Lessons Airlines Can Learn From PCs

Grok Headline matches for Lessons Airlines Can Learn From PCs

U.S. Studies WTC Deaths to Learn Lessons
for Future

U.S. Studies WTC Deaths to Learn Lessons
for Future 07/21/2004 07:21 AM
Reuters via Wired News Jul 21 2004 12:03PM GMT

NHSU seeks to learn some valuable online
lessons

NHSU seeks to learn some valuable online
lessons 09/22/2004 11:47 AM
vnunet.com Sep 22 2004 2:56PM GMT

Fly Xenophobia Airlines

Fly Xenophobia Airlines 08/05/2004 09:39 PM
During a flight from Detroit to Los Angeles, an Eel.Nu reader faced terror in the skies and lived to tell about it: "As I entered the plane, that's when I first noticed it. My Arabar, or Arab-radar, was going batshit crazy."

Oceanic Airlines

Oceanic Airlines 06/17/2005 03:45 PM

I'm pretty addicted to the TV show "Lost." The first season has wrapped up and left some amazing cliffhangers. I finally got all the episodes watched (thanks BitLord), and I started looking around to see what was on the Web to hold me over until fall.

It turns out that the creators of "Lost" are unbelievably abusive to their fan base. They've created a site which just takes advantage of the fact that the fans of "Lost" are obssessive to the extreme. As one of this site's victims, I can attest that unleashing it was a stunning act of cruelty.

In the show, Oceanic Airlines, Flight 815 goes down en route from Sydney to Los Angeles (let me also say that I'm the creator of the Oceanic Airlines page on Wikipedia, which is thriving right now). One day, www.oceanic-air.com popped onto the Net, which is, ostensibly, their corporate site.

The site was never publicized by ABC. Some viewers with a Tivo apparently found it by freeze-framing a scene in the airport containing a poster for Oceanic Airlines. ABC just stuck that poster in the show knowing that someone would stumble on it eventually.

Fake Web sites like this aren't new, but this one includes a Flash-based "seating chart" on which you can mouse over the seats. Someone figured out that you can make different seats light up by clicking other seats in a certain order and at a certain frequency. Every once in a while, you get an Easter Egg in the form of some supporting documentation about a character — their passport, dairy, or something else.

And off to the races the fans went. See this thread at the online forums for most of the sequences. Some guy finally decompiled the Flash and extracted the pictures, but apparently not all the sequences. Then someone figured out that if you clicked the seat row numbers in a certain order (these numbers and their order are central to the show itself), you got a full-blown promo for Season Two.

"Lost" is taking the fake site concept further than most, as there's more than one. There's a site for the band DriveSHAFT, which is supposedly the one-hit wonder band for which character Charlie Pace was the bassist. The site is so perfectly done — just amateur enough to seem real — that it almost fooled me into thinking it was real...until I found this "news article" about the crash of Flight 815 which refers to characters in the show.

So the discovery of this second site leaves me wondering, are there others? Are the creators of this show (J.J. Abrams — the same crack dealer who gave us " Alias") creating a full-blown backdrop on the Web? Is stuff going on these sites that's crucial for understanding the episodes on TV? Is any of it canonical?

I hate that I've become one of the obssessed.

Day of reckoning near for some airlines

Day of reckoning near for some airlines 09/12/2004 01:32 AM
Seattletimes.nwsource.com - Sun Sep 12, 03:53 am GMT

bbc lessons

bbc lessons 02/10/2004 02:53 AM
So the lesson of BBC is that if you're misleading about whether the government misled you into war, management must resign. What about the simpler case -- you're just misleading about going to war? Meanwhile, BBC employees organize to fight the ch ill of government sponsored scolding. And some non-BBC Brits, shocked at the scolding, organi ze to ask the simpler case -- in Britain.

Top Asian airlines to offer Wi-Fi in the
sky soon (AFP)

Top Asian airlines to offer Wi-Fi in the
sky soon (AFP) 06/20/2004 07:08 PM
AFP - Tired of watching in-flight movies and anxious about that big business meeting coming up in New York or the latest European football match results?

Major Airlines Will Fail

Major Airlines Will Fail 08/30/2004 02:08 PM
Why bankruptcy and airline companies are so acquainted.

United Airlines Spam

United Airlines Spam 03/24/2005 11:36 PM
I'm a United Mileage Plus member and I'm a pretty frequent flyer (I've amasedd about 50,000 miles these past three months) so I am a frequent visitor to the United site and happily receive the mailings. So, it gives me...

Airlines get in-flight Internet

Airlines get in-flight Internet 11/15/2003 01:09 AM
Sunday Times South Africa Nov 15 2003 0:12AM ET

American Airlines may need more
concessions

American Airlines may need more
concessions 03/19/2005 03:01 AM
Seattletimes.nwsource.com - Sat Mar 19, 12:37 am GMT

'Al-Qaeda' threat to US airlines

'Al-Qaeda' threat to US airlines 06/07/2004 12:25 PM
A statement said to be from al-Qaeda militants in Saudi Arabia warns of new attacks on US and Western airlines.

American Airlines Fuels Up

American Airlines Fuels Up 01/16/2004 01:03 PM
American Airlines is surcharged and ready. But will others follow suit?

Rethinking Legacy Airlines

Rethinking Legacy Airlines 01/06/2005 05:07 PM
Delta cuts premium fares by as much as 50%. Can any of this lead to profits for investors?

More Computer Problems Take Down More
Airlines

More Computer Problems Take Down More
Airlines 08/02/2004 04:42 AM
It seems like there's been something of a slightly scary trend lately of computer glitches completely grounding airlines. In May, a computer glitch grounded Delta flights. Just a few weeks ago Northwes t Airlines was grounded due to a computer glitch. This weekend, both US Air and American were grounded by computer glitches. It seems more than a bit odd that so many airlines would have so many computer glitches that impact so much of their business in such a short time-frame. The two problems this weekend were due to an EDS malfunction, though it's unclear about the previous problems.

U.S. Airlines Have 34 Deaths in 3 Years
(AP)

U.S. Airlines Have 34 Deaths in 3 Years
(AP) 01/03/2005 05:41 PM
AP - Only 34 people have died in U.S. commercial airline crashes in the past three years, making it one of the safest periods in aviation history even as more Americans than ever travel by air.

Classmates and Amercian Airlines

Classmates and Amercian Airlines 05/07/2004 05:00 AM

Here we go!

Re unions In The Air.

So yesterday I told you about American Airlines’ shameless play to connect our familial dots and then fly us all to our family reunions.

Well today Classmates.com gets into the act of bringing our academic families back together with Reunion Center 2.0—offering online ticket sales for school, work, and military reunions. According to the press release we can utilize Classmates.com Reunion Center to:

  — Sell tickets online for all reunion events and collect payment from attendees via Visa, MasterCard or check.
  — Post reunion information and photos to share with their class.
  — Increase reunion awareness by leveraging Classmates.com’s listing of more than 38 million school alumni.
  — Send email invitations, updates and reminders to the reunion class, even if they are not yet members of Classmates.com.
  — Show class members a current RSVP list of reunion attendees.
  — Find lost alumni and enable class members to stay in touch.
  — Create class message boards to share reunion ideas and memories.
  — Get ideas from thousands of other reunion planners.

All for a modest processing fee. Have you been to a High School Reunion lately?

[The Social Software Weblog]

Someone tell Northwest Airlines to get a
clue!

Someone tell Northwest Airlines to get a
clue! 04/28/2004 10:17 AM
I get my tickets late Tuesday afternoon and look at the travel itinerary and low and behold I have a...

I Love American Airlines

I Love American Airlines 12/02/2002 01:17 PM
For a long time, I was a loyal patron of the Northwest, Continental, America West family of airlines. I started flying with them for my old job (Columbus to Houston maybe 8 times), flew to Japan in 1999, various trips...

United Loses, Airlines Win

United Loses, Airlines Win 06/18/2004 01:01 PM
Without a government loan guarantee, United will have to compete -- just like the low-cost carriers.

Lessons from a Winner

Lessons from a Winner 01/06/2005 05:07 PM
Chico's is da man. Learn from the clothier's success.

The lessons of Sasser

The lessons of Sasser 05/12/2004 06:50 AM
CenterBeam CEO Kevin Francis says this security intrusion highlights fundamental weaknesses in the practice of software patch management.

Lessons to be Learned

Lessons to be Learned 09/10/2002 03:41 AM

I Need Reading Lessons

I Need Reading Lessons 05/13/2004 06:32 PM
I need reading lessons or something. I know that when people read on the web, they often skim. But I seem to forget that I'm one of those people too. Someone pointed me at this story a little while ago and I read skimmed it (twice) as "Yahoo Mail will be providing 100MB of 'virtually unlimited' storage" which is, obviously, a dumb thing to say. We all know that Gmail offers 10 times that, right? So I pointed this out...

HTML Lessons

HTML Lessons 12/03/2002 11:46 AM

I taught my girlfriend some basic HTML tonight, <a> tags, etc. I was so proud of her, she got it right away! I know HTML isn't hard, but she's never had to deal with it before. Check out her MT blog that shes just now starting at stephaniehaywood.com.

Lessons Unlearned

Lessons Unlearned 02/01/2005 09:06 PM
Shark Tank: A new e-mail system is coming to the regional office where this IT pilot fish works. Fortunately, there's a "lessons learned" document that's been developed during upgrades at other sites. ...

Lessons from Vietnam

Lessons from Vietnam 05/14/2004 06:16 PM

The lessons of experience

The lessons of experience 03/17/2005 03:42 AM
ZDNet Mar 17 2005 5:28AM GMT

Lessons From the Value Trust

Lessons From the Value Trust 08/16/2004 12:07 PM
Legg Mason's Mary Chris Gay shares the secrets to her investing success.

More Lessons for the Job Seeker

More Lessons for the Job Seeker 04/09/2004 03:54 PM

This post is a follow up to my original Some lessons for the Job Seeker post from August of 2003.

I've been interviewing to fill a vacant position in my sales organization over the past few months. The position has been advertised for about two months now. I've received about 100 resumes and have personally screened every single one of them. Something I've found frustrating and interesting at the same time is that 95% of the resumes I've received tell me about people that don't have all of the requirements for the job opening as posted in the advertisement.

You know what that tells me? Lots of people aren't qualified for the jobs that are being created out there. Lots. That, or the people I really want aren't a) hearing/reading about the job opening I have or b) aren't interested in the position. Or, very possibly (probably most likely) I'm asking for too qualified an applicant than I'll get from an advertisement. I probably really need a personal reference to get the 'perfect applicant'. Either way, the result is the same for the job seekers who have been sending me their resumes. 95% of them are all equal in my eyes. They aren't fully qualified, but some of them have better qualifications (on their resume) than others.

So, I've been doing a lot of phone interviews. I've probably called 50% of the applicants to the position.

I'm also doing a lot of in-person interviews, because I need to see and talk to the people that are interviewing for the outside sales position I have open. I need to talk to them so I can fully explain the job, the company and the oppotunity I have for them. I generally spend and hour and a half with the promising interviewees and less than 30 minutes with the ones I can tell aren't going to make the final cut. I've learned a few things and hope me passing them on here will help someone:

When interviewing for a sales position specifically, and for just about any position, keep these ideas in mind.:

1. Bring a copy of your resume to the interview. Bring 2 or 3 if you can, just to be safe.

Print out your resume on the nice pretty paper you want to use (though honestly if the paper is white and good quality, I'll like the paper better than if it's beige or pink or has ruffles), all formatted in the format you'd like it to be seen in, and bring it to the interview for me.

All but 2 of the resumes I've received from applicants have come in through some-sort of online application. Either emailed directly to me, or forwarded through a job-board. None of the resumes coming through an electronic application system are presented well. They're readable, yes, but they look like crap, and span two or three pages when printed from Outlook. Sometimes the characters in the resumes weren't ASCII text, so the pretty bullets the person used in Microsoft Word got translated to question marks when copied and pasted into a form online and then emailed to me, the person responsible for hiring. So, those applicants that bring me a nice pretty resume and give it to me at the beginning of the interview always get a leg up on the other applicants for at least 5 minutes. It shows me that they care about the impression they make on me. That's important in sales (and in most other jobs).

2. Dress Sharply.

I've said this before, but wear a damned suit if you a guy or nice business attire if your a woman. I don't care what the job is, it almost never hurts to over-dress for a situation, but almost always hurts to under-dress. I personally wear a suit to the office every day, and if I'm wearing one when I shake an applicants hand, and they're not even wearing a tie, it immediately makes them feel badly. I've had two applicants tell me "I honestly wish I'd have dressed up more for this interview" while in the interview with me. I don't make an issue of the situation or their dress in the interview, but in my head, when they've said that my first thought was "Well, then why the fuck didn't you dress better?"

Dress up for that hour folks, it can't hurt.

3. Ask plenty of questions, or at least ask really damn good ones.

People that aren't good at interviewing will talk a lot. I've caught myself talking waaay too much in interviews. I've let the interviewee take control of the interview, and that helps elevate the interviewee in my mind. Take your cues from the person interviewing you (if they don't like a lot of questions, don't ask too many, but ask good ones. Here's the scenario I'm in as a hiring manager: I've interviewed 25 good applicants in person. I can honestly only remember two of the interviews right this second without my notes.

Those two applicants too control of the interview (as much as they could) and asked a lot of really good questions. I remember them for two reasons: a) I am looking hire someone with good in-person sales skills and b) I feel like I need to know more about those two people so I can decide which one I want to hire. The other 23 applicants I've interviewed in person don't stand out enough in my minds for some reason, and I have to believe it's because they didn't ask enough questions to know if they wanted (or could do) the job I need done or they didn't ask the right ones.

"Needs analysis" is a big part of consultative selling (which is what I like to see in my employees that are in sales) and those two applicants did it well.

4. Be enthusiastic

I've interviewed two people in person that sounded great on the phone, but turned in to duds in person. I understand being nervous. I've been there (all of us have). I can empathize with people that might not be at the top of their game during the interview (we've all had bad sales calls). Waht I can't accept is pure apathy. I can't accept or enjoy someone that doesn't seem interested in the job during the interview and then ask for the job at the end of the interview.

In sales (which is what every interview is) you have to know when to 'ask the customer to buy'. In an interview that step is the "I really want this job" statement from the applicant. It's the pistachio in the ice-cream. If you act like melted ice-cream during a 30-45 minute interview and then all of the sudden throw a pistachio at me, I'll probably just spit it out, because the ice-cream was mushy. Act like you're interested even if you're not. I'm the one with the job to offer and you're the one looking. Act like you're interested in it and you might get the offer. If you don't act interested, you won't.

5. Be prepared for a second interview. Don't reschedule it after it's scheduled.

I want to hire the right person the first time I fill a position. So, I'm going to have a second interview with the truly qualified applicants. I'm going to have someone else interview them for me... maybe role-play a sales call... maybe just come in and say hi. It's going to happen. If you want the job, don't re-schedule the second interview. That's the one where you'll get the job offer (it might not happen until the third or fourth interview).

If you reschedule the second interview, where I've got two other people lined up to talk to you, you're hurting your chances. Not with me, but with those two other people that might be talking to you. They'll probably remember that you bailed on the first one (for them) and their time is probably very valuable to them. Don't give them a reason to doubt that you know that, especially for a sales job. They'll think that's how you'll treat clients.

6. Don't try to change the job before you have it.

If the job doesn't sound like something you want to do, ask more questions to be sure that your impressions are correct. If the job truly sounds like a wrong fit, say so. If you want to do something other than what's being described and detailed for you, say so in the interview. That position may be open somewhere else, but don't try to change the position that's being discuss into something else in the interview. If you're looking for a career path (let's say the job opening is for an entry-level position and you're seeking something that requires more experience, or that you need more pay, say so, but also be prepared for an answer like: I'm sorry, that's not what we're hiring for right now, and then make up your mind about the job that's offered to you, if it's ever offered). Don't change the job in to what you want it to be, take the job for what it is, or don't take it.

7. Be ready to pass a thorough background check.

I won't go in to too much detail here, but, more and more companies are running complete background checks: drug tests, driving record checks, credit history checks, resume detail verification, and reference checking are all things that you might have to go through after you're offered a job and before you can start working. Some companies will allow one or two discretionary 'problems' to go through the HR department with an "ok to hire" stamp, but some times they can't. If the job requires driving, have a clean driving record. If it requires handling cash, have a good credit history. If you don't, give it your best shot, but, if you can, keep your background clean.

The Lessons of WebTV

The Lessons of WebTV 08/06/2004 09:23 AM
In the late 1990s, I was the editor of a magazine for owners of WebTV, the Internet TV service from Microsoft. The experience was the equivalent of teaching an English class in the jungles of Belize. The WebTV audience, which largely consisted of senior citizens and/or first-time Internet users, often complained that they couldn’t reach sites mentioned in the magazine. When I asked why, I discovered that some were sending the web address in an e-mail, expecting the site to return in their in-box; others believed that the site would magically appear on their TV screen if they just hit the right button on the remote. And, as God is my witness, when I told one person to use her browser, she thought I meant her shirt.

7 Lessons From the Racetrack

7 Lessons From the Racetrack 06/23/2004 02:10 PM
A trip to the racetrack can make good business analysts become better investors.

CPU cooling lessons

CPU cooling lessons 06/22/2005 02:16 AM

Lessons of Life

Lessons of Life 04/10/2005 04:56 PM
Learned an important lesson yesterday, after a movie evening with friends:

You can't strut, if you need to really, really, really pee.

Lessons From Management

Lessons From Management 09/02/2004 05:59 PM
Looking at Hollinger International tells you all you need to know about companies that should never make it into your portfolio.

Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned 04/26/2004 06:53 PM
To wrap up my week of upgrading my mother's iMac, I thought I'd mention a few things I'll keep in mind when I next set up a Macintosh for a less-than-computer-savvy user. By Christopher Breen, Macworld (via MyAppleMenu)

The Lessons of Classroom 506

The Lessons of Classroom 506 09/12/2004 12:54 PM
What happens when a boy with cerebral palsy goes to kindergarten like all the other kids.

Lessons From Laziness

Lessons From Laziness 05/07/2004 01:23 PM
Indolence, properly channeled, can be both inspirational and lucrative.

On Customers' Privacy, It's Northworst
Airlines

On Customers' Privacy, It's Northworst
Airlines 01/19/2004 12:37 AM
It's inconceivable that Northwest would have handed its customers' personal data over to the government without the knowledge of the CEO. If he's that detached from the business operations, what's he doing there?
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Lessons Airlines Can Learn From PCs

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