Yesterday I quit my job as Director of interactive marketing at Norwegian. It's been fun and I feel I have accomplished alot. During my time at Norwegian, we have:

• made www.norwegian.no one of the most visited websites in Norway
• increased the online booking percentage from 50% to almost 80%
• launched a successful e-mail marketing program
• reduced the response time to customers by over 150%
• become highly focused on tracking marketing campaigns
• implemented a new online booking engine that makes it easy to book airline tickets
• received recognition for being the best airline website in Europe (in Norwegian)
• received recognition from the Norwegian Consumer Agency for being customer friendly (read more).
• become visible in all the major search engines through organic and paid listings
• grown passed SAS Braathens(the largest airline in Scandinavia) in terms of internet traffic
• in cooperation with hotell.no become the major player for hotel bookings in Norway
• been invited to tell the story about the success of www.norwegian.no (read more)

My next job will be at studentrabatt.no ANS, a company I co-founded in 2000. Revenues are up and finally I can work full-time with my own business. To be continued..

Spring is coming. Summer is around the corner. Hiking is wonderful. I think walking stimulates the mind and brings new perspective on the world. Yesterday I met my mom to look at new cars for both of us:) Since neither of us really care about what type of car we drive, we went on a walk instead. A wonderful walk around a lake in Oslo(Sognsvann). After the walk, we ate lunch and talked. Today I bought a new baking oven. The new one is very nice, but I doubt that I'll start making alot of quality meals.

What a wonderful Easter vacation! Emma and I spent 3 wonderful sunny days in Lillehammer. We got up early every morning and went skiing in the Olympic downhill slopes of Hafjell. We spent alot of time with my brother and his family.

I've started to read "Intelligent Investor", a book written by Warren Buffet's mentor Ben Graham. It's a different book than what I usually read so it will take som effort to complete.

On another note, I've been following The Word of Mouth Marketing Association. WOMMA focuses on word of mouth marketing techniques such as the art of honest, authentic two-way communications with customers. Blogs, communities, viral marketing, buzz, evangelism, word of mouth, and other new techniques are creating a fundamentally more open relationship between businesses and the people they serve. I will be following these guys closely. Very interesting...

I read Seth Godin's blog today. He was asked how to build an e-mail list. He answered:

"I told her that the first step was to offer something in your email newsletter that people would actually want to read. That the second step was to promise people exactly what you intended to give them. And the third step was to create content that was so remarkable that people wanted to share it. I explained that if you take your time and keep your promises, it'll build if it deserves to build."

Pretty interesting..

Easter vacation is just around the corner. I'm heading up to Lillehammer, the olympic host of 1994. Emma is flying in on thursday and we're driving up in the evening.

Last week Norwegian.no was rated the best airline website in Europe. The independant review was done by the respected consumer magazine www.dinside.no (roughly translated to"your side/page"). We beat Ryanair, SAS, Sterling, FlyNordic and many more.. The only differentiatiors was our "Low fare calender", which shows all the prices to one destination in a calender format. It's not unique, but it appeals to customers that are price aware.

Other job news; I am speaking at another conference http://www.estrategi.no/konferanse . Estrategi is one of the leading publications when it comes to strategy and the web..

One strategic dilemma that Norwegian has these days is whether to select a focused product promotion strategy or a wide approach. By this I mean;

Focused product promotion is to focus on the core business of selling more airline tickets to our customers. We can still promote 3 party products, but our focus is on selling airline tickets.

Wide approach is becoming more of a travel agency. Doing everything yourself.

It's an interesting dilemma that reminds me of the Amazon.com vs. eToys dilemma. This dilemma ended up with Etoys going out of business, while Amazon.com created a joint venture with Toys 'R Us.

I think the correct approach is to look for strategic partnerships where each party keeps a focus on their own core competency. If you look at Amazon.com today, the entire Toys section is branded with Toys 'R Us. I believe this has proved over time to be the winning strategy. Strategic partnerships where you benefit from the "start-up spirit" and new technology of Amazon.com while the large brandname Toys 'R us brings the experience from the toy industry and the infrastructure.

The good thing about blogging is that you don't have to worry that much about grammer and sentences making sense;)