Seeing as how we’re stuck on the ground in Newark… just some random thoughts.
1. What accounts for the immense incompetence of airlines? I mean, they’re private enterprises, in a competitive environment. Why do they all suck so uniformly? Is it that they are so wrapped up in government regulations that they are effectively pseudo-government entities?
2. Why is there so little information available regarding flights? Here I am, with some three hundred other people, sitting in a chair that has less space than the average slave during the Middle Passage, and we’re simply told that the tower is holding us on the ground for 30 minutes. We’re in the Internet Age. Couldn’t the airlines simply throw up on the little TV monitors a continuous feed from traffic control of the conditions that are causing the delay? Simply knowing why we’re delayed would help assuage the frustration most passengers feel.
3. Is there some reason why airport security couldn’t be outsourced effectively? The TSA employees I’ve had the pleasure of encountering have all been incredibly surly, rude, and unfriendly. I can’t imagine that screening for security is all that rigorous for TSA — and in any event, no reason why private contractors couldn’t be made to follow the same procedures for security and screening. Create some competition in airport security screening and see what happens.
4. The exact same as #3, except applied to Departments of Motor Vehicles.
5. Seeing as how I’m heading to Inman, and I’m interested in meeting bloggers… I wonder why there isn’t a blog advertising network for real estate blogs. Inman has some blog network, but I don’t know if that’s an ad network as well. I mean, 4Realz is an Inman Network Blog, but they’re not allowed to do any advertising because they’re hosted on WordPress.com. I wonder if it makes sense for the RE.net bloggers to talk to guys like Pajamas Media or BlogAds or CrispAds etc.
6. Mark Twain once wrote, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” He was right.
-rsh
