Random Acts of Journalism

In the last year, i have:

1. Changed jobs three times, including the failure/shutting down of my own business.
2. Missed my sales goals at my new job 6 times in 6 months.
3. Cracked a rim on my car
4. Replaced said rim with $500 new rims
5. Ran over curb, bent brand new rim, popped brand new tires, shattered shock mount.
6. Replaced brand new rim for $250
7. Replaced two $180 tires
8. Replaced $300 shock mount
9. Replaced a $2,000 clutch
10. Replaced a $400 car stereo
11. Replaced a $300 cooling hose
12. Replaced a $500 coolant system
13. Realized i had spent $5,000 on car maintenance and my check-engine light is still fucking on.
14. Accidentally shattered a bedroom window
15. Spent $400 to fly to LA for a meeting only to have it canceled while i was on the train to the meeting, and then find out that the entire  marketing department of my biggest client was fired.
16. Spent $400 to fly to LA for a meeting only to have my sample bag lost on a 1-hour flight, then found, then delivered to me 6 hours after it was found…and then arrived at the meeting and was given 20 minutes to present 30 ideas i had spent 2 weeks and countless dollars getting together.
17. Found out that the ASU budget cuts forced them to cut 100 spots in their nursing school and that my girl still only missed the cut by .1%
18. Found out on January 26th that BlueCrossBlueShield had canceled my health insurance in September due to a clerical error and then due to another clerical error, had neglected to notify me.
19. Been prescribed medication to deal with anxiety and attention-deficit disorders
20. Lost 70% of my stock portfolio.
21. Lost my confidence (20,000 times)
22. Lost my roommate (and only source of income)
23. Lost my grandfather (today)

Today, i still have:

1. Roof over my head
2. Food in my stomach
3. Family, friends and a woman that love me
4. The ability to wake up and believe that it has to swing back the other way soon.

I make no secret of my fandom of Seth Godin…everyone who reads this has probably gotten an email from me with a link to something he said…let’s be real, my dad made me read one of his books in high school.

So today’s post is an excerpt of an interview he did about the music industry…and well, it’s spot on.

Read it here: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/02/music-vs-the-music-industry.html

While the airline industry has a long and storied history of fucking over the consumer and then getting bailed out by the taxpayer (who they seem to think are two different people), i’m not sure we’ve ever seen anything quite like this current situation before. If you described to me a restaurant who used to charge one price and include everything with your meal and then that restaurant suddenly changed their model to everything being a la carte, even the water…well, they better have an incredible new chef, amazing ambiance and butt-massaging chairs. In other words, if you change your business model, you’d better change your business.

In the case of everyone but Southwest Airlines, the opposite has been the case. Everything is  a la carte, things that used to be free (or at least hidden in the amoratized price of the ticket…) now cost additional. You now have to bring more change to the airport then you take to the laundromat. And, for all of these price changes, you would think that they had done at least something to warrant them, such as new seats, better accomodations, faster planes or at least ONE thing that was different from before. They didn’t. We’re still flying the same planes we flew 30 years ago, in the same seats, with the same peanuts and the same leg room. No technological innovations, no improvements. NOTHING. In that same 30 years, we went from listening to music on vinyl albums purchased at the record store to listening to music on a credit card-sized mini-computer that can pull your new music out of the fucking ether…and some of them even make phone calls too, i’m told. Have you heard any news about the newest, most modern airliner that will revolutionize travel as we know it? No, you haven’t. Because that thing isn’t being built, or even thought of. There’s no need. They have us and our tax dollars by the balls. Why improve if nobody makes you?

All of this is one giant buildup to the following point: I’ve flown Southwest a lot lately. I make lots of short trips to Denver, Los Angeles and Las Vegas and as such, i fly a semi-smaller, cheaper carrier that gets me to those places quickly and effectively. Southwest is in the same recession that everyone else is (yes, it’s true that they were able to sidestep the fuel increases last summer because of fortunate timing, but that shouldn’t be a huge issue), but in the past few months, i have noticed improvements when i fly Southwest. They have installed banks of tables and chairs at the gates with electrical chargers and USB ports for all of us to charge our gizmos or get some work done while waiting. They have adjusted their seating process to be more convenient and eschewed the cattle car loading that was the joke of the industry for so long. They have not charged bag fees. And on the last few flights, i have ordered an adult beverage with every intention of paying for it, and had the flight attendant smile at me and say “Thanks for flying with us.” and brush away my waiting, credit card-filled hand.

Business is all about finding opportunity. Being succesful in business means not doing what everyone else is doing. Sometimes making an extra buck during an economic downturn means not squeezing the fuck out of your customer at every step but instead treating that customer right and letting them bring their extra bucks to you voluntarily.