We The Media Brings Up A Sensitive Topic (Bitterness Ensues)

As I was reading Gillmor’s section of the read-write web I had to laugh to myself when he mentioned receiving text messages from airlines. Traveling back and forth between Denver and Bethlehem for the past four years, I’ve really come to rely on e-mails and text messages from Orbitz. My parents have used Orbitz almost every break or holiday to book my flights. They’ve had my e-mail address and my parents e-mail address in their system for four years, and I’ve gotten e-mails from them before every flight booked through their service, well almost every flight I booked with them…

Only a few weeks ago, I was packing my bags to come back to Lehigh for my final semester. My flight was at 6:05 a.m., and according to Denver International Airport’s suggestions, passengers are supposed to arrive two hours before their flight. Unfortunately, the United Airlines ticket counter does not open until 4:30a.m., which I did not know beforehand. I followed the airport’s suggestion, so I had to wait at the ticket counter for 30 minutes with a group of hormone infested high school athletes, who were all flirting with each other and being obnoxious. I know I was in high school once, and I know I was probably like that, but I’d like to think I wasn’t THAT bad. Needless to say, I was in a foul mood. As I was awaiting the opening of the check-in counter, a representative started walking up and down the line yelling, “Only flights to Philadelphia, and San Francisco should be in this line”. My thought process? “Um, I’m flying through Dulles, a.k.a. Washington D.C., our nation’s capital, the airport with ‘Star Wars’ vehicles that transport travelers between concourses. WHAT ABOUT ME?” Obviously I voiced part of this internal monologue, only to find out that not only had my flight been cancelled, but this flight in general had been cancelled…for a while. THANKS ORBITZ.

I complain about Orbitz because they didn’t give my any forewarning, but at least they did switch me to a flight that flew through Chicago (which is a city I avoid flying through during the winter, but whatever). It was a flight at 9 a.m. However, despite Orbitz’s obligation to switch my flight, they didn’t pass the info to me, well not until I was already at the airport. I mentioned earlier that I had received e-mails from their service in the past, well, no such e-mail about the change in flights ever found it’s way to my e-mail account (or my parent’s e-mail account). I could have had several (highly valued) hours of sleep. I will give it to Orbitz, and the subscription Gillmor praised, I did get a text around 8 a.m., to tell me the new flight, which I hadn’t been informed about, would be on time, even though I had arrived at 4 a.m. for my original flight.

The point to my story is that we are immersed in the Information Ocean Gillmor describes, and sometimes the ocean overflows and floods us with too many details, but what about when we are so used to the bombardment of info that we are left helpless when the flood doesn’t come. I was so used to receiving e-mails, that I took their arrival for granted.  I can’t make an excuse for Orbitz, and frankly I still think I deserve an apology (hint, hint…free tickets to anywhere please), but their lack of communication is absolutely unacceptable in this day and age. They could text me about my new flight being on time, but couldn’t e-mail/call/send a postcard/telegraph me/maybe bring back Morse code about my new flight in general. COME ON, MY FAMILY HAS BEEN A CUSTOMER FOR FOUR YEARS.

This isn’t just a rant, but obviously I took advantage of our assignment. We have so many means of communication, but we still can’t fully communicate. We can sift through the abundance of information available with tools like RSS, but companies can’t tell me that my flight has been discontinued. What do we do when we have our floaties, snorkel and flippers on, ready for the huge wave, and it never comes? Well in my case you show up several hours too early for you flight.

In the end, things worked out. At least I was too early, and not too late for my flight. I ended up being on the same flight as one of my best friends, and Chicago had better weather than D.C., but you won’t catch me giving any of these benefits to Orbitz, no way Jose. I am bitter. Orbitz had a million ways to contact me. The service had several years worth of the same info to update me or my parents, and I still did not receive a word from them.

Cluetrain reflection

Throughout reading the Clue train Manifesto I tried to relate the points to my life. The authors made so many points about business that at first, I didn’t think I could relate, since I’m only 22 and don’t participate in e-commerce. Obviously I understood the main point, markets are a conversations and relationships, and the Internet gave the little guy, the consumer, a voice, but how did this all affect me? As I read I would make side notes about different stories in my own life, and telling those stories is how I plan to reflect on the Cluetrain Manifesto.

Searls tells the story of a Nigerian Pastor he met on his flight. Sayo Ajiboye put the relationship between a buyer and seller into the transaction of a good. I immediately became nostalgic for Turkey. I went on the Lehigh in Turkey trip two summers ago. We would walk through the famous Bazaar where there are thousands of merchants. There are many merchants who sell hookahs, but we had been going to the same hookah place every night we were in Istanbul and felt loyal to the owner, Sadullah. At the end of our trip almost everyone bought a hookah from him. He was really knowledgeable and honest about his products. He told us which hookahs were of good quality and he gave us a fair price. Had we gone to buy a hookah in the Bazaar we definitely wouldn’t have had the same experience because we didn’t have a relationship with them. All of the authors go on and on about marketplaces both virtual and real, but every time I read the word “marketplace”, I was immediately taken back to the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul.

The authors discuss how human voice is respected more than generic word. This made me think of an essay contest my English teacher held in class my senior year of high school. Mr. Rowe was one of those teachers students love. His lectures weren’t boring, and he did fun activities. On the first day of class he wanted us to write an essay about a basic lesson we had learned. After a lazy summer I had a hard time getting back into the swing of writing. My friend Stacey, who had been studying for the SAT, was already in school mode. She began writing vigorously, and the girl was busting out SAT vocab words left and right.

I reflected back on my summer, and the lessons I had learned. The only thing I could think of was how I had accomplished to mow the lawn the weekend before. My essay ended up being about an experience that had two lessons. The first lesson was that I learned to mow the lawn, but the bigger lesson was that I learned not to procrastinate. I talked in detail about how I had told my mom I could mow the lawn, so she wouldn’t have to deal with the hassle of calling a service since my dad was away working in Pittsburgh. I had been putting it off, because I didn’t actually want to do it. By the time I started mowing, the grass was way too tall and thick for a girl of my stature to tackle.

I turned in my essay last because I had spent so much time thinking about what I wanted to write. Obviously Stacey had turned in her essay first and was glowing with a smug smile, as if she had the contest in the bag. I’m guessing you can predict what happened the next day when Mr. Rowe announced the results. I had won, and it was awesome, but I didn’t gloat about it in front of Stacey, well not a lot anyway. After class, I ask Mr. Rowe why I had won, a question Stacey clearly wanted answered since her essay was about her fabulous trip to Greece. He said simply, “You wrote with your voice.” Even though I hadn’t thrown out the cornucopia of impressive words Stacey had, I had told a funny story through my eyes, and it was a story that was relatable, a story where people who had ever put something off could identify. Mr. Rowe talked to our class that week about the value of voice in writing, and how it make a story or whatever being written more genuine and personal.

After that, I started to find that I liked reading pieces that had voice. I completely agree that too often companies give out pieces of information that have been so edited and generic they lack any genuine substance.

A final point that struck me was this statement, “However much we long for the Web is how much we hate our job.” I don’t know the page number because I bought the electronic version, which apparently means there are more pages, but it’s in the “Our Voice” section. I can relate to this statement. Last semester during my internship, on the days when I had nothing to do I longed to watch TV shows on the Internet, and “stumble” to look for new and fun websites, but obviously I could not do such things. On the days when I fun tasks assigned to me, about subjects I found interesting, I didn’t long for these online distractions. The correlation is definitely valid.

Clearly as I read my mind would wander, but through all the babble, I definitely related and understood Cluetrain’s messages, and I think it’s interesting to see the predictions and understanding the authors had about the Internet ten years ago. The Internet has become such an integral part of our world, and it will only become more so in the future. People can connect quickly and without borders, this can be both good and bad, but miraculous nonetheless.