Bob’s Bits for August 2023
Halfway through August and seeing ski areas post their opening days for the 2023/2024 season. Wow, where did summer go? From a Northern New England perspective, it has been one with significant water challenges, too much, making on-hill work and new construction tough. It is the weather, stupid, something you can’t control. Steep is happy […]
ARENA SlopeManagement
By Maximilian Mündler MSc, Product Manager Last week I listened to the latest episode of the Storm Skiing Podcast with Alterra Mountain Company CEO Jared Smith. In the opening sequence, the former CEO of Alterra Mountain Company, Rusty Gregory, talked about how ski resorts are currently going through a transformation process that is bringing them […]
MountainOffice Free Online Demo
Over the years, many people have asked me for an online demo of MountainOffice, but I could not provide such until recently. As you may recall MountainOffice began serving ski areas in 1999 when online demos didn’t exist. Business was good, and improving the product was the main concern. Things like online demos were technically […]
SmartMountain – The Story
It is a busy Saturday in February, and the mountain is straining under several thousand skiers and riders. All lifts are turning, parking lots are overfull, lodges are jammed, and all looks good. Then a slide happens in the North Bowl, and there are reports of people in the slide, and Lift 6 goes down […]
The Advantages of Digital
So much of what you read about ski industry-related digital tools is directly transactional with the skiers, riders, mountain bikers, and others. And this is as it should be. The multi-touch points the ski area has with its customers are many and making that easier for the customers is logical and sound business. The ultimate […]
MountainOffice more Web-based
MountainOffice has just released its latest update, version 1.4.5, but that does not stop the developers from continuing to move MountainOffice forward. After the 2023 InterAlpin in Innsbruck, MountainOffice staff reviewed the input they accumulated from existing clients, potential clients, and even competitors to check where they were at and where the input was telling […]
Bob’s Bits for July 2023
Not sure what to think about the national weather – heat, tornados, and flooding. Thoughts and prayers go out to those suffering from the impacts of these violent acts of nature. After three years of La Nina’s influence on the tropics, conditions transitioned to El Niño in June 2023. The warmth shows up first in […]
Managers – Establishing Legitimacy
Another Harvard Business Review article I thought had meaningful relevancy to the ski industry. I have taken the liberty to make the article more ski area manager meaningful. Front-line ski area managers are given the authority to lead by the rules of ski area governance, documented or implied via practices or verbal communication governance. They […]
Today’s Answer for Better Maintenance
If you want better maintenance for your ski lifts, check out the brief video in this post. It is easy and simple to use, MountainOffice. Yes, MountainOffice has been around for 23 years in the ski area maintenance arena. But that doesn’t mean that the program that was created in 1998 is the same that […]
Are Waivers the Best Basis for Choosing an Incident Management Program?
Many of the ski areas currently using a digital incident management system made their decision to select the system because the incident management system could connect to a waiver database. There is nothing wrong with connecting to a waiver database to attach a waiver to the incident. Unquestionably, having a waiver attached is of significant […]
