David J.
Danto
Business travel
thoughts in my own, personal opinion
eMail: ddanto@IMCCA.org Follow Industry News: @NJDavidD
NOT Traveling Blog, 2nd
Week Of April
In 2014 I was voted
by USA Today readers as one of the top ten business travel bloggers in the
USA. Now mind you, I turned out to be number ten on the list of ten, but I did
make it on (with my thanks to all those who voted.) Now that we’re all stuck at home and not
traveling, I had to think about what to do with my blogs. I could stop writing them entirely – waiting
till we all get through the current COVID19 pandemic / crisis. I could wax nostalgic and/or complain about
past trips. Or, I could focus all of my
efforts on my day job – growing the use of collaboration technologies –
especially in light of how many people are now forced to use those tools for
the first time. In reflecting upon those
choices, what I decided to do is compile an ongoing list of observations during
the crisis. Some of these may amuse,
some may inform, some may sadden and others may help. My goal will be for you to have seen
something in a different light than you did before you stopped to read the
blog. I was going to apologize for how
disjointed these thoughts may seem when put together, but then it dawned on me
that feeling disjointed is our new normal – at least for a little while.
So, in no particular
order:
·
One
of the trends in large companies that I experienced over the last dozen or so
years was “densification.” That was the
trend of organizations with large offices to reduce their real estate footprint
by removing private and semi-private offices, and creating ‘open offices’ that
keep people closer together. In some
cases (like in financial services firms) there were large, open ‘benches’ of
employees packed-in like sardines. Guess
what? That’s not going to fly
anymore. Knowledge workers aren’t going
to travel to an office and be forced to sit that close to co-workers when they
know they can get most of their work done from a home office that is more
convenient, often more functional and far less susceptible to catching
germs. This is going to have a
significant impact on office build-outs whenever this pandemic ends. Also in jeopardy is the trend towards
“hoteling.” I just can’t see employees
agreeing to show up in an office and work at a randomly assigned desk, using
the chair, keyboard, mouse and/or telephone that someone else used just a few
hours ago. None of this is as important
as the critical health and economic implications of the pandemic, but it is
important to acknowledge and be prepared for the change.
·
So
now the airline moguls (sky-gods as they’ve been called) have sent us all
messages that say ‘never mind all those
elite qualification thingies we talked about, we’ll extend your last level and
reduce the requirements to achieve levels.’
Yeah sure, now that no one is flying and they can’t simply reduce
service to maintain the cash-cow of packed airplanes they’ve decided to fake
being nice. I don’t have words to
adequately describe the disdain I have for the management of the big US
airlines. They are the epitome of the
parable of the ant and the
grasshopper. They allow
bean-counters to carve legroom, seat-width and all comfort out of the flying
experience, reduce capacity and service wherever they can, gut the benefits of
their loyalty programs, serve the shareholders (and not their customers) with
stock buy-backs, and just stuff the cash bonuses in their pockets. But, when ‘winter’
comes, and no one is flying, all of a sudden they want to be our friends. (Remember that I predicted this
specific situation which honestly everyone other than these greedy ‘sky-gods’ saw coming someday.) My next get rich quick scheme for when the
pandemic ends is to sell T-shirts that say “Screw You [insert airline name
here]” to those of us that have been bean-counted into these last ten or so
miserable years of business travel. Or
better yet, let’s just all send the airlines stroopwafels instead of money –
it’s what they thought we wanted instead of good service.
·
Yes,
I do videoconferencing and collaboration for a living. Yes, I’ve been very busy helping those new to
the space with support and advice. (And
yes, if you need help with this stuff please feel free to send me a note and
I’ll be happy to assist with no-charge advice.) But, oh man, how will
videoconferencing compete with attention spans in the future when the new high-bar for video content is first
Mary Poppins then the cast of Hamilton?
My PowerPoints are cringing in fear.
In all seriousness, I just recorded a new, technology agnostic webcast
for AVNation-TV that walks people through the best
process for selecting a video platform. Check
it out here.
·
I’m
a bit angry at my friend Joe Brancatelli for giving away my
secret of using an airline amenity kit eye-mask as a make-shift face mask
during the pandemic:
In reality
however, making your own emergency
cloth mask is pretty easy, and companies are starting to make these readily
available, so I don’t know how much longer we’ll need to re-purpose the
eye-masks. That’s kind of sad however,
because I’m sure it was the first actual value these masks have ever provided
to us.
·
Did
you know you can make
a cake in a mug? Just open the mix
packet, add milk or water, microwave for 70 seconds and voila. Forget the pandemic, this fact will mean life will never be the same.
As always please feel free to write to me with comments or
items I should add to a future Not Traveling blog (or if you just need someone
to write to.) Stay safe, be well, hug
those you’re sheltering with (but no one else) and do your best to stay
positive. We’re going to be in this for
a long while.
This article was written by David Danto and contains solely his own, personal
opinions.
All image and links provided above as reference under
prevailing fair use statutes.