SOCIAL MEDIA TAXI DRIVER

 In the last two years 

I have been asked in countless times

 to explain the differences between my way of working

 and the way the other drivers work. 

Taxi drivers normally spend between 10 and 12 hours

 driving everyday in the city. 

In my taxi, 

I have found a way to strengthen my possibilities. 

I use my free time in a productive way. 

When I stop,

 I try to position myself 

in order to think creatively about improvements.  

  In the past 

I used books in order to learn all the time;

 I now use the Internet and social networks 

to make good use of my time.

 I am happy in the trap that fate has prepared for me, 

that is the only difference,

 in essence,

 between the other cabbies and me.  

   Every day

I leave home and I go to work, 

I repeat the same sentence:

 “Today I will be the happiest driver in the world”

 Some days my plan is ruined in about half an hour. 

Nevertheless,

 many other days,

 more than you can imagine,

 I consider my working day as good as the best day of holiday.

 I find a hidden charm 

when dealing with all sorts of creatures

 that inhabit the city and are users of taxi.  

  Now let me tell you

 how I started on the Internet,

 and how

 I managed to become known

 as a taxi driver from Oviedo,

 in many distant places.

I started my existence on the internet

 as “taxioviedo” in 2003.

 That year I registered the domains “taxioviedo.com”

 and “oviedotaxi.com”.

 Until 2006 a certain amount of work did not arise in this channel.

 In 2006 people asked me about budgets,

 taxi services and other consultations

I managed to release a professional website. 

The website had six sections; 

in the heading 

there is an automated form of taxi request

 that is sent to an email address. 

This innovation

 encouraged me 

to find more solutions in order to have email on the move. 

Azazel is my green raccoon. 

He also works as a blog editor. 

Azazel is my antagonist in the entries

 in which he participates 

and I have the illusion that

 someday 

Azazel has the courage to write a tourist guide about Asturias. 

 I used several mobile phones Blackberry

 where I received emails.

 Now 

I use an iPhone 

which is a multimedia tool 

indispensable for me. 

I use it for a dozen of things. 

When I need to make a phone call I prefer the Blackberry.
When I took

 into account the rise of various websites 

in the taxi cooperatives in Oviedo, 

I tried to understand

 the working process of 

Search Engine Optimization (also known as SEO)

 and SEM or Google Adwords. 

   2007 was a year of hard work

 and also of reflection.

 I tried to uncover what the client expected from me.

 My favourite client is

 the one who reaches the Asturias Airport

 and goes to Oviedo and the other way round. 

It is a journey that covers 50 km and costs 50 euros. 

   I decided to create a website because 

I want to be busy at the airport 

and do this journey at least once every working day.

 For this purpose there is a regulation

 that forces me to know the name of my client 

(which means purchasing the service in advance).

 Once I have had more experience 

I have found other types of client who

 use a taxi service to go to the Basque Country,

 Galicia, Madrid. 

There are clients who like to go on holiday

 in a taxi 

for several days, 

even to international destinations.

 I am very interested 

in this sort of client 

because tourists 

often choose to discover Asturias by taxi.

 Furthermore,

 I have reinforced my most effective strategy with tourists: 

   I have managed to be the best option 

in terms of service,

 payment facilities, languages, etc. 

I kept deliberating throughout 2008.

I ordered the best business cards in the world,

 the most beautiful 

and certainly the most expensive.

 I started my blog in order to strengthen my position 

and to show

 the tourist routes I do in Asturias

 (and I also show the beauty of the region).

 I put myself in the skin

 of the client

 to see 

what was the added value that 

could contribute to my taxi services.

 I decided to buy a small laptop, 

a USB modem, and I offered this service to my clients. 

   In 2009 

I purchased a portable printer. 

I installed a Wifi connection around the taxi 

for the four occupants.

 This year, 2011, 

I also offer a Mac Air and Wifi connection. 

The password is 615980000 

because it also is my mobile phone number.

Thanks to the collaboration of dienteazul.es,

 I have managed to set an antenna 

which emits via Bluetooth a request to download

 a personal mobile phone application

 This application offers tourist information,

 personal information, 

what to see and what to do in Asturias.

 I created and printed thousands of leaflets and fliers 

in which

 I offered tourist routes. 

I sent them 

to the main hotels in Oviedo 

in order 

to put them very close to the tourists. 

  I was getting experience 

and I understood

 how tourists imagine

 before coming to Asturias

 what they want to see 

when visiting this region

 and what they like 

and what they find most attractive.

I think,

I am the only driver in the world that uses this advertising resource and I am the only driver in the world that has a mobile app being autonomous. 

In October 2009 

I started my stage 2.0. 

Enrique Dans is a professor of information systems 

at “El Instituto de Empresa Business School”. 

He has studied a master MBA (UCLA) in the University of California. 

He has worked in newspapers 

and magazines and

 he has one of the world's most important blogs in Spanish.

 It is Spain's most visited blog. 

  It happens that

 when you write a blog 

and you receive comments

 and also you begin to participate

 in other blogs,

 Enrique Dans answered a comment I made on his blog, 

where I explained by typing a tweet what I had been doing on the Internet:  

@Ruralworker: Have you ever seen such an interesting taxi driver in Oviedo?

I read this tweet 

on every channel that

 I used to monitor my brand 

and I was surprised by the power of Twitter. 

That week

 @ruralworker or better said,

 Juan Otero,

 founder of the Forum Turismo.as,

 the most important 

tourism forum in the north of Spain,

 invited me to a meeting 

with entrepreneurs and relevant people in mass media,

 press, tourism and Internet. 

In this think tank 

I took the attention of the audience as

 an exotic example. 

That was an accomplishment

 very motivating for me

 and I decided 

to introduce myself in social media

 as much as possible,

 especially on Twitter. 

Twitter users write a brief biography.

I am @taxioviedo

 and my biography says: 

"I do not do extraordinary things, 

but ordinary things in extraordinary ways”. 

Hire your taxi through DM (Direct Message). 

What is Twitter? 

Twitter 

functions

 as the architecture of the Internet in 2011

 which is similar 

to the role

 that the Agora played in the architecture of the Greek Polis

 in the II century BC.

 It is where culture is exposed, 

where consumers are,

 where elections will be lost and won,

 maybe not these elections 

but certainly 

the following ones.

 In Twitter social relations are also forged. 

In Twitter 

users share what is happening in real time. 

Twitter

 is faster than any other news channel, 

even faster than radio or TV. 

Censorship is only possible, 

as we saw in Egypt,

 cutting the Internet throughout the country.

 One question that everyone, 

from my point of view

 should face honestly

 if you decide to have a Twitter account is:

If I were someone else me,

 would I follow myself on Twitter?

When I made that question 

the answer was

 that I would follow myself. 

I think I am funny enough.
 ----------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------

How am I using Twitter in a professional way? 

I talk about my day-to-day routine 

I am someone 

who strives to enjoy my work,

 and I work in a taxi. 

On Twitter I talk about my city,

 I am creating a real-time chronicle

 of what I see happening in Oviedo.

I take pictures of what I see,

from the privileged place of observation

 which is 

an anonymous taxi among other taxis.

 I recognize that each time I am becoming less anonymous.

 I upload those pictures 

on real time to Twitter. 

I also report 

about events and conferences,

 traffic circulation,

 demonstrations... 

I try to humanize. 

I walk around the Agora,

 the square, 

with my eyes and ears open and attentive. 

I do not know

 if Twitter will be relevant in five years

 or if will be using it,

 but I know that I will learn through Twitter 

whatever system replaces Twitter. 

Benefits that Twitter Brings Me  

About 15%

 of the hiring services at the airport 

are via Twitter. 

I have a network of professional contacts

 which is a real privilege. 

If I have a project

 I am sure that I will find someone who can help me 

to professionalize or to turn my idea into 

something enriching, 

interesting or appealing. 

   I have created a personal brand

 (many people perceive me as an “ideal driver”).

 Nowadays,

 we see in social networks

 how taxi drivers are evolving from a vision 1.0

 of their business

 to a 2.0 dimension 

in which they offer technology,

 Ipad, wifi, websites... 

I call myself a taxi driver 3.0, entrepreneur 

and inspiring to other taxi drivers

 (or at least I would like to be).

 I add to my job

 social networks such as Twitter

 and Foursquare,

 and tools 

such as Skype, WhatsApp, Paypal, Twittpay, Instagram, Viber, FacturaGEM, Adwords.

 I improve the image

 people have of the profession of taxi driver.

 We do not listen anymore to la Cope (Spanish radio program)

 but we tweet information about our location.     

FOURSQUARE 

Foursquare chose me

 as once “Foursquare ambassador” in Spain,

 I was the first 

My role is to help autonomous businesses

 to establish special offers.

In Foursquare

 you answer the question "where are you?"

 same as in Twitter you try to answer

 the question 

"What are you thinking" or "What is happening?
 

I read the other on Twitter: 

“Twitter and Foursquare 

are not a place for paranoids”,

 and later on he rectified saying: 

“Although

 the world is not their place

 but most of us 

are normal people,

we go to restaurants, 

pubs, many businesses, hotels…” 

This application

 is very efficient to access

 to the recommendations left by users.

 It is gratifying to give advice in Foursquare. 

Why do we give advice here? 

It is the same 

as when you tell your “real” 

and not virtual friends

 about 

how good is the fish with salsaverde cream

 in a restaurant.

 In this respect you might

 also want to share

 this kind of information 

with your friends from #4sq.

 People like to be useful. 

As a Foursquare user 

I managed to collect a lot of badges

 or medals that you add

 to your profile as you succeed in your challenges. 

Foursquare is very similar to a gymkhana;

 for example if you check 

in 5 different airports

 you win a medal 

that will be shown in your user profile. 

The more medals you obtain the cooler you are. 

My Official Offer in Foursquare. 

I requested 

to Foursquare

 an official special offer with “taxioviedo”. 

They ave it to me in August.

 As I said before, 

my favourite client is the one that comes to Asturias Airport. 

If a user checks in Foursquare at the airport,

 Foursquare will indicate him or her

 that there is a place nearby

 where there is an offer.

 Furthermore, 

if someone checks in 

“Asturias Airport Taxi”, 

a full screen banner 

appears on the phone. 

In this banner you can read

 "10% discount 

on your trip from Oviedo

 to the Asturias Airport

 or the same if you

 do a “shout” and you send it to Twitter or Facebook

 with the word @taxioviedo".

The Case “taxioviedo” in Foursquare  

   In September 2011 

I was asked

 to talk about my career

 in social networks as

 "a case of success" 

at a conference organized by 

the Centro de Tecnologías de Información y la Comunicación de Asturias. 

They told me 

they would like me

 to explain 

how an autonomous 

or small-medium enterprises

 can be positioned using Foursquare.

 In the wake of this proposal

 I decided to spend 

more time 

analyzing Foursquare 

and learning who are the people behind. 

I investigated the origin of the company,

 dodge ball,

 the financing rounds,

 the investors, the CVs, 

blogs and personal websites, 

how they work, their ideas… 

I realised that 

if I manage

 to create a special offer in my taxi,

 they would like it. 

In those weeks 

I met @dypgijon on Twitter.

 We used the direct message option of Twitter 

and I suggested him 

to make the "special offer" label

 of Foursquare made of vinyl. 

He gave a budget of 24 Euros.

 I doubted. However, 

he offered himself 

to help me 

and I thought he was a nice guy and I ordered them. 

   I prepared my strategy for a few days.

 On 18^th September, 

after generating some buzz 

with some kind of tweet such as:

 "Is it possible

 that CNN

 or the BBC

 to talk about a taxi driver from Oviedo

 without him having to make a killing?"  

I sent a tweet

 with a photo of the vinyl Special Offer of my taxi.

"Dive now 

into the experience of discovering your city

 with @taxioviedo”.

 I added @foursquare #taxi 3.0

 and a link to a photo of my taxi 

where you could see the vinyl of

" special offer "of Foursquare. 

“Taxi 3.0” was hastag or label used 

to monitor outcomes,

 timeline printings... 

This tweet was read and repeated by my followers 

in their Twitter accounts and sent to other users. 

+

Mary Shebley,

designer of badges and other items in Foursquare;

 @naveen Selvadurai,

 Foursquare Co-Founder; 

@Tristanwalker, Degree in Business 

by Stanford University, 

the person in charge of the negotiations of Foursquare 

and The New York Times

, CNN, 

MTV, Vodafone UK, STARBUCKS, etc.

 (Tristan Walker has 300,000 followers on twitter:

 they all mentioned my foursquare taxi

 in their Twitter accounts on several occasions. 

24 hours after

 sending this tweet,

 the photo of my taxi

 had been seen by over a thousand people.

 This has been a success that

 I feel very proud of.

 Although I have not contacted the CNN or the BBC,

 mainly because it was not casual, 

there was a planning at least.

 Nevertheless, 

the impact goes beyond this, 

there was something even more surprising. 

Two days after the release, 

the Foursquare twitter account 

(@Foursquare )

tweeted: 

“Um, Who does not want to ride in the @foursquare taxi? 

(Found in Oviedo, Spain) 

and featuring a link to the picture of my taxi. 

FOURSQUARE's Twitter

 has over 200,000 followers.

 In a few seconds

 this tweet was tweeted by tens of twitter users.

Generating more than 360 tweets with possitive feeling,

 not negative  tweets feelings

 The visit to the photo

 also reached 

in a few seconds 

3,000 viewings. 

This was a worldwide top-tweet.

 All the tweets were positive.

 I received comments such as:

 "This foursquare taxi is so cool, so cool, you should come to New York" 

and

 "we want to go to Oviedo from USA only to catch the Foursquare-taxi" etc ... 

 TIMELINE IMPACT 800,000-1,500,000

In short:

The 18^th September

 I put a picture of my taxi.

 The 21^st September,

 between half a million or

 a million and half people 

could see my name @taxioviedo

 and my tweet about the Foursquare taxi

 As you might remember the investment was 24 Euros. 

Return on Investment or ROI

I am happier in my daily work.

 Those in charge of business analysis 

claim 

that workers in companies that succeed

 are happier. 

In my opinion

 this is not exactly like that:

 it is not the success of a business

 which attains workers happiness.

 I believe

 that if a company provides

 the conditions or the circumstances

 under 

which their employees are happy,

 the company sooner or later 

is bound to succeed. 

And now

 let us come back to some conventional ROI.

 I have been requested

 for different budgets

 coming from the United States, Italy, Mexico, Germany… 

It is clear that

 in half a million people 

at least a few would travel soon to Oviedo.

 I can say very proud 

that I have been the world's 

coolest driver for two days.

 I like it!!!!

The Repercussion in Spain

Once you get to speak well of yourself in New York,

 everything is much easier in Spain.

 A friend posted in a website

 in which news are promoted

 an entry

 that I wrote in my blog. 

In this post I wrote what I had achieved

 which is the same information 

I am sharing with all of you at the moment. 

This post became the cover of the website 

in a few hours.

 The following day my story appeared in the confidencial.com news. 

I received interviewing offers from the radio, 

from newspapers, 

TV and more than 80 blogs around the world.

 If I had to pay these pages in the newspapers,

 these posts, those minutes in radio and television 

I would have spent between 20,000 and 50,000 Euros. 

I had thousands of visits to my blog.

I have been quoted 

in many books

 on social media 

(for example Thinkle has published a book "Sentido Social”

 (an approximate translation into English would be “Social Sense”)

 and that is the most complete book I have read so far.

 You can download it as a pdf file from the website. 

One Book One Euro. 

If you pay a euro the money will go to SAVE THE CHILDREN. 

I have received several offers about ways to recover the investment of time.  

I have also 

started an irreversible path 

towards 

a social corporate responsibility 

in my job:

 the consultant 1300 gramos www.miltrescientosgramos.com

I have developed a report 

to introduce corporate social responsibility activities

 in my taxi 3.0

Let us understand that my taxi 

uses LPG as fuel 

and pollutes less than any conventional fuel.

 It is cheaper and is ecological. 

However,

 this is not enough for me. 

I have proposed that each month

 I'll make an action 

in Corporate Social Responsibility. 

In March 

I went to to a spanish organización of blind people in Spain 

and I asked them 

to translate into Braille my taxi fares.

 I talked to a taxi cooperative in Oviedo

 and I have managed to put it into 100 taxis.

 I have shared this idea

 with several taxi cooperatives in Pamplona,

 Madrid, etc.

 In April 

I have to change the wheels, 

I have chosen green tires. 

In May I delivered another action 

which comprises the type of paper I use

 on my bills, 

and so on... 

I was thinking particularly 

in communicating these actions, 

many of them have no impact

 when only one person does it.

 Nevertheless, 

these are proposals that might be considered 

by other drivers

 and extrapolated 

to many companies 

that have cars for their employees. 

At the end of the year

 I will write my ecological memories

 remembering what I have done. 

The Most Important Project This Year: THE # AVENTURA4SQ  

My idea has to do 

with a trip to the United States of America.

 My goal is to collect badges,

 these are Foursquare medals 

which can only be found in USA. 

For this purpose I intend to make a 50-day travel and 

10,000 milles

 drive through USA

 visiting 17 of the most important cities

 of the country. 

In order to obtain the financial resources

 I used a platform

 related to collective project financing (www. Injoinet.com). 

Finally 

I am here because I have got many sponsors 

and the collaboration of BBVA 

one of the most important banks of Spain, 

in USA BBVA is BBVA Compass

I am  doing this trip accompanied by Azazel, my pet. 

You can follow my fousquare adventure in taxioviedo.org

There is a widget with all new information I am uploading in 

twitter, instagram, my blog, flickr,youtube etc…

and a map which offers my geolocation at real time

developed by treelogic.com

downlading my android app TAXIOVIEDO

or iphone app:taxioviedo.

If you leed my services

I am preparing  my new web,  developed by PROCONSI:COM

 it will be hosted soon in

taxioviedo.com

I summarize my strategy on three tactics: 

1 .--- Think big.

 I want everybody to know who I am 

all over the world

 and when I come back 

people will also know me

 in Spain and Asturias,

 in Oviedo

2 --- If you want to have relevance, 

presence in the future, 

what if you actively 

take part 

in creating that future? 

THANK YOU ALL, 

Thanks;

 appreciated.