Posts Tagged ‘phone’
The Social Flying System
“Systems Thinking” is important in aviation. No single event acts alone from complex air traffic control to complex mechanical aircraft and complex weather systems. Economics is a complex system and markets are complex systems, human behavior is displayed in complex social systems. This is the way that Social Flights approaches business – we are a ride sharing “system” for private jets
It is not surprising then that Google identifies 5 stages of the consumer travel system.
The following is from Trent via Statistics and Research Studies for Travel, Tourism & Lodging:
More than 87% of travelers expect to take the same or more number of personal or business trips in 2011 versus years past. This outlook is positive, and with the rise of mobile, social and video behaviors, we are now seeing seeing travelers move through five key stages of travel. Here are some insights within each stage:
Dreaming: 68% of business travelers watch travel-related online videos. Among them, 68% are thinking about a trip.
Planning: The average traveler visits ~22 travel related sites during 9.5 research sessions prior to booking. 85% of leisure travelers consider the internet their main source of travel planning.
Booking: 37% of leisure travelers report that the internet prompted them to book, up from 28% two years ago. 53% of travelers plan to increase comparison shopping this year.
Experiencing: 70% of business travelers check into their flights/hotel with their mobile device. Almost 1 in 4 hotel queries come from a mobile phone. Over 50% of travelers use mobile phone or device for travel-related information.
Sharing: About 1 in 3 business travelers have posted reviews online of places they’ve been.
At Social Flights we have argued that there is a great need for travel related information to be made available for private aircraft and charter jet inventory. As such, we are developing tools such as our “Instant Quote” feature, and inventory listings to supplement travel information on line. Here’s why:
62% of personal travelers use search engines as the number one source for travel information.
51% of business travelers use mobile devices to get travel information, more than double the rate of two years ago.
46% of personal travelers are watching travel-related videos, versus 36% two years ago.
The quantity and the quality of information that a travel company can provide is directly proportional to the relevance in the 5 stages of consumer travel activity. The effort is paying off.
Social Flights will soon announce several deals with municipalities that are tired of being stranded by airlines
Social Flights will annouce a deal with a major vacation spot that is tired of getting gouged by brokers
Social Flights Instant Quote feature continues to disrupt the “secret handshake” of the charter jet industry
Social Flights will soon announce major deals at world class events where we shuttle people to the doorstep of the action
Social Flights is opening travel circles across the US for people to share their experiences and plan their adventures
At Social Flights, we are aviators, we are system thinkers, we are fully aware and intentional about the system that we are building. We thank all those who are helping, from our pilots to our partners to our investors and to our followers. Together we are developing a Social Flying System
NBAA Schedulers & Dispatchers Conference, 14-18 January, San Diego
- If this is your first conference, sign up for a buddy. If it’s too late, call people you know to see if they’re going and hang out with them. If you strike out, get in touch with me. I know a few folks; we’ll get you set up. This is a fun, educational event – strong emphasis on both points – you really won’t get the maximum out of it if you’re isolated.
- Take a mountain of business cards. You’ll be dropping these in prize bowls and handing them out. If you are a scheduler or dispatcher, I would suggest including your tail numbers on the backs of your cards. This gives people a good reference for you and your fleet. If you have a smart phone, load a copy of your QR code (you can make a free one at http://www.qrstuff.com/), making vcard sharing a no-brainer. NBAA has a nifty little smart phone app available at http://www.nbaa.org/events/sdc/2012/app/. This will also help you with contact and event schedule management.
- Take comfortable shoes. I know. I know. You just got those really cute ones; but, you are going to be on your feet for nearly three solid days. The dogs are going to be barking. Take the comfy ones.
- Take an extra suitcase for swag. I pack a medium suitcase inside a large one. Sounds silly, but, I’m telling you, with the pens, stuffed animals, model aircraft, pens, t-shirts, bags, pens, note pads, coffee cups, pens (seriously, you may never have to buy another pen), and other fun stuff, you’ll never get it home without another suitcase.
- Go to every event. Some of the afterhours events are more fun than others and you’ll certainly discover which ones have the best vibe within minutes of arriving. Regardless, go to all of them. Dance. Have a cocktail if you like. Relax. Get to know your peers and, just as importantly, let them get to know you. Some of my most solid professional relationships began over shrimp cocktail at these functions because, let’s face it, we all want to do business with people we know.
- Collect business cards and stay in contact. Okay, so I’m still a cautionary tale on this one. I collect cards, but am not so great about staying in contact. This will be my 2012 S&D resolution.
- If you’re not going this year, start your campaign to attend in 2013. If you are a Part 91 flight department, a 135 operator, an airport, an FBO, a maintenance facility, a broker, a software developer, or whatever, this conference has value for you. If the big NBAA show is industry hardware, this conference is software. This one makes the hardware go and if you are involved with that process in any way, you need to be there.
Our industry has changed in the many years since I started and has been under both active and passive attack in recent years. Unity remains our first line of defense with communication as our second. The Schedulers & Dispatchers Conference offers an invaluable opportunity to strengthen both.
Lessons Learned Outside My Routine
Every time I do something outside my normal routine, I learn something new (or at my age, get reminded of something that I forgot). This is true of my most recent trip to the British Virgin Islands on business. We were delivering an aircraft to the island of Tortola for BVI Airline, an up and coming company delivering air carrier services amongst the BVI. We also were returning on another aircraft which was due for some major inspections. The inspections were to be accomplished through our capable maintenance staff at Corporate Flight Management. We also, in a whirlwind fashion, dropped into San Juan to conclude some business with another carrier. The trip was a three day turn around on BAE Jetstream 32s. Given the time constraints and amount to be accomplished, it was a trip that could only have occurred on private aircraft.
Here are a couple of lessons learned or remembered.
Pre- plan your communication needs.
Technology and services are a great boon to travelers – if you know what your capabilities are. I have a new service and a new plan and for my telecommunications and found out I was pretty much in the dark. It wasn’t that I couldn’t communicate, it was just that I didn’t know my plan well enough to know how much it was going to cost me – an important consideration to my CFO soul. As I downloaded email and text to my phone –I wondered, “how much this was going to cost me?” People around me had a lot of suggestions and ideas as to what it might cost. I found out later just how wrong they were via my monthly statement. I could have avoided that if I had called my provider, told them my itinerary, and found out what were my best options. Next time!
Know what time it is.
I traveled from Central Savings Time to Atlantic Time. My new cell phone did a wonderful job of changing with the time zones. I knew exactly what time it was – or so I thought. My business associates and I scheduled a breakfast meeting at 7:30 AM. But what wasn’t discussed was time was relative on the Islands. When they said 7:30, they meant Eastern Time. I thought they meant Atlantic Time. I wish I had known about the use of time zones because I sure could have used that extra hour of sleep! Turns out other members of our entourage were an hour late. Next time…… we will synchronize our watches, always a good practice.
The business trip was a great success and new business for the company was developed. As we went through the various customs offices, I was reminded of how wonderful it was to travel through non- airline means. Through the whole trip we went through only one metal detector and we didn’t have to stand in line for it! The trip schedule was our choice. The time on the aircraft was pleasant because the travelers were co-workers, and we were able to plan our next meeting en route. Additionally, the time together was useful as new ideas for travel processes for our customers. Since we experienced what our customers experienced while traveling international destinations, we got a better perspective on process improvements. These discussions occurred simply because we had both time and opportunity. Without planning the conversations, we informally discussed various ways we could improve on what we do as a company simply because we had the time and the privacy to do so.
What did I really learn and remember when I stepped outside my routine? The value of private business travel is worth the price.
Social Media Becomes a Global Front Porch
My father is a forester. At one time, his chief role in his company was to evaluate a stand of timber and negotiate with the landowner for the rights to that timber. Those kinds of deals weren’t made by men in suits in conference rooms or over the phone. They were made by men in dusty boots on the front porch over a cup of coffee. Contracts were agreed upon with a handshake before pen was ever put to paper. There was a protocol for making those deals and, if you rushed it, you lost it.
The landowner might not have all the latest facts, figures and price indexes for whatever hardwood he was trying to sell, but he wanted a fair price for his resource. To be sure that he was getting the best price and was being treated fairly, he had to know who he was dealing with. He might have known a guy who knew a guy, but, even then, he wanted to make the judgement for himself. And he made that judgement sitting on the front porch drinking a cup of coffee with the potential buyer.
I don’t have land with timber on it. To be honest, I don’t have a front porch to speak of, either. But when I’m spending money, I want to know who I’m spending it with and I don’t think I’m unusual. As a front porch for consumers and vendors alike, Social Media helps me do that. I tell people regularly to check our commercial site to see what we do; but, to see who we are, check this blog, our Facebook pages and our Tweets. You’ll see the issues that are important to us – aviation industry issues and advances, marketing and human resources articles, environmental issues and hockey. (Hey, I’m a fan and since I post many of our updates, well…..)
We can’t shake hands and or make eye contact over a blog, a tweet or a status update; however, with continued exchanges, we can get to know one another. As a customer, we can watch how vendors treat other customers. We can see the rate and the quality of interaction. As a vendor, we can see customers’ interests and viability. If either party is presenting counterfeit social currency, they won’t be able to hide it for long.
Sure, we can teleconference, video conference, read brochures and websites; however, those things tell us only what their authors want us to know. By reviewing a vendor or even a customer’s social currency, we can see how closely their actions match their words. We may not be literally looking each other in the eye, but by exploring a person or company’s social presence, we will find evidence of the each other’s ethics, activity level, responsiveness and global awareness. Social media gives us all the opportunity to either credit or discredit a company’s claims based on information we find in the company’s own social media offerings and on reviews written by their customers.
The Web of today and the Deep Web right around the corner offer fewer skeleton-hiding closets. The wide open platform gives consumers and vendors the opportunity to see each other as they are and as they’d like to be seen. We still may know a guy who knows a guy. Social Media gives us the chance to look each other in the virtual eye before we make the deal - even without dusty boots or cups of coffee.