Part of the Process

The Rosetta Stone, British Museum by Gary Denham I've dealt with work flows that result in communications for many years and one trend that I've noticed over the past 5 or so years is that unlike previous communications channels, wh ich might have remain relatively small and fragmented before they become widespread, there are now various avenues for communication and people will be comf ortable using more than one ; even fr om the same device . For example, I have friends that will use email, F acebook messaging, WhatsApp, Snapchat and SMS (or iMessage) between the same set of people depending on both the context and content of the messages. Some background I was recently at a conference where Patrice About from AirFrance made the point about various customer service aspects for airlines now don't have a single way of achieving that service and passengers expect to use the most convenient method available to them, for...

Leaving Athens Following on from my last trip to the SITA Summit in 2014  this year's SITA Forum in Athens had similar themes, but with a more airport focused audience. I think my biggest take away is that self-service is important ; not just as a method in cutting costs but also in improving the passenger experience ( #PaxEx ) via two main factors - control and information. Control To pick out the two salient illustrations of this, for control I'll turn to Patrice About from AirFrance. He made the point that consumer bag tracking devices now available for about $50, and these aren't under airline control or put in baggage with their knowledge. So the industry faces a choice - either find a way to work with passengers bring their own device or bury head in sand and have pax that are better informed than airline agents when a bag has been put on the wrong aircraft. This trend is happening now, the good news for airlines is that bag tag devices are GPS/sim based and m...

So a couple of weeks since the Apple Watch launch and I have read then thought a bit more since my initial feelings . So I thought I'd round up the best on the web so far with some of my own thoughts. As someone whose phone spends most of the day on the desk in front of me, this cartoon made me chuckle The harsh reality of the "smart" watch #AppleWatch #Wearables pic.twitter.com/diHhN1XtVD — Theo Priestley (@ITredux) March 11, 2015 it's a believable world where the watch is just an accessory for a phone. To me apps as providers to a new watch UI framework makes sense as Pebble are proposing in their latest kickstarter. This follows the kind of process from when desktop applications were shrunk to fit smartphones and the way that we use/interact with "apps" is different now. (I think that it's also reasonable to assume that way we use apps will also change in the same way desktop programs have become much more app like). This feels like a much ...

Early morning view of Cayo Las Brujas I have recently returned from a trip that was like walking into a living case study into why I have helped 15below produce the software it does for the past decade. I was a on a twin centre trip to Cuba and on arrival our rep gave us the pickup time to leave Havana which was very early (3am!). We queried this to confirm it was correct and simply told "yes, 3 am". What we later found out was that it was the start of pickups and NOT a specific time. In addition, ours was the last hotel. we had no information on flight number or a published flight schedule (later found out it's a very informal timetable, leaves when everyone has turned up!) Now if waiting for nearly two hours, before even boarding a coach to the airport at that time, weren't bad enough the hotel staff weren't that interested and the telephones using the hotel phones couldn't get through to the rep's number - it didn't help that I don't spe...

Brighton Sea front frosted 2 I didn't anticipate quite so many examples   to my December blog post  on disruption and communication  so soon.  As a follow up I'd like to briefly mention some of these,  ranging from at best inconvenient and stressful experiences  to the frightening and life taking. Taking the first and the seeming inability of the British rail system to cope with our seasons. They suffer with trust and respect as a lot of the people using the system for holiday travel are also regular commuters. Indeed my Facebook feed has a number of people complaining that they have to put up with this all year round.  With the scenes at Finsbury Park and the snow closing  Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport and Leeds Bradford International airport , it's got to have a knock on with passenger trust and with the relatively trivial nature of the impact there isn't much opportunity for the companies involved to show respect. Apart from ma...

Beach Snowman Xmas cards available As the festive season gets into full swing, I am glad that I am not reliant on using mass public transport before I can relax and enjoy myself this year. Especially after reading the news this morning - predicting rail disruption caused by  floods in the mild weather .  For around the past decade my day job has involved helping travel companies in passenger communications; as distilled into these top tips of  The 3 Big Ideas In Managing Passenger Disruption  or in  Managing Travel Disruption  that looks at more crisis orientated passenger communications. [edit: these links are now dead, more up-to-date take on  Disruption management: Your opportunity to impress  or  Travel Disruption Management: Tech Opportunities in the Travel Industry ] But from the small journeys that I have taken in the past week, whether by bus or train, one takeaway has been that small delays can be frustrating when you don't k...