View as a flickr slideshow.

I’ve posted a set of photos on Flickr that follow my seven-day adventure of making a loopback Windsor chair at the John Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC. Never have I worked so hard while on vacation, nor found it so relaxing and fulfilling. Spending 60 or so hours shaping into an 18th-century styled chair something that starts out looking like white oak firewood and a beautiful piece of butternut is — to me, at least — an intensive therapeutic (even meditative) experience. (To each his own, I guess). Pleasant mountain weather, delicious food and an annual gathering of dance-oriented folk musicians at the school during the week we were there also made for a unique experience that my wife and I will remember forever.

It’s Friday morning and I’m in the office all day today. Sometime after work, I’m flying to Austin for three days of the South by Southwest Interactive Festival. I say sometime because it’s supposed to be at 7:30 p.m., but the weather predictions here in Nashville are calling for a “Winter Storm Warning” starting around 6 p.m. Having lived in Nashville most of my life, I ignore such warnings until I can confirm them with my own eyes, so I’m still planning on leaving at that time.

I won’t be blogging about SXSW on this blog, although later today, I’ll point to a URL where, however I will be blogging at Hammock.com/SXSW2008 along with other people from Hammock who will be there. We’re going to be aggregating all our posts and Twitter “tweets” and photos and videos at one spot this year.

My friend Taylor McKnight has created a really cool scheduling tool so I can point to a page that shows the panels I may attend, although I always tend to change my mind.

I haven’t packed yet, so maybe I’ll find Tantek Çelik’s SXSW packing tips helpful.

Stickers: If you see me (or anyone from Hammock), ask for a sticker — it’s what one does at SXSW.

More to come…

For the past 30 years, I have been traveling in and out of Tampa regularly (I married into the area). Almost every good practice or design I’ve seen in any U.S. airport, I’ve seen at Tampa’s first. Other than a glitchy car rental system (okay, I’m spoiled by the way Hertz Gold works and Tampa is the only place where you have to stand in line), Tampa’s airport seems to be designed by people who actually think as passengers. It has a great “user-interface” with signage at the right spots, saying the right thing. It has public spaces that are both functional and aesthetically pleasing. And it is the first airport I know that has redesigned its security check-in area in a way that expedites flow in a space that seems intended to comfort the checking-in passenger with reassuring grandeur.

I often see Tampa’s influence in other airports — some of the most striking examples are in other Florida cities, especially Orlando — but for the most part, airport planners seem more focused on the logistics of moving people around, rather than on the experience people have in the airport space.

Oh, and one last thing. Tampa’s airport was one of the first I encountered that offered FREE wifi to passengers. They don’t (like Nashville’s BNA, for example) try to hijack passengers into paying several dollars for a few minutes of checking e-mail or altering travel plans, they understand that free wifi should be an infrastructure convenience like air-conditioning that can be used as a competitive advantage.

Also, if your airport has free wifi, I’ll almost always give it a shout-out love post if I’m sitting in it waiting for a plane (like now). Oh, yeah. And someone will likely add a love-link to your airport at the SmallBusiness.com directory of airports with free wifi.

[Note: For the record, I now travel with a USB device (Sierra Wireless is the brand) that allows me (or others in my office who travel and who can use it, as it's not tied to one computer) to tap into AT&T's 3G network.]

Later: Speaking of free wifi, JetBlue, Yahoo! and RIM have announced an in-air means to access IM and email during flights. Doesn’t sound like full-fledged web-access, but it sounds like it’s worth the price.

I’ve got a few things in the “want to blog about that” queue, but, alas, duty calls. In the meantime, here’s a photo of the globe-trotting Joi Ito I took at a dinner party last night. (I told Joi I get jet-lag from following him on Twitter.) And here’s a photo of me shooting back. Joi has posted several wonderful shots taken at the dinner with his (camera-geek-alert) Leica M8, wow. I’m in New York in meetings all day today and will be flying back to Nashville tonight.

On the Southwest “Biz” page, the airlines is announcing some rather radical new features related to its new boarding policy.

They include some perks for hardcore SWA fliers (like me) so it will be interesting to see how they position these baby-steps toward tiering their seating policy away from the “egalitarian” system of old.

Here are the components of their, hmm, what to call it, “We don’t have first class, but how about this class?” (Later: Or, “It’s not first class, but you can move to the front of the class” fare)

Business Select: When you purchase this new fare, they’ll guarantee you’ll be among the first to board and you’ll also get extra Rapid Rewards credit and a free drink.

The Rapid Rewards A-List: Fly 16 roundtrips in 12 months and you get on the SWA A-List where they’ll reserve you the best boarding pass available on all your flights for an entire year, which means you’ll most likely get an A boarding pass. (Note: Finally, an A-List on which I’ll be included.)

Freedom Awards: Rapid Rewards Members can now convert two Standard Awards into one Freedom Award. With the exception of a few blackout dates, Freedom Awards are not subject to seat restrictions.

Later: The Dallas Morning news has details about the new “perks to lure business travelers”.

(Thanks, Lewis)

Technorati Tags: southwest, swa

I guess my regular use of JetBlue to fly from Nashville to JFK is not enough to keep the route profitable. The service ends on January 6. I think I’ve written here that Delta has done what it can to match the route — and under-price it. As soon as JetBlue pulls the plug, Delta will increase their price. I guess I’ll be doing the SWA Islip/LIRR thing again. Not my favorite, but by the time one hassles with Delta’s JFK operation, flying SWA into Islip is a pleasure.

Speaking of Jeff Jarvis (see previous post), I am looking forward to participating in Wednesday’s “Networked Journalism Summit” that Jeff and the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism (Jeff heads its interactive journalism program) has organized with a grant from the MacAurther Foundation. The summit is designed to “bring together the best practices and practitioners in collaborative, pro-am journalism.” (I’m hoping it’s like a pro-am golf tournament as I’d like to be paired with a really good pro.)

The premise of the summit:

“…even as journalistic organizations may shrink, along with their revenue bases, journalism itself can and must expand and it will do that through collaborative work. The internet makes that collaboration possible and we’ve barely begun to explore the opportunities it affords. A year or two ago, the point of such a meeting might have been evangelizing this idea. But in that time, a number of great projects in collaborative, networked journalism have taken off. So now is the time to share the lessons — success and failures — from these efforts and to determine what’s needed to move on to the next goals. By bringing together about 150 practitioners from all sides, we hope that the meeting itself can spark new partnerships and projects.”

Several people whose RSS feeds I follow are participating. Knowing the organizers had extremely limited space, I’m very honored to be a part of the day-long event Wednesday.

Sidenote: I’ll be arriving in NYC Tuesday mid-afternoon and heading back to Nashville very early Thursday.

Unlike rumors from a few months ago, Southwest will not abandon its open-seating policy. According to the company, their passengers didn’t want them to change. However, they will be tweaking their system so that each passenger will get an assigned spot in the line. According to the carrier, this will help cut down on the way passengers congregate in line for an hour in order to make sure they get at the front of their boarding group.

While my travel icon is a Southwest plane, I’m scheduled on some other carriers over the next few days. (Update: Over the past two weeks, I’ve been on five different SWA flights, all of which arrived early.) I’m flying Northwest for a quick meeting in Minneapolis tomorrow. On Friday, I’m back in Nashville and am appearing on a panel at the Vanderbilt Law School on the topic: “The Emerging Long Tail of Creative Content Distribution: Implications for the Entertainment Industries.” I can’t wait to hear what I have to say on the topic — but the professor who invited me claims to read this blog and insisted that something I’ve ranted about is applicable to what they’re discussing.

On Sunday, I’m flying Delta to New York (they matched JetBlue’s fare and had a schedule that better matched my needs) and will be at the Folio: Show on Monday speaking about ethical issues magazine publishers (really, everyone) face online. Preview: I’m in the “transparency” camp — and I hate those text ads that Paul Conley is down on. Also, I can’t stand pay-per-post advertising if it’s not clearly labeled as such — I don’t like it then, either, but I think labeling advertising “advertising” and sponsored content “sponsored” is defendable. Also, as long as it’s clearly disclosed, I think “cap-per-post” marketing is ethical, as well.

Don’t know how much blogging I’ll be doing. These days, Twitter seems to be my publishing platform of choice while traveling.

In April, 2006, I blogged about the company, DayJet, the “world’s first ‘per-seat, on-demand’ jet service.” While the roll-out of the service is slower than indicated in the item I pointed to (the tests in Florida start soon), the company is still moving forward with its plans. And Nashville’s general aviation John Tune airport is still on the list of potential roll-out test “dayports.” (Self-interest note: the airport is about a ten-minute drive from my house.) Today, Jon Udell has a post about Ed Iacobucci, DayJet’s co-founder and CEO. Jon also has a 52-minute ITConversations podcast interview with Iacobucci. While not the ever-promised “flying car,” the “jet taxi” movement is one that fascinates me. If this stuff interests you, Udell’s post and interview is an intriguing look at the peer-to-peer network analogies applicable in this context.

Today, I noticed from Facebook status updates and Twitter posts (tweets) that a few of my acquaintances were, like me, flying today. They noted what I did in my flights from Nashville to Oakland (via a change in San Diego): airports were quiet and the flights are less than half full. Out of a potential 137 passengers, my flight from Nashville to San Diego had 58 and my San Diego to Oakland flight had 44. As I have noted from experience, the first weeks of September are not heavy flying times in general as the vacation season has ended. However, today, it seemed an especially somber-flying day for airline passengers.

I can understand the trepidation. The date 9/11 means many things to us — in both a collective way and with each of us, in a uniquely personal way. I travelled today with my colleague John Lavey, who is the person who, six years ago, stuck his head in my office door and told me to head to the TV. This morning, we tried to recall how that morning went our office. I know several people who will read this post can remember our shared dismay as we followed the events unfold on a TV in our break room.

As our offices are in an 11-story building that also houses several regional and field offices of federal agencies including, at the time, the FBI, by mid-day we were told the building was going to be “secured” and were encouraged to send our staff home. A couple of our employees were in DC along with two clients who were traveling with them. The four of them wisely determined to use their rental car to immediately drive down to Nashville — Hertz and other rental agencies, you’ll recall, announced later they would waive all drop-off fees for customers who were in such circumstances.

As I headed out of our office building that early afternoon, the building was being guarded by, I assume, FBI agents, in full flak-gear with machine gun ready. It was, for me, a personal surreal moment in a collective surreal experience.

I think we all have our personal impressions of horror from that day. So, in no way am I suggesting that anyone should fly on a commercial aircraft on the anniversary of 9/11/2001 if it conjures up fear.

As for me, however, I hope there is something respectful in flying on this day. I know there are many ways this day is being remembered. For me, in a very small, personal way, flying cross-country was a way to say I won’t be intimidated by the heinous act of terrorists.

I’m attending Federated Media’s Conversational Marketing Summit in San Francisco tomorrow afternoon and Wednesday. I’ll also be in the Bay area Thursday and will return to Nashville Friday morning. I’ll be online much of the time, but won’t be updating this blog with the typical prolificacy.

Travel good news, bad news: According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, airline delays are setting records — like the government needs to tell you that. The good news is this: Southwest, the official airlines of the rexblog, had the highest on-time arrival rate at 75.2 percent. (They also have the best blog — however, that’s not a government statistic yet.) As I’ll be spending several hours on Southwest planes this month (starting tonight), I’m happy to note the on-time arrival statistic, as it will provide a basis for comparison that I will also note on this blog. Observation: For business travelers using Southwest, this week is the beginning of a short period of time when the chaos settles down a bit, as the family vacationers stay home.

Technorati Tags: swa

From time-to-time, typically when I’m in one of the many airports Southwest serves (like Manchester, NH) that provide their passengers free wireless access to the Internet, I like to mention how doing so can save the airline and airport operational expenses — and, for a growing number of passengers — serve as a factor in judging the quality of the airport experience. There is a long wiki-style list on SmallBusiness.com of airports that offer FREE wifi: many airports have figured out the benefits of offering it. (In the 1960s, they figured out air conditioning and sometime before, the benefits of public washroom facilities.) As I have noted here, free wifi in airports can provide the facilities management the opportunity to help passengers self-manage re-booking, re-routing situations and can help market the retail and restaurant options in the airport. It is not an expense to provide free wifi: trying to make it a profit center is a loser.

I feel really bad. I cheated on Southwest. I flew to DC earlier this week and the person making the arrangements found a good deal on an American Airline Flight from Nashville to Reagan-National. And so, last evening I found myself waiting for an American Airlines flight to Nashville when, after a two-hour delay, the announcement came that the flight was canceled.

While I started making alternative arrangements via the Internet and a phone-call to American Express Travel, an editor from Hammock Publishing who was traveling with me called the 800 number the AA desk agent provided for us. Via the web and phone, within a few moments, I had us booked on a Southwest Flight for 7 a.m. this morning and two rooms in an economy hotel near BWI airport.

However, here’s what the conversation went like with American Airlines: “The earliest we can get you out of Washington is Saturday afternoon.” (This was Thursday night.) (What about a hotel?) “We don’t have to pay for any accommodations because this is weather related.” (What about a refund?) Sorry, I can’t provide you any information about refunds because this is merely a portion of the trip.” (You’re not being all that helpful.) “I’m 3,000 miles away and that’s the best I can do.”

The weather was bad up and down the eastern seaboard yesterday. That I understand. However, this type of attitude is why I avoid flying on anything but Southwest. I’ve been delayed — due to weather — on Southwest, but I’ve never been insulted or harassed or treated like I was doing them a favor by being their customer.

I would rather fly Southwest to Baltimore — and go through all the hassle involved with getting from BWI to downtown DC — than fly on American to Reagan National, which is practically in downtown DC.

In my experience, Southwest seems much better capable of re-booting their system whenever some major glitch occurs. (Note I didn’t use the word “crash.”)

Okay. I’ve got that off my chest.