While I am becoming more and more dissatisfied with Delta as my preferred airline because of treatment by most (not all) gate folks and flight attendants, I am finding that I am enjoying the networking opportunities with the folks I meet there more and more.
I travel. A lot. Because of that I often get bumped up to First Class and in First Class you meet the most interesting people. People who really have a great deal of knowledge and are willing to share it if asked. The dynamics are interesting actually, networking in-flight has its own norms and literacies unique to that environment, a lot like the new literacies for networking online.
In Flight Networking Norms
Very rarely are names exchanged, yet ideas, models, and strategies often flow like water. I think it is the perceived anonymity-the … “I will never see this person again” kind of thinking that promotes such candid sharing. This kind of networking has its own tacit rules too. It has been interesting learning to read the signs that signal with whom to have a knowledge building conversation.
For example, two ear buds means I doubt I want to talk you, but one ear bud means maybe. An open book before greeting means leave me alone. An open book during the conversation mean I am done. Someone who asks you what kind of work do you do is usually a winner in terms of my walking away with useful information. I have noticed that rarely in First Class are people lonely and hunger to chat like in coach. Rather, First Class conversation are charged and powerful, get to the point, and are very business like and come in waves.
Passion Ignited
For example, one time I sat next to a guy whose passion was sailing. That is a question I usually ask– What is your passion? What captures your interest? In coach, folks respond to that question in disbelief and usually say they have no idea, but in First Class there is no hesitation. The sailing guy smelled of the ocean, looked like the old man of the sea and he talked nonstop (something I usually hate but in this case I found it enthralling) 
telling me everything he knew about sailing around the world. He took out pictures and taught me terminology, techniques and pushed my imagination with his vivid accounts of storms, pirates, and near death experiences. I left shifted because of the conversation and added sailing to my list of 100 things to do before I die.
How Has Tech Impacted What You Do for a Living?
Many times I will ask folks how technology has changed their career field. A few weeks ago, I had an guy with the thickest southern accent I have ever heard (and I use to live in Ga.) dressed Bermuda shorts, a t-shirt and sweater vest keep me focused on tractors for 2 hours. Yes, tractors.
He pulled out his laptop and shared You Tube videos showing all the technological advanced in agricultural over the years. He rocked my world. I was amazed to learn that tractors today are incredibly high tech. In addition to touch screen technology (with IPAD quality) that do everything from auto-drive to select the amount of seed, depth of the planting and how much chemical to add- farmers can surf the Web, use bluetooth, collaborate with other farmers in communities and networks and buy and sell commodities– all from the cab of the tractor while the machine does the work.
There are joystick controls which can control slave drone tractors (smaller version of the master that work alongside the farmer’s machine and they have no driver). Each automated machine has a geo-circle (determined with GIS and GPS) that when someone steps into that circle will automatically shut the machine down–saving lives. The data produced by these machines in terms of yield, moisture, etc in various parts of the field rivals anything I have ever seen.
As this Kentucky born gentleman showed me Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking tools that farmers are regularly integrating into their learning and knowledge construction I began to panic a bit. I remember thinking dang– if all of this is common place in agriculture then 1) am I behind??–do I have a grasp on the next wave? 2) kids can’t wait– we need to step up our game and increase urgency! He helped me understand how even migrant workers need to have a technical literacy to do this job. Often teachers tell me that rural kids who will not go to college, but rather work on the family farm have no need of digital literacy skills- think again.
Flashes of Brilliance
I once sat next to a guy who taught me about visioning and risk-taking (he started the company that puts gift cards for all the different stores in your local grocery or convenience store- that idea netted something like 13 billion the first year.) I also sat next to a guy who taught me about insurance and investing- both skills that I came home and immediately applied. I remember an electric company owner who taught me about timing and leadership– knowing when to make your play for your most radical idea and how that was all about timing.
Deep Value
Most recently, I sat next to a passionate 28 year old who taught me about how the medical records profession is changing. He shared with me an idea he had for bringing speed dating, dating services, and community events into a respectable blended approach online that will help those new to an area find interesting people to do things with in the community. It is targeted for lonely 40-70 year olds. I was really impressed with his thinking. This same guy told me stories of how doctors find it difficult to embrace change, of watching his contractors with education backgrounds work through Bruckman’s steps of forming, storming, norming and performing as they came to terms with teaching the medical records software in online spaces–a story which is genera
lizable to my work.
We got into a discussion about how learning is changing. How his girlfriend who is in veterinarian school listened to the lectures of her professors at home and sped up the videos as she could process the lectures faster than they were given and spent her time in the classroom actually engaged with dissection and hands-on learning – applying all she heard in the lectures. (Now there is an idea)
And it isn’t always just me who is learning. Often I will share my experiences and strategies as well and we use our collective knowledge to inform each others work. Sometimes we exchange business cards- most times we do not. And not once has a conversation in First Class ever resulted in a conversation on the ground. But every single time it has resulted in collaborative knowledge gained and used. I am a better person, an more creative business woman, and a better educator because of the networking I do in the air.
Have you ever had experiences like that? I would love to hear the lessons you have learned in flight.
UPDATE:
This post was in draft form waiting to be posted for a week or so and low and behold today I get an email from the last guy I talked about in this post. I had asked him to share the way she sped the recorded lectures up so I could share it and he did just that. So I guess I can’t say anymore that my inflight conversations have not ever resulted in any on the ground conversation!
Here is his letter for your enjoyment.
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David
Here are the directions:
This is a great post! I love these kinds of serendipitous conversations. I also find it interesting that there is no hesitation on “passion” among those in first class. Almost like knowing yourself that well helps get one on track to becoming someone who can afford first class.
I often find myself having these types of conversations riding up in a gondola to go skiing. I meet people from all over the world, talk about what they do, and discuss new ski equipment – all in a 20 minute ride. I have had my world rocked a few times listening to people tell me about their career choices. There are some amazing people out there to learn from.
@Sue- Just for the record I never pay for First Class I just fly so much I get bumped up a lot. I also ride in coach a lot. However, I hear you- I think there is a connection between leadership and knowing yourself. Very profound thought. You ought to tweet that.
@Lisa- Is there one lesson in particular that stands out? I would love to learn what you have learned.
Your post generated thoughts and memories. Memory first: I’ve only been bumped up to first class once…I my way home from Egypt. Unfortunately, I bit down on a Greek olive and broke my tooth…before takeoff…so the flight was miserable. Here’s the sympathy I got from the aircraft attendants: “Everyone who flies first class knows there are pits in olives…too bad for you.” If I’m ever bumped up again, I may pass on the salad.
Thought: my husband is a farmer and he, like your Georgian acquaintance, operates highly technological agricultural equipment using GIS in his planting and tending and harvesting of crops. He is also quite apt at a number of other tech toys that for him are tools of his farming industry. I am amazed by what he now does in comparison to how he farmed five or ten years ago. He is farming smarter, but still working hard. The changes in his industry have been propelled by technology and bio-scientific advancement–research. The forces are working together–inputs and outputs are carefully monitored and meticulously measured–to simultaneously affect environmental sustainability and human sustainability through improved approaches to food production.
I was thinking of how farmers and teachers are alike. They both are responsible to nurture valuable commodities. Their work is both science and art. They both possess intrinsic passion, returning day in and day out to work over which they have limited control, facing the vicissitudes of nature: mother nature and human nature. And they are both being moved to change by the combined forces of technology and science.
Teachers, like farmers, are being asked to use measurements and monitors to build a better future—to simultaneously affect the institution of public education and the learning it engenders. If farmers can do it, make vast changes in the way they think about and approach science and technology, can’t we as teachers rethink our role as nurturers of the Earth’s most precious commodity?
I’d like to give you the benefit of the doubt – maybe 1st class was merely a metaphor for the new class of educator? But on second thought, you may be revealing the hard reality that public educators always forgets about: we teach the masses, not the elite. The elite fly first class and don’t need our one-size fits all mode of transportation. Don’t mess with the capitalist system that keeps middle-class people FIRMLY in middle-class by giving the coach class less space, less money to work with, less comfort, less attention…hmmmm, less of everything while paying the taxes to bail those guys out instead of them using their own money.
Seems I now know why I don’t blog. I’ll have to work on both of those things.