A Funny Thing at LAX ..

.. certainly a leading statement: all you need to do is look about and you’ll see LOTS of funny things at LAX ..

.. at SEA as well .. remember Moonies?

.. but I digress.

There was this trip .. I had just finished a few days with my favorite customer in Santa Monica and had made my way back to the airport along Route 9. On time, had even negotiated security .. even received the TSA-mandated ‘massage’ (yes: even I get patted down now and again).

Sitting in the waiting area, 40 minutes before the flight, and the overhead says:

Welcome to Alaska Airlines flight 485. We are ready for pre-boarding. As we have no small children and no identified individuals who require additional time to board, would Michael Coates please approach the podium?

I almost didn’t get up. However, curiosity absolutely overwhelmed me. I got up.

In reality, the flight was severely under-booked .. only a few seats from cancellation (there are several LAX-SEA flights a day, the next departing a mere 40 minutes later) .. but close enough to fly (this is all per the agent).

I was the only Gold (the Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan) on the entire flight .. the gate agents thought they should give me a special thrill .. which they did.

Just wait until I get to the Million Miler. Not long now. Open-mouthed smile

About Michael Coates
I am a pragmatic evangelist. The products, services and solutions I write about fulfill real-world expectations and use cases. I stay up-to-date on real products I use and review, and share my thoughts here. I apply the same lens when designing an architecture, product or when writing papers. I am always looking for ways that technology can create or enhance a business opportunity .. not just technology for technology's sake. My CV says: Seasoned technology executive, leveraging years of experience with enterprise and integration architectural patterns, executed with healthy doses of business acumen and pragmatism. That's me. My web site says: Technology innovations provide a myriad of opportunities for businesses. That said, having the "latest and greatest" for its own sake isn't always a recipe for success. Business successes gained through exploiting innovation relies on analysis of how the new features will enhance your business followed by effective implementation. Goals vary far and wide: streamlining operations, improving customer experience, extending brand, and many more. In all cases, you must identify and collect the metrics you can apply to measure your success. Analysis must be holistic and balanced: business and operational needs must be considered when capitalizing on a new technology asset or opportunity.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: