company to distribute its product in a way that doesn’t meet its business needs, and an effective standards body should heed that message.
Sounds great, doesn’t it? Go ahead, admit it - now you wish you’d been there too.