¿Qué pasaría si pudieras utilizar la inteligencia artificial para aumentar tu audiencia en TikTok? Esa fue la pregunta que me hice hace unos meses y, gracias a la ayuda de ChatGPT, he estado tratando de responderla.

Decidí lanzar un reto a ChatGPT: conseguir 1 millón de seguidores en mi cuenta de TikTok. ChatGPT aceptó el desafío y empezamos a trabajar juntos en esta aventura.

Comentar que este reto también me serviría para poder finalmente lanzarme al mundo del streaming y abrir con ello mi canal de Twitch.

Para empezar, le pedí que me resumiese este reto para poder así hacerlo público en  este blog, aquí lo dejo:

¡Hola a todos! Hoy estoy emocionado de anunciar que voy a tomar un reto bastante ambicioso: conseguir 1 millón de seguidores en TikTok utilizando la tecnología AI de chatGPT para ayudarme. ChatGPT es un modelo de lenguaje natural de última generación creado por OpenAI que ha demostrado ser altamente efectivo en la generación de contenido original, incluyendo textos, imágenes y videos.

Para ayudarme en este reto, voy a transmitir todo el proceso en directo a través de mi canal de Twitch, ThePablo_Aldana. Además, voy a mencionar otras AIs similares a chatGPT, como Claude AI, y las diferencias entre las versiones gratuitas y de pago. También vamos a tener la oportunidad de ver otras herramientas de AI, como MidJourney y Leonardo.

La tecnología AI está cambiando la forma en que creamos contenido en las redes sociales. Con el aumento del uso de las redes sociales y la necesidad de generar contenido original y atractivo, las empresas están recurriendo cada vez más a soluciones de AI para satisfacer esta demanda.

ChatGPT es un modelo de lenguaje natural de última generación que puede generar contenido original de manera efectiva. Con una formación adecuada, chatGPT puede generar contenido de texto, imágenes y videos de alta calidad.

En este reto, voy a utilizar chatGPT para generar contenido original de video para TikTok. Vamos a explorar juntos las posibilidades de la tecnología AI para crear contenido atractivo y valioso para nuestras audiencias.

Además, vamos a mencionar otras herramientas de AI, como Claude AI, y las diferencias entre las versiones gratuitas y de pago. También vamos a tener la oportunidad de ver otras herramientas de AI, como MidJourney y Leonardo. Vamos a analizar las ventajas y desventajas de cada herramienta y cómo podemos utilizarlas para mejorar nuestra presencia en las redes sociales.

Si te interesa ver cómo vamos a lograr este reto, ¡síguenos en Twitch! También puedes seguir mi cuenta de TikTok para ver cómo se va desarrollando el proceso. Espero que estés tan emocionado como yo por este reto y espero verte allí.

Como se puede observar creo que ha quedado un post brutal que si lo hubiesemos retocado un poco no se notaría diferencia alguna con lo escrito por un humano.

¿Te animas a seguirme en este reto?

[Español]

Hoy en día tener una cobertura Wifi digna  es mas importante que nunca, en casa de mis padres solíamos tener problemas de Wifi desde el primer día, es una casa de tres plantas e incluso en la primera planta había habitaciones donde no llegaba señal alguna. En su día compramos un TP-Link wifi extender, pero era bastante limitado, es mas cada vez que intentabas hacer una video-conferencia tenías que desenchufarlo porque no te daba ancho de banda.

Recientemente empecé a leer sobre las Wifi Mesh y parecían El Santo Grial.

Las Wifi-Mesh crean una red con un unico SSID unificado, usando una topología mesh que permita una extensión mas amplia de la señal y mayor resilencia.

Mas info: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_inalámbrica_mallada

Decidí darle una oportunidad. Hay muchas marcas y modelos en el mercado, pero sabía que el problema de esta casa eran los tres pisos, después de leer muchas reviews,  el único modelo que constaba con un comentario positivo en una casa de tres pisos fue el TP-Link Deco M9.

Mi configuración ideal, era quitar el router Orange (mi ISP) y conectar uno de los TP-Link Deco M9 al modem y hacerlo actuar como router, así eliminar la problemática de la doble NAT, etc..

El problema... fue una pesadilla.. Orange tiene una política muy restrictiva en el setup del router y modem y no permitía conectar directamente el Deco a Internet. Después de muchas horas buscando por internet y de llamadas a Orange, donde aún espero que me devuelvan la llamada el Nivel dos... conseguí configurarlo y de ahí el motivo de este post.

Lo primero de todo, tenéis que conectar el TP-Link Deco M9 al modem por LAN, abrir la aplicación de configuración Deco y seguir las instrucciones hasta que puedas configurar manualmente la red.

Selecciona la configuración de IP Dinámica.

Tenéis que configurar la opción de VLAN. Veréis que no hay una configuración específica para Orange, seleccionar "Custom" y en el valor "VLAN ID" introducís "20".

Si os pide usuario y contraseña

usuario: orangeuser@orangeadsl
password: orangeuser123

Por último la parte más delicada es que Orange asigna el servicio al router especifico que ellos dan. Por lo que  hay que ir al router Livebox+ y clonar la dirección MAC en el Deco.

Conéctate en el panel de administración del router Orange Livebox+ y copia la dirección MAC que tiene el router. Introdúcela en la configuración del TP-Link Deco M9.

¡Et voila! Después de aplicar esta configuración el Deco empezará a recibir internet de Orange permitiéndote no tener el router Livebox+.

Algo que me sorprendió mucho fue que incluso teniendo contratado 300MB de Fibra, con el router de Orange Livebox + los test de velocidad venían dando 150MB justo al lado del router. Sin embargo una vez reemplazado por el TP-Link Deco M9, el test de velocidad aumento ridículamente a 250 280MBps, ¡solo reemplazando el router! No entiendo bien qué cosas capadas tendrá el Livebox, pero solo por esto merece la pena reemplazarlo.

Después de configurar los otros dos puntos de acceso que venían, en las distintas plantas, ahora puedo decir que tengo una cobertura asombrosa en toda la casa, con 250MBps en habitaciones donde antes no llegaba y 150MBps en el último piso.

El TP-Link Deco M9 es caro, pero es a prueba de balas para el futuro, no solo por su velocidad si no también por si Tri-Banda y la implementación de protocolo Zigbee

PS: Sé qué suelo escribir en inglés pero al ser un articulo muy especifico del ISP Orange en España quería escribirlo en Español para así ayudar a todas las personas interesadas en esta configuración o problemática.

Si te ha gustado, subscríbete!

[English]

Nowadays having a proper Wifi signal is more important than ever, at my parent's house we used to have wifi signal problem since the very first day, it is a three floor house and even in the second floor it was really hard to get decent signal and speed  depending on the room. We used to have a TP-Link wifi extender, but it is really limited and actually as soon as you wanted to have a VC it was almost impossible.

Recently I started to read about wifi-mesh and seemed to be the Holy Grail,

Wifi mesh creates a network with a unified SSID using a mesh topology allowing wider signal and resiliance.

From Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network

so I decided to give it a try. There are many brands and model in the market but I knew the problem on this house was the three floors and after reading many reviews the only model who had a positive review on a three floor house was the TP-Link Deco M9.

My ideal configuration was to remove the Orange router and connect one of the  TP-Link Deco M9 to the modem and make it act as a router, removing the issue with double NAT etc..

The problem ... it was a nightmare...  Orange has a really restricted setup and it did not allow the Deco to connect to the internet, after several hours of research and calls to the Customer service, where by the way I'm still waiting for them to call me back...  I manage to set it up and that's the reason of the post.

First of all you need to connect by LAN the TP-Link Deco M9 to the modem, and open the Deco App on your phone, follow the instructions until where you need to configure the network manually.

Select Dynamic IP

You need to configure the option for VLAN. You will see there is no VLAN for Orange, select "custom" value and on "VLAN ID" type "20".

If by any reason asks you for the username and password

user: orangeuser@orangeadsl
password: orangeuser123

Finally the trickiest part is that Orange service is assigned to the specific router they give you and nothing else. You will need to get the Mac for the router and clone it into the DECO. Connect to your Livebox+ Orange router admin panel, copy the MAC Addresss and introduce it into your TP-Link Deco M9 configuration

Et voila! after this your Deco will get internet from Orange ISP avoiding to have the Livebox router.

Something that really surprised me was even If I had 300MB of fiber, with the Orange Livebox+ router the test speed used to give me around 150MBps, next to the router. Once I replace it with the TP-Link Deco M9 the speed increased ridiculously to 250 280 MBps just replacing the router!  

After that I configure the other two access point on the different floors and now I can say I have a really good coverage in the whole house, with 250MB in rooms where there was no internet, and a decent 150MB on the top floor.

TP-Link Deco M9 is expensive, but it is bullet proof for the future, not only for its speed, but for its Tri-band and Zigbee capabilities.

I love to discover new technologies, and I discovered Strapi like a year ago but never had the chance to build something from scratch until a couple of months ago. I wanted to create my own up for a movement call Stay Active and it was the perfect occasion to use Strapi but I needed the app itself... and I didn't want to build it twice, one for Android and one for iOS and I remembered we did a proof of concept on the project, replicating our app One Pay FX using Flutter,  the results were impressive so I had already selected the technologies I needed.

But... what is Strapi and what is Flutter?

Strapi is an open-source, Node.js based, headless CMS to manage content and make it available through a fully customizable API. It is designed to build practical, production-ready Node.js APIs in hours instead of weeks.

And what is Flutter?

Flutter is Google’s UI toolkit for building beautiful, natively compiled applications for mobile, web, and desktop from a single codebase.

Sounds like heaven isn't it? After get some experience I decided to do a Friday Tech Talk in everis UK  bringing a quick introduction to both of them where we will built an app in less than an hour

PRE-Requisites

First of all we need to setup the environment depending on if you are using Mac OS, Windows, Linux or Chrome OS it will vary a bit, but the essence is the same. As the intention of this post is not to teach you how to install but how to code I will link you directly to the official guides, they will always be up to date.

If you have any issue during the installation leave a comment and I will help you!

Install Flutter:

1. Install visual studio (if you don't have it already :O!):

   • https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/install/install-visual-studio?view=vs-2019

2. Install Flutter

   • https://flutter.dev/docs/get-started/install
   • Setup Visual Studio for Flutter: https://flutter.dev/docs/get-started/editor?tab=vscode

3. Install Strapi

   • https://strapi.io/documentation/v3.x/getting-started/installation.html

For Strapi, I personally use the CLI as provides me with faster development (it has hot reload) and Docker does not consume my laptop resources.  But feel free :)

For deployment, I do bundle it into a docker and deploy the docker using an external DB.

For testing the flutter app  I recommend to use a real device, the feedback is better and it uses less resources than the simulator.

Hands on

We will create an app that show the user a list of the best pubs around the everis UK office. So that we can decide easily where to go every Friday (yeah sure.. just on Fridays  🙄)

First we will create the model and APIs on Strapi.

Create Strapi project

yarn create strapi-app everis-fridays-pubs --quickstart

Navigate to http://localhost:1337/admin  Complete the form to create the first Administrator user and click Ready to start.

That's all we have now a full set of API ready to be consumed

Create Pub Content type

Now is time to create the Pub content type that the app will retrieve and show to the users.

• Go to Content-Types Builder
• Click "Create new Collection Type"
• Enter your collection name, this example "Pubs"

We need to define the fields of our model "Pub" for this basic example we will create. User lowercase otherwise you'll have conflict with Flutter.

• name - Text
• address - Text
• picture - Media
• avgPrice - Number

After click "Save" our server will auto restart to pick up the changes.

In Collection Type you'll see now the "Pubs" collection. Go there and create a few pubs to be retrieved from the API.

You will probably be tempted to test it by using Postman, but...

There is one last step before the pubs API can be used. Permission your API! As you can see the API is working as expected as by the default Strapi creates the APIs with restricted permissions. For the simplicity of this example we will give public permission to the Pub API.

Go to "Roles & Permissions" -> "Public" and give permission to your API.

If you try now, you'll see how your data is returned when calling the /GET

What is happening behind the scenes? Strapi is nothing else than a nodeJS project that we can tune or completely code from our IDE. Actually any custom query will be coded in there. Any change in the code is reflected on the admin panel and vice-versa.

Create Flutter App

Time to switch to the front end and create our app.

• flutter create everis_fridays_pubs_app
• cd everis_fridays_pubs_app
• flutter devices
• flutter run

et voilà ! we have already an app!

Time to code! Go to lib/main.dart and delete all the content. Replace the content to with:

// Copyright 2018 The Flutter team. All rights reserved.
// Use of this source code is governed by a BSD-style license that can be
// found in the LICENSE file.

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';

void main() => runApp(EverisFridayappEverisFridayApp());

class MyApp extends StatelessWidget {
  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return MaterialApp(
      title: 'Everis Fridays Pub',
      home: Scaffold(
        appBar: AppBar(
          title: Text('Everis Fridays Pub'),
        ),
        body: Center(
          child: Text('Pubs will be listed here'),
        ),
      ),
    );
  }
}

In order to call the API to retrieve the pubs and handle the JSONs we need to libraries installed in our pubspec.yaml  

In dependencies add

  json_annotation: ^3.0.1
  http: ^0.12.1

and in dev_dependencies

  build_runner: ^1.10.0
  json_serializable: ^3.3.0

It should look like

dependencies:
  flutter:
    sdk: flutter


  # The following adds the Cupertino Icons font to your application.
  # Use with the CupertinoIcons class for iOS style icons.
  cupertino_icons: ^0.1.3
  json_annotation: ^3.0.1
  http: ^0.12.1

dev_dependencies:
  flutter_test:
    sdk: flutter
  build_runner: ^1.10.0
  json_serializable: ^3.3.0

Save and Visual studio will automatically download the dependencies, other wise use the the terminal and execute: flutter pub get

We are ready to create our pubs.dart model create a folder  lib/models and inside the pubs.dart file. We need to represent the Pubs model created in Strapi here or at least the information we need.

import 'package:json_annotation/json_annotation.dart';
import 'pubPicture.dart';

part 'pubs.g.dart';

@JsonSerializable(explicitToJson: true)
class Pubs {
  Pubs(
    {
      this.id,
      this.name,
      this.address,
      this.picture,
    }
  );

  final int id;
  final String name;
  final String address;
  final PubPicture picture;

  factory Pubs.fromJson(Map<String, dynamic> json) =>
      _$PubsFromJson(json);

  Map<String, dynamic> toJson() => _$PubsToJson(this);

}

You will notice this will fail, do not worry there is still a couple of things to do. First we need to create the model for picture as it is an object inside the pub. More info here

NOTE: the id type will vary on the database your use in Strapi, if you are using sqllite as per default, int will be fine, if you decide to use mongo, you will need to use String.

Inside Models create a new file pubPicture.dart

import 'package:json_annotation/json_annotation.dart';


part 'pubPicture.g.dart';

@JsonSerializable(explicitToJson: true)
class PubPicture {
  PubPicture({this.id, this.name, this.url});

  final int id;
  final String name; 
  final String url;

  factory PubPicture.fromJson(Map<String, dynamic> json) =>
      _$PubPictureFromJson(json);

  Map<String, dynamic> toJson() => _$PubPictureToJson(this);
}

You probably have noticed we are only mapping three fields even if the JSON object has more, but we do not need more than the URL to be displayed.

Now is time to generate the models run, flutter packages pub run build_runner build and all errors will disappear

Before continue working on lib/main.dart. We want to create the Pub Card. This widget will be the representation of each individual item of the list we will show.

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';

import 'models/pubs.dart';

class PubCard extends StatelessWidget {
  const PubCard([
    this.pub,
  ]);

  final Pubs pub;

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Card(
      child: ListTile(
        leading: ConstrainedBox(
        constraints: BoxConstraints(
          minWidth: 44,
          minHeight: 44,
          maxWidth: 64,
          maxHeight: 64,
        ),
        child: Image.network(
            'http://yourlocalIP:1337' +
                pub.picture.url,
            fit: BoxFit.cover),
      ),
        title: Text(
          pub.name
        ),
        subtitle: Text(pub.address),
        trailing: Column(children:<Widget>[Text('Avg Price'),Text(pub.avgPrice.toString())]),
        contentPadding: EdgeInsets.symmetric(vertical: 40.0, horizontal: 20.0),
      ),
      shape: RoundedRectangleBorder(borderRadius: BorderRadius.circular(20.0)),
    );
  } 
}

NOTE: if you are debugging on a physical device this must be connected to the same network and the URL yourlocalIP must be the computer's IP that is running Strapi in my case 192.168.68.111  

We are ready to work on showing the list on our main.dart file.  Flutters uses FutureBuilder to make asynchronous calls. We need to implement it to call the server.

Import the packages

import 'package:http/http.dart' as http;
import 'package:http/http.dart';
import 'dart:convert';

Create a function getPubs

Future<String> getPubs(_listPubs) async {
  final Response response = await http.get('http://yourlocalIP:1337/pubs/');

  if (response.statusCode == 200) {
    List<dynamic> pubsListRaw = jsonDecode(response.body);
    for (var i = 0; i < pubsListRaw.length; i++) {
      _listPubs.add(Pubs.fromJson(pubsListRaw[i]));
    }

    return "Success!";
  } else {
    throw Exception('Failed to load data');
  }
}

Let's add the final code to show the list of pubs. We need to create the function _buildPubs

Widget _buildPubs() {
    return FutureBuilder(
      builder: (context, projectSnap) {
        if (projectSnap.connectionState == ConnectionState.none &&
            projectSnap.hasData == null) {
          return Container();
        }
        return ListView.builder(
          itemCount: _listPubs.length,
          itemBuilder: (context, index) {
            return PubCard(_listPubs[index]);
          },
        );
      },
      future: futurePubs,
    );
  }

To finalise we have to call the futurePubs when the app is loaded the first time but this will fail because initially we declared our app as Stateless which mean it won't change the state once is created however as we are using Future and asynchronous calls the content of the app changes once is created we need to twitch a bit the code and make it Statefull

Final main.dart code

// Copyright 2018 The Flutter team. All rights reserved.
// Use of this source code is governed by a BSD-style license that can be
// found in the LICENSE file.

import 'package:everis_fridays_pubs_app/pub_card.dart';
import 'package:flutter/material.dart';

import 'models/pubs.dart';
import 'package:http/http.dart' as http;
import 'package:http/http.dart';
import 'dart:convert';

void main() => runApp(EverisFridayApp());

class EverisFridayApp extends StatefulWidget {
  @override
  EverisFridayState createState() => EverisFridayState();
}

class EverisFridayState extends State<EverisFridayApp> {

  final List<Pubs> _listPubs = <Pubs>[];
  
  Future<String> futurePubs;
  
  @override
  void initState() {
    super.initState();
    futurePubs = getPubs(_listPubs);
  }
  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return MaterialApp(
      title: 'Everis Fridays Pub',
      home: Scaffold(
        appBar: AppBar(
          title: Text('Everis Fridays Pub'),
          backgroundColor: Color(0xff9aae04),
        ),
        body: Center(
          child: _buildPubs(),
        ),
      ),
    );
  }

  Widget _buildPubs() {
    return FutureBuilder(
      builder: (context, projectSnap) {
        if (projectSnap.connectionState == ConnectionState.none &&
            projectSnap.hasData == null) {
          return Container();
        }
        return ListView.builder(
          itemCount: _listPubs.length,
          itemBuilder: (context, index) {
            return PubCard(_listPubs[index]);
          },
        );
      },
      future: futurePubs,
    );
  }
}

Future<String> getPubs(_listPubs) async {
  final Response response = await http.get('http://192.168.68.111:1337/pubs');

  if (response.statusCode == 200) {
    List<dynamic> pubsListRaw = jsonDecode(response.body);
    for (var i = 0; i < pubsListRaw.length; i++) {
      _listPubs.add(Pubs.fromJson(pubsListRaw[i]));
    }

    return "Success!";
  } else {
    throw Exception('Failed to load data');
  }
}

As you can see the power and speed of the combination Flutter and Strapi is astonish.  This app could be perfectly bundled and release to Android and iOS and it only took us one hour to code it.

If you have any issue or blocker drop a comment and I'll happily help you.

You can find the repository in GitHub

If you liked the post, please share it! and do not forget to subscribe :)

The result

We all are facing probably the worst crisis of our era, COVID-19, coronavirus, and as any periodo of our time we need to learn from it. I wanted to analyse and understand the current situation on one of most impacted industry, Tourism and Hospitality and for this I count with two experts on the sector, Stefano Potorti and Javier Navas-Migueloa.

Italian entrepreneur founder of various companies ranging from catering consultancy and agri-food promotion (Sagitter One), to training tourism abroad (Sagitter Training), real estate (Sagitter Estate) and the digital sector (Sierra Digital).

Always passionate about food and catering, he started working in London as a manager in the restaurant sector in 2003.

Stefano is also Vice President of the Italian Chamber of Commerce for the United Kingdom. Graduated in Economics at the University of Pisa, with a specialisation in international marketing, he then completed a specialist course in marketing and communication in the hospitality sector and human resource management in the tourism sector.

Javier Navas-Migueloa, from Madrid, Spain. He is currently leading the Hospitality, Travel & Leisure sector in everis UK since 2016 with special focus on the airline industry. Has been working in consulting since 2005. During his career has had the opportunity to work in other industries such as Auto, Retail, Banking, etc.

We have seen the industry sector is one of the most impacted for the coronavirus crisis, airlines that have shut down, Erasmus program cancelled, most retail forced to shut.

How has the industry, tourism, formative tourism, and hospitality sector been real impacted by the corona virus crisis?

Stefano: At this stage it’s still difficult to asses the impact of the Covid-19 on the industry as the emergency is not over. It is clear that nobody was ready for that and all the above sectors have already received an economic negative impact.

Javier: This pandemic situation, and specially the containment of it, has had an unprecedented impact on the industry. The standstill request or mandate to an estimated 4.5 billion people has had an immediate effect on all sectors, people not traveling, working from home, holidays cancellations, etc. Generating unseen before pictures like the ones of fleets of plains in the runways of different airports waiting patiently for the world to recover.
The airline industry, for example its virtually grounded with over 80% of the flights on the ground by early April.
The biggest problem might be the uncertainty of what it is to come. This situation is going to transform the way we travel, and the industry must prepare for this, either acting and leading that new ways of travel, or adapting quickly to it.

How is your company adapting to the COVID-19 situation and what is your opinion on remote working?

Stefano: I’m currently rethinking the business model as it’s not clear yet when and how students will start travelling again. The first step I’ve taken was to reduce costs immediately to be sure the business survives.

I’m restructuring some services and planning new ones. Also I’m in touch with other operators to share ideas and common issues.

Javier: Our company has reacted very quickly, in the UK for example, we were asked to stay at home a week before the official mandate from the government with the objective of protecting our core asset, which is our people.
Since we have the right tools, we have been able to adapt quickly and work from home, and we have also adapted to our clients and necessities, supporting them as much as possible to cope with these circumstances.
From our People team a big effort has been made to take the necessary actions and provide support to all employees, specially to those that have more difficulties.
As a company we are also our clients, proactively offering support, solutions, and assets that can not only help getting through the bad times, but also leading the way to the new future that we are facing.
It makes me very proud to see how everyone has reacted, providing flexibility, adjusting our homes and personal lives to this situation, and specially getting the recognition of our partners and clients as a company that is loyal and is trying to honestly help.

You know I am a passionate about digital transformation and digital evolution. I have seen schools teaching online with limited tools, big retails companies selling by phone, personal trainers providing live workouts on Instagram, clearly the majority of the world was not ready for a lockdown situation.

I think it is time to change, to improve, to see new business opportunities, to move to cloud services and Solutions as a Service, because, Could a Gym not offer an online subscription apart of the on-site one? Could not a retail sell online or provide live instructions on how a product works or is mounted reaching thousands of potential customers at time instead just one?  It will create new opportunities, business cases and more important companies will be more resilience from an economical point of view-

How do you think it will transform the current market? Will digital business transformation finally fully happen? Will we see a mass movement of companies offering Cloud Service or Solutions as a Services?

Stefano: I agree with you that digital transformation is the future and there is not way back. This experience has definitely given a boost to the digital world but it will take time for it to become an essential part of our daily life. Let’ not forget that right now people are forced to work or exercise from home but once the lockdown will be over I’m sure they will tent to go back to old habits. We should maximise this experience and rethink the way we live.

Javier: Is this the end of low-cost traveling? Not sure, but it will for sure change. As we mentioned, the travel industry has probably been the first to be majorly impacted, and it sadly looks like it will be one of the last ones to recover because of the nature of the pandemic, and the reaction of the world to it.

Many questions arise such as when will countries open their air space again for foreign travellers? what conditions we will need to meet to be able to fly? But also, when are we going to feel safe and comfortable to travel again? Etc.

IATA is currently estimating a loss twice as large as the one suffered during 2009 Global Financial Crisis, and around $314billion loss of passenger revenue compared to 2019.
The recovery will be seen earlier with domestic travel and later with international travels going back to a new normality.

But again, on the positive end it is a great opportunity to think, analyse and model the future and, why not, establish the foundation for a fully digital business transformation, which was already ongoing.

But the focus will initially be to make companies slimmer and more efficient and sustainable, since the economic impact and the recession we will face are going to be long and tough.

The transformation, recovery and survivor of the industry will be linked to the support and generosity of everyone, the companies that make it up, governments, the partners and suppliers that collaborate within but also with the costumer, which will be key in this recovery period.

Continuing talking about digitalisation, tourism and formative tourism, a part of the digitalisation we see it is happening in airlines, offering their services online, improving their booking systems and on boarding, it is mostly based on experiences, in theory, physical experiences, travel to a new country and learn their culture, to do a work experience or studying abroad giving you the possibility to meet people from different cultures, etc.

How do you think this will change, if it will? Could tourism and formative tourism be digitalised? could it be transformed it into for example a “cloud services”?

Stefano: Formative tourism can definitely became more digitalised even thought I believe that the human contact must remain part of the experience. Otherwise the risk is to live in a digital reality. Technology will help in many ways but I can’t see it replacing the physical experience at least in the short medium term. It might happen in the long term.

Javier: The digitalisation of the industry is a fact. With online booking, mobile apps evolution, and ancillaries and additional services offered through digital channels. From the customer point of view, it is true that the way we book a flight hasn’t evolve much. Departure, destination, date, we see the cost, and we book the flight. We have seen airlines trying to different things such as auctioning flights, search with a destination with a picture, etc., but with limited results.

Now, as you are implying, it is time to be brave and transform this situation into an opportunity to bring new alternatives to customers.
One interesting thing that is happening during the confinement period is the growth of online or digital travel and tourism, where many apps and websites that offer virtual visits to museums, cities, nature, safaris, etc, have seen a tremendous growth in visits and downloads, as people crave to be out, explore, learn and visit new places, living that experience a different way.

I also think it is important to mention that this digitalisation its not only for the customer, but also if no more, used internally to improve operations of the airlines. Training, engineering, MRO, for example are areas that are already using VR in their daily work, airports are improving their efficiency applying solutions like automatic boarder control and self/boarding, baggage control is being automatised and improve with digital means, etc.
This still has long ways to improve, unfortunately the recession that’s coming will delay this evolution, but it will happen.

During this period we have seen many governments acting,  applying measures to reduce the impact as much as possible, some of them right other they could have been better, but we cannot change the past.  Where we have control is over the present and the future.  What would you do to reactive the sector once all this finish?

Stefano: I believe that the government is strongly supporting the SME. I never seen similar financial support in the past. Once the emergency is over is essential to reinstate confidence into consumers as the only way forward is to relaunch the economy. It will take several months (somebody is saying a couple of years) but we will get there.

Javier: Difficult question, there is a big part that comes with the confidence of people to travel again. If people feel safe and they know that the actions have been taken to preserve their health we will travel again. Governments will play a pivotal role as they will decide when, where and how people will be able to travel again.

Finally, any tip you would like to give?

Stefano: Use this time to rethink your business model, your strategy and yourself. Things will be different and you must be ready for the new scenario. Positivity and resilience are key factors.

Javier: We need to be patient and generous, helping each other and understanding that this is going to be like a marathon, not a sprint.

As we can see the impact is deeper than we believed, but with so in my opinion a bigger opportunities. I think it is time to change our mindsets, invest in digital, not only by improving customer experience, but to restore the confidence of our customers, to reduce costs in operations and improve efficiency.

I would like to thank Javier Navas-Migueloa and Stefano Potorti for sharing their time as I well know how busy are their agenda nowadays.

I always try to be organised and have my day in schedule, with my routines. Then something changed, we all got isolated. It is not that I will complain, but when we talk about routines, this is a breakdown. I saw myself with four hour more a day, that I was saving from the commute, plus the rest of the day but instead to help me being more productive and get more of my day, it produced the opposite procrastination.

I heard before about Pomodoro technique, but never tried it before, at the end, it has been always easy for me to focus on my job, so I decided to give it a try. Good thing, I just needed a timer a Pomodoro timer!

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. The technique uses a timer to break down work into intervals, traditionally 25 minutes in length, separated by short breaks. Each interval is known as a pomodoro, from the Italian word for 'tomato', after the tomato-shaped kitchen timer that Cirillo used as a university student.
-Wikipedia-

I didn't want to over complicated I wanted to test if Pomodoro Technique  was meant for me. So I googled it "pomodoro timer" and pick the first result.

Pomodoro Tracker

Web based application, The Pomodoro Tracker lets you use their timer without installing the app. Easy to use, start the time, stop and if you want to quantify your tasks a TODO editable list. The app allows you to customise your settings to change session lengths, notification settings, and integrate with other apps. Pomodoro Tracker has a free version and paid premium version.

Result: It was great, in half day I achieved everything I planned for the day. I saw it had a lot of potential not only for my work but my side projects, daily activities like reading, meditation or house tasks like cleaning where I found myself many times just procrastinating between the vacuum cleaner and the laundry. Now it was the moment to find the right app for me.

Pomodor-Tracker was great.

PROS:

• Easy to setup and use
• Relative clean interface
• Lots of integrations (Trello, TODOist, Telegram, Slack... )

CONST:

• No mobile App

Yes, no mobile app, it has a mac app, but all my possible uses of the pomodoro technique I needed as must have, mobile app and Apple Watch app, for those moments where I'm doing tasks away of my phone or computer, like cleaning, tidying up or you are in meetings i.e: scrum ceremonies and want to keep people focus by using pomodoro. The should have integrations and as nice to have, iPad app and Mac app.

Unfortunately I could not find and app with all those characteristics (Spoiler alert: This could be a micro SaaS idea).

I did a bit of researched and here a summary of the apps I tested and the winner.

PomoDoneApp

The PomoDoneApp is simple to use pomodoro timer with many integrations with other task management software like Trello, Asana, Todoist...

It has a free plan  that allows you manage up to five projects with two Third party integrations and Premium that starts at £1,88

PROS

• Clean design
• iOS  and Android (including iPad)
• Windows, Linux and Mac app
• Web App
• Third party Integrations
• Free plan

CONS

• No Apple Watch
  

Focus Keeper

Hyper customisable app for pomodoro technique, Focus Keeper is a time tracking tool with intuitive interface and productivity charts. You can customise the timer, sessions, goals, colours, sounds...

The app is free to use with in-app purchases.

PROS

• Clean interface
• iOS App (including iPad)
• Customisation
• Free to use

CONS

• No Apple Watch app
• No Mac or Windows app
• No Third party integrations

Be Focused

The almost winner, the Be Focused app has iOS and Apple Watch app, with task management  and several customisation like the ability to set break and work session durations, goal tracking, pie chart... You can add new tasks from your Apple Watch using dictation, and when you start the timer in your watch it starts and synchronises with the timer in your phone.

The app is free with basic features with a premium version Be Focused Pro for Mac

PROS

• iOS, iPad and Apple Watch app
• Customisation
• Synchronisation between Apple Watch and iPhone app
• Add tasks from your Apple Watch

CONS

• I found the design a bit messy and not as clearer as the other apps
• Mac app is not free
• No support for other platforms like Android or Windows and not support for web
• Project management is not intuitive.
• No third party integrations

Focus To-Do

The winner, as I spoiled at the beginning I could not find an app with all the features I was looking for, but Focus To-Do has convenient features I need for now, it can be used on mobile, tablet and desktop. Focus To-Do includes reports, synchronisation between multiple devices a whole TODO app features from projects, to lists, set up priorities, due dates or reminders. You can split projects into subtasks, add notes or repeats.

The design is clean and fresh and it is free to download and use. The "but" it has no third party integrations, but I do not need it thanks to its capabilities of TODOs managements features.

PROS

• iOS, Android, iPad and Apple Watch app
• MacOSX and Windows app
• Concise project management tools in form of TODO lists
• Customisations
• White noise for concentrations
• Different timers
• Synchronisation between devices (Premium feature)

CONS

• No third party integrations
• Synchronisation between devices (Premium feature, yeah for some people it might be a cons ;) )

From now, I moved from using Asana, Trello, Click Up to  Focus To-Do, as I'm using it to manage myself and not a whole project I do not need complex management settings but in my opinion third party integrations could be an easy feature to include that it would solve almost all uses cases.

As you can see there are plenty options in the market to be more productive and this is just a summary of a huge list of options.

What is your favourite tool? What is your secret sauce to be productive? Leave a comment ;)

You
Bored in your chair (sofa, tube, I hope not driving ..) you've got to this post and you're wondering why and what am I doing here?

Well I am not the one to answer you this question I wish I could! I wouldn't be writing here but calling you directly. Instead I'll try to make you enjoy these next five minutes reading.

Who
My name is Pablo Aldana. I was born in the 80s in a small city in the south west of Spain. It was a time where technology was not iPhones, SaaS, Fintech, smart cities... No! Technology was an analog TV, Being a fanboy meant listening to music in your Walkman, and playing in the street with your bicycles was normal (mainstream) and not something cool, healthy and accountable by an app. We were not born digital, Digital born with us.

What
Can you expect here? If you have reached this post, either you love technology or you do love experiences, all this is about, technology, experiences :)  but what is really that? What does it mean?

Nowadays everything is technology related, and everything is life and life is experiences. We will write about technology and all it is around (startups, marketing, businesses, analytics, UX, health...) through the experiences we do live.

You read well and twice, "we". I cannot expect less from you than desire and collaboration here through your experience.

Why
I had my first computer when I was ten (a Cyrix MII ) I created and sold my first webpage with 14 years old to a theatre group. I used to be and I am a Software Engineer (Developer) and love to code. I am a Consultant, and love to help and advise. I am a CTO in a startup and love to learn and inspire .

System.out.println("Hello world!");