UTS Global Program Manager

I have joined United Technology Solutions as a Global Program Manager. I started at the same time as Gerard. We now work again for Fred Guild as we did at MatrixOne until more than a year ago.

At UTS, we have lots of resources and options to help develop collaborative solutions with PLM in MatrixOne or other solutions not related to MatrixOne or PLM.

Let Gerard, Fred, Tom, or I help you develop the collaborative solution that you need. Leave a comment or use the Contact Us links available from the web site.

Delta Sightseer Challenge ?!?

This blog isn't supposed to be about Delta. My last 2 posts mentioned what bad times that I have had lately. I was theorizing that part of the problem is the reduction in staff and full airplanes. Never mind that it is now highly publicized that 1/3 of flights were delayed in June.

My problem is this: instead of Delta spending money in ways to improve the customer experience with more staff or better baggage handling automation, Delta decides to spend money to market a silly Sightseer Challenge with American Express. We don't need another Amazing Race; we need to get where we are paying to go in a reasonable amount of time with our bags.

Please Delta - make sense with what you are doing.

Delta is 0 for 2

I generally try to fly Delta because they have the most options from Charleston, but I am beginning to rethink that preference. I believe that they have done so much cost cutting and are running so close on flight timing and capacity that customer service is lacking. The other week I spent the night in Cincinnati because they didn't offer/suggest to redirect me through Atlanta. That change would have saved them and me extra time and money. This week, I spent 45 minutes sitting on a plane waiting for a gate in Atlanta. The flight was on-time to Atlanta until the 45 minute wait. I had 35 minutes to the next flight. We eventually arrived at gate B8. My departure left from gate B10. You would generally think - no sweat, piece of cake. 25 minutes is plenty of time. But, I had checked bags because I took my golf clubs with me on this trip (all work and no play ...). I told Gerard traveling with me that our bags would not make it after I saw the baggage handler stuff my bag deep into one of those carts. The flight to Charleston was scheduled from B10 and never changed. No issue occurred in knowing where to take the bag, but the handlers are very disorganized with collecting up the bags and moving them around. In this case, we made it home on schedule. Our bags took until 5 PM the next day. Luckily, I was home and didn't need anything from my bag.

Delta will have another chance in a couple of weeks. Let's hope that they can do better next time. AirTran is now in Charleston. My friend's first attempt to use them to fly to Vegas for a weekend left him stranded at the Atlanta airport on a Friday night. What option will get you where you need to go if you fly? I am not sure anymore.

Traveling fun

Collaboration ease needs to get better, because air travel is getting more frustrating. I and others that I work with are spending more and more extra nights in hotels or extra time at airports due to delays. Yes, the weather cannot be helped, but because of the cutbacks in flights and staff, the airlines (my experience is mostly with Delta) seem to be unable to handle anything imperfect in their planned schedules. Because they are flying a lot more regional jets, the regionals cannot fly in marginal weather for the mainline jets causing delays, plus fewer seats exist to roll people over for later flights.

Thursday night, Delta should have changed me to fly through Atlanta instead of my original itinerary through Cincinnati. Rather than missing my flight by 10 minutes in Cincinnati because we had to wait 15 minutes on a flight attendant to fly in from another flight, I would have had 2 chances to get home through Atlanta. Instead, I spent the night at a $40 per night hotel as a distressed traveler and then spent Friday trying to find a way home.

This scenario isn't new to travelers of any frequency, but it feels like it happens more often. The vacation travelers are played up in the media as a great way to travel rather than by car. The families trying to get back from Disney World are frustrated. Travel by air has become just like Greyhound. It is crowded, confusing, and you cannot expect much service. Now, you might even pay for peanuts.

My range for driving is getting larger and larger. Before it was 4 hours, now it is 6. Maybe I will stretch it to 8. One person I sat next to said that their company policy had changed to 7 hours. They calculated that their employees lost 7 hours for any flight when the time to get to the airport early and delays were included.

According to the live earth web sites, less air travel means less of a carbon impact. I can kill 2 birds with one stone (using my cliche allowed for the day). I try collaborating a little less in person even though you need to for some work. And by not traveling as much, I think that I will live a little longer as a result, with a few less gray hairs.

Live Earth 7/7/07

Hopefully, you are enjoying some of the music provided by the concerts. The messages presented around the music are pretty important for us on the Earth as well. If you have the opportunity, then viewing the concert on Universal HD is the way to go. Click here to go to the official Live Earth blog. You can use the Carbon Footprint calculator to learn how much CO2 your lifestyle generates.

Because I am fairly lazy and I use IM, I downloaded the latest Windows Live Messenger. Just by changing my display name, Microsoft is making donations to different causes. If you already IM and use Windows Messenger, then how easy is that to do?

Introduction

Collaboration is my focus and collaboration requires good communication. A blog is a simple (and free using Blogger) tool to communicate informally and allow your comments. I will use this blog to highlight my thoughts re: the technology around collaboration.

Simple tools are available with Web 2.0 to enable communication and you can find someone willing to share their way of doing something that if you look hard enough you can find a way to solve your problem. Most of these problems are not for the larger enterprise because companies like Google and IBM focus on paid solutions. But, I suspect they are testing out ideas and starting with small and free tools.

Keep looking around. I will post my thoughts about collaboration and hope to read your comments.