Airports and networking

Airports and networking

I’m waiting for my connection flight in my second airport today. I’ve got my cell phone and laptop plugged into a Samsung Mobile charge site. I’m watching CNN’s Larry King LIVE’s Disaster in the Gulf and How You Can Help telethon. CNN is reporting how they are live on TV, the web and can be contacted through phone, Twitter or Facebook. There’s probably 35 people sitting in the waiting area and no one but me is watching the show. But lots of people are on their phones and computers. There’s a kid who looks about 11 years old and he’s on his netbook and a cell phone. He’s probably letting his wife know how tough his workday was and he’ll be home late for dinner. There are still people using the standby way of networking – talking face to face. There’s a guy talking to a girl one row over. I can hear him chatting her up and she laughs. He isn’t funny but I guess she likes the romantic notion of being hit on by a stranger in an airport. Hey, that’s still networking. Airports have caught on to the idea of social networking. You can ‘like’ Continental Airlines on Facebook. I’m sure there’ll soon be a program that encourages future airline wannabes to ‘follow’ pilots on Twitter to learn what it is really like to fly for a living. “Don’t tweet and fly,” they’ll write. I joined Twitter two years ago. I tried to explain to my boss the significance of being connected continually to the world. She was aware of course of the Internet and news sites but did not understand why she would want to know what someone was doing all the time. I remember her saying, “Why do I want to know what someone ate for breakfast?” I tried to explain that while the site was about that it was about so much more. Networking skills are keenly important to the growth of a business or relationship and networking through the Internet was a new wave she needed to encourage the hotel to ride. Social networking is not a fad and I think within today’s world cannot be ignored. Small businesses, corporations and individuals alike need to get on board or they will be left behind. To my boss I gave the example of the plane crash in Hudson Bay in January of 2009. A Twitter user was the first to report the incident and CNN picked it up from his account. For a long time the media only had this gentleman’s pictures as photographic evidence. So not only would my boss get up to the second news and information, she also would be able to find out what I had for breakfast. I sold her on the idea but she didn’t sign up for an account.
If my flight gets me home on time maybe I will hit the Facebook ‘like’ button!

I had toast for breakfast.

-Short Legs Magee