Cook 'em Dan-O

Social Media: DVR Killer?

I remember (from my visits using The Wayback Machine) when certain hit shows like MASH and Friends had their final episode, and people would gather at someone's house to watch together.

Then along came the DVR—Digital Video Recorder, the collective noun version of TiVO—and forevermore we were "time shifting"… recording shows and watching them whenever we wanted, as opposed to when the networks wanted. Media people wrung their hands and worried that this was the end of television advertising, since viewers now had the opportunity to fast-forward past the commercials.

Fast forward to the world of social media. People at an event are "live-tweeting", meaning you're getting a stream of messages that are directly or indirectly telling you what's happening at the event. So for instance, you didn't have to be watching or listening to know how the Stanford-Oklahoma State football game was going… Cheer, groan, cheer, etc.

And if they're not tweeting, they're using Facebook. Or texting. Or using any of a number of other commenting and sharing services. What's happening here is that the community that at one time would have gathered in someone's house, or a bar, or at the event itself, is now gathering in a virtual way. We're all watching, and social media gives us a way of staying connected and sharing the experience.

And here's where the traditional media people should pay attention. The trick is, you can only connect and share as the event is happening. If you recorded the Stanford-Oklahoma State game for later viewing, all this sharing is going to ruin the ending. And if you want to connect and share, you have to do it live. Which means you have to watch the commercials.

So if the traditional media people are on their game, they'll be creating all kinds of opportunities to share their shows, games, tournaments and so on as events.

Fast-forward that.

Happy International Women’s Day!

I was mentally channeling Seth Godin this morning, imagining this blog post…

When You're a Woman and You	Prevailing Wisdom Says
Are a star athlete	You're lesbian
Are a strong business or political leader	You're a bitch
Advance quickly through the organization	You're sleeping with the boss
Are in a relationship with me	You're my property
Like Math and Science	You can't get a date
You're angry with me	You must be having your period
Leave work to pick up your kids	You aren't committed to the organization

When I found out (thank you Google) that today is International Women's Day, I figured it meant I should not just think about this post, I should actually write it.

So here you go.

Free at Last

Go to the Lincolm Memorial.
Walk to the top of the steps.
Turn around and look out across the reflecting pond.
Imagine seeing nothing but humanity, for as far as you can see.
Now imagine yourself as a young, black preacher about to make a speech that will change the world forever.

If that doesn't send chills up your spine, go to the ER and have them check to see if you're still alive.

When Bobby Kennedy was assasinated, I knew who he was, and what that meant.  No one had to tell me what that event was about.

When Dr. King was assasinated, I didn't know who he was.  All I knew was that Bennie Taylor, having heard that we would be getting the day off to pay respects to Dr. King, was running around the school yard shouting "free at last, free at last".

Over time I realized that those memories told me everything I needed to know about racial equality in America.

Goodbye to All That

Here is my annual listing of words, phrases, and ideas that have had their fifteen minutes of fame, and are now free to retire.

• Winning!
• Meme
• Fail
• Siri
• Stress Test
• Occupy _____
• Anything Kardashian
• Tiger Mom
• Tiger Blood
• Lockout
• 99%
• Gamification
• Onboarding
• Double Down
• Uber-anything
• Reach out

What 9/11 Taught Me

I was really dreading the run-up to the 10th anniversary of 9/11.  I was thinking that the emotions were still too raw, too unresolved... even after ten years.  Mostly, I was thinking that I didn't want to think about 9/11 as something that happened in the past. Because it's not really in the past.  It's like looking back on Pearl Harbor while World War II is still going on.

That said, I thought it would be valuable to ask, "what have I learned?".

• I learned who Al Qaeda was (and is)... and that there are still people in this world that can twist a religious belief into justification for imposing their will on others.
• I learned to hug my kids and my wife, every day.
• I learned to fear planes in the air, at least for a while.
• I wondered if Flight 93 would someday represent the beginning of the end for Al Qaeda.
• I added "how to respond to a terrorist attempt to take over the plane" to my mental pre-flight checklist while checking for the nearest exit.
• I got over my shyness about reporting suspicious packages in public places.
• I witnessed grass-roots patriotism as people bought or created US flags to tape to their car windows.
• I learned to cut people some slack as discussion and reaction flowed on the message boards and websites immediately after 9/11.
• I decided that I would not be intimidated.
• I embraced my Muslim friends.
• I dug into the history and politics of Central Asia.
• I tried to understand the daily life of people in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
• I said "thank you" to a New York cop.

There's no finishing thought, no dramatic conclusion where all the loose ends are tied up and we go to commercial.  And that's as it should be.  Because this story has not been fully told.

Verizon, AT&T, and the iPhone

So Tuesday Verizon announced the launch of Apple's iPhone 4 on the Verizon network—surprising no one at all.

(Side note: following the news on Twitter is almost a sport, with tweets like "conference starts in 10 minutes" and "he's about to announce something big!" People, please!)

Of course, lots of folks (especially those living in San Francisco, where AT&T cellular coverage is the subject of much debate) have been waiting for iPhone's availability on the Verizon network. I don't need to cover the announcement or follow-up articles here; that's been done quite well by others, including these folks. What I find interesting is what lessons there are about how companies compete using the same basic product, and what it takes for a large company to partner with a smaller company.

Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better

Verizon offers an iPhone. AT&T offers an iPhone. So how do you compete, when you and your competitor offer virtually the same product?

The first thing to do is to step back and review the complete customer experience. Verizon arguably has an advantage that transcends the device—their network. AT&T's responses notwithstanding, Verizon has been successful in asserting that "it's the network" and that their network provides better coverage than AT&T's network. AT&T has been responding that it has "the fastest network" but industry experts like Andrew Seybold will tell you that's a dangerous claim to make… since there are so many factors that determine the throughput of any given data connection.

Second, there are aspects of the service that can be used to differentiate: pricing, billing options, contract terms and bundled options are some examples. Verizon's "Friends and Family" service plan was a great differentiator, that had nothing to do with the products involved in using their service.

In Verizon's case, analysts have noted that Verizon will be offering support for "personal hotspots" with the iPhone; AT&T says it's "studying" the idea. Essentially, Verizon has bundled its "MiFi" capability, which allows a user to share a Wi-Fi connection among up to five devices. Adding support for Wi-Fi—and the ability to share a Wi-Fi connection—has other benefits (mobile operators are beginning to see the value in offloading data traffic to Wi-Fi hotspots), but in this context it creates a tangible difference between the AT&T service and the Verizon service.

Dancing with Elephants

Of course, supporting personal hotspots—or any partner-unique feature—puts a burden on the technology partner that has to be managed. There are both business and technical issues that have to be managed.

• Who owns the intellectual property for a partner-specific feature?
• If the larger partner funds the development of a unique feature, how do they pay for it?
• What period of exclusivity does the partner get with their unique feature?
• How does the smaller partner manage multiple, partner-specific software or hardware streams?
• How does the smaller partner say "no" to some of the larger partner's requests?

Bigger partner-smaller partner relationships are common; executing them successfully is much less common. The bigger partner wants to take advantage of the smaller partner's ability to get features developed quickly. The smaller partner sees a path to a ready market via the bigger partner. Each partner can misunderstand the other partner's capabilities. Both partners can fail to anticipate the "downstream" activities that can cause a promising development to die before it ever makes it to the market.

Handling multi-stream software development can be accomplished with careful architecting of the software functionality into "base" functions and "partner-specific" extensions. Keeping this separation intact makes it easier to innovate on each side of the software stack, which reduces complexity in coding and downstream testing.

Handling the business concerns becomes easier when there's a clear framework for cooperation between the partners, and a clear understanding of how each party benefits from the relationship. I like to open these discussions by stating what I believe my partner expects to gain from the relationship, and then asking the partner what they think I expect to gain. Starting with the other party's point of view first makes it easier to uncover differences in goals and desired outcomes. Sharing these expectations up front also helps build trust with the partner—they see your willingness to share your views on how your company expects to gain from the relationship.

Saying No by Saying Yes

So what about saying "no"? This can be a tough one, for both parties. The bigger partner might think (and you might have encouraged them to think) that your development team can accomplish virtually anything and in no time. The smaller partner wants desperately to please the bigger partner and demonstrate the value they bring to the partnership. These going-in points of view can be the beginning of a relationship that disappoints both parties.

I like to say, "Say no by saying yes to something else". This starts with sharing your development roadmap with the customer. I wouldn't advise sharing your roadmap at the beginning of the relationship—you want to focus on delivering what you have, not what you've yet to build—but as the relationship proceeds the bigger partner will want to engage in a "what comes next" conversation. This is where the roadmap helps, by doing a couple of things.

• It communicates a vision. Sometimes, the bigger partner wants to work with you because, frankly, they feel like they don't understand the market as well as you. Your product roadmap—and the vision behind it—communicates this understanding well.
• It outlines what will eventually be delivered. Often times, what the bigger partner wants to know is whether you ever plan to deliver a capability; when is something that can be discussed later. Smaller partners often confuse "will you ever" with "will you" and presume the time frame is "now".
• It sets a context for negotiation. Maybe the bigger partner wants a capability delivered one quarter earlier. Seeing the entire roadmap leads to a discussion of trade-off's: what are you willing to take later, in order to get that other capability now? In the absence of a roadmap, the bigger partner has no sense of the costs implied in asking for more, sooner.

There are still times where the bigger partner seems to be asking for more than you can comfortably deliver. How do you respond?

One point to realize is that there are lots of "actors" on the bigger partner's side, and they're not all equal. For instance, it's common to have members of the bigger partner's technical team involved in the discussion, and they will often ask for particular features. Maybe they're asking you to solve the problems they've had trouble handling. Maybe they're testing you. The important point is that they are not directly responsible for the bigger partner's product success. You have to know who owns the success of the envisioned product, and involve that person in the discussion. Because the discussion that needs to take place is all about trade-off's: time to market vs. functionality vs. resource costs. And you have to have the conversation with the person responsible for making those choices.

As one example, I was working on the rollout of a mobility service with a large systems integrator partner. We had worked out the fundamental product requirements and were busy executing on them. One person in the partner's organization wanted to know about our plans for SOAP and Web Services integration. When I dug into the question, I saw that this person was asking us to re-develop our entire "back end" infrastructure to allow for "seamless" integration with the partner's business processes and logic. The partner hadn't done the SOAP or Web Services work either, but this person wanted to be ready once they had. It took many conversations, but I was able to gather support from product owners on the partner's side to convince this requester that supporting SOAP and Web Services was something that could wait.

Don't Stomp on Your Dance Partner

Working with a partner substantially larger (or smaller) than you is something that's not going out of style anytime soon. So it's definitely worth knowing how to successfully engage with that partner. Smaller partners need to understand how products and services flow from development through testing, operations, deployment, and eventually sales. Larger partners need to understand where smaller partners can and can't help to innovate.

Over time, we'll see how well AT&T and Verizon respectively are able to partner with Apple to bring new customers to their services, and how well Apple partners with these and other mobile operators to expand the market for its smartphones and tablets.  Meanwhile, be smart about how your approach your partnerships and you'll be more successful in the end!

Bowl Mania

This just in from the We Couldn't Make This Up If We Tried department…

Remember when the Orange Bowl was called the Orange Bowl? And not the Tostito's Meineke Chick-fil-A GoDaddy.com Orange Bowl presented by Hardy's? Yeah, me neither. But just for fun, here's a listing of this season's bowl games, deconstructed. I've separated the bowl sponsor name from the bowl name (many no longer have a distinct name) and scrambled the order. So see if you can correctly match them up! Or just click the "I Don't Care" button and have another glass of champagne. Be careful, there are some ringers in each column!

Sponsor	Bowl Name
Auto Zone	Orange
Meineke Care Care	Sugar
Chic-fil-A	Bluebonnet
Hyundai	Sun
Allstate	Holiday
GoDaddy.com	Rose
Tostitos	Cotton
Capital One	Alamo
Progressive	Liberty
Outback	Fiesta
TicketCity	Gator
BBVA Compass	(blank)
Kraft Fight Hunger	Independence
Beef 'O' Brady	Humanitarian
New Mexico	Poinsettia
Champs Sports	Las Vegas
MAACO	Insight
Little Caesar's	Music City
AdvoCare V100	Armed Forces
Sheraton	Pinstripe
uDrove	Texas
Bell Helicopter	Military
New Era	New Orleans
Valero	Emerald
Franklin American Mortgage	St. Petersburg
Bridgepoint Education	Hawaii
R&L Carriers	BCS National Championship Game
Northrup Grumman	Student-Athlete

A Soldier’s Story

Department of Obscure References 

We were sitting—Paul, his wife Pat, Crystal and I—in a booth at the Andersen's Pea Soup restaurant in Santa Nella, having lunch. Paul had recently purchased Sean's truck, and we were getting together to iron out a DMV registration issue. Paul is one of those people you instantly like, and a talker (not unlike some of my siblings). When we met in the Andersen's parking lot he told me how he had modified the Chevy to go fast—really, really fast—and had been stopped on Highway 5 for speeding. Naturally, he talked his way out of a sure ticket.

As we had lunch and chatted, the conversation meandered through topics of marriage, kids, grandkids, the economy, and whether one of their grandchildren should join the military or was wasting his talent doing so. Paul had earlier mentioned meeting his wife and getting married a few days later, and I asked him if he was a veteran (which might have explained the fast courtship). Judging from (what I thought was) his age, I figured he had probably served in Vietnam.

Yes, Paul said, he was a veteran, and from the Vietnam era. He had been drafted, even though he was then married and a father. Paul was an excellent marksman and was targeted for a leadership position, but failed the test. When his Commanding Officer asked him about it, Paul admitted that he was illiterate—he couldn't read, and could barely write. "If you gave that test to me again orally, I'd ace it", Paul said. The CO did just that, and Paul passed it, just as he had predicted. With that, Paul found himself on a transport heading to Asia. Another era's "don't ask, don't tell."

What Paul told me next really surprised me. He and his buddies were on their way to Vietnam, but only made it as far as Korea. "We were in a lot of places we weren't supposed to be", Paul said. Paul told me about driving up over a rise with his lieutenant seated next to him in the jeep. Paul had earlier told him that he could keep him alive, but "you have to jump when I tell you to." As they came over the rise a North Korean stood up out of the brush. The American's orders were to shoot only after being fired upon, and the North Koreans knew this. So when Paul saw the North Korean, he pushed his lieutenant out one side of the jeep while he jumped out of the other side. An exchange of fire ensued, and the North Korean was killed. Paul had killed his first person in combat, and couldn't stop laughing. The lieutenant didn't understand, until Paul showed him the bullet hole in the windshield of the jeep; had Paul been in the jeep for another instant, he would have been killed.

I was still digesting this story—I'd never heard of covert operations in North Korea after that war ended—when I saw Paul's face darken. Soon, he was sobbing uncontrollably. Paul's wife tried to console him. Crystal and I looked at each other, wondering what to do. The story that came next was even more amazing.

Paul had a friend, Mike, who was also "in places we weren't supposed to be". Mike was apparently a big man, linebacker-sized, and was skilled in hand-to-hand combat. Paul was noticeably quiet about the details of Mike's death. He would only say that there was an ambush, that Mike single-handedly killed a number of North Koreans before being killed himself, and that a lot of guys owed their lives to Mike.

Officially, Mike died in South Korea after being hit by a truck. Paul accompanied Mike's body back to the US for his funeral, pledging to his dead friend that he would tell Mike's story.

Paul looked up at me with tears in his eyes and said, "but I never did". I looked at him and said, "well Paul, now you have".

A Foreclosure Tale

It ended with papers taped to the front door; what Martin Luther would have done with his Theses if Scotch® brand tape had been available in his time. I had expected a notice of a Certified Mail letter, along with the multiple letter copies (these came about a week later) addressed variously to "Crystal Callahan, Trustee"; "Daniel Callahan, Trustee"; and "Resident". Instead I got two smudged copies of a "Notice of Sale". We've received a fair number of official-looking during this time, most of them fake, so the first order of business was to verify the Notice's authenticity.

I called Wells-Fargo and confirmed that the Notice was genuine. So it's official, then: our house will be sold at auction on the 12^th of August. That is, of course, if there's someone who wants to buy the property at twice its current market value. No matter—we'll be relocating either way. So that's how the story concludes. How did we get to this point? More importantly, what did I learn from the experience?

Just Sit Right Back and You'll Hear A Tale

I'll spare you most of the sordid history. Let's just say that 14 months of unemployment in a 24-month period didn't help matters. I had actually started the loan modification process last Spring.  I had contacted the bank about a modification, to see if we could get some relief. They had me send them several documents: bank statements, tax returns, budgets and the like. Then they disappeared for a while, until they called back one day to say that we made too much money to qualify for a modification. I jokingly suggested that maybe I should quit my job so our income-to-mortgage payment ratio was lower; I'm not sure she got the joke.

As it turns out, fate took me up on my suggestion. My little-startup-that-could was running out of cash, and the equities markets were showing no signs of thawing out. So, I contacted the bank again and asked for a "forbearance"—let me stay in the house while unemployed, and make up the payments once I get a job. Again we went through the cycle of faxing all manner of documents to them. At the same time, I contacted Wells-Fargo Home Equity (the holder of our second mortgage) and repeated the process with them. It shouldn't surprise you to learn that Wells-Fargo-the-First and Wells-Fargo-the-Second had very little ability to talk to each other, share my documents and so on. The bank didn't say "yes" to the forbearance, but they didn't say "no" either. They simply said, "take a few months, find a job, and then pay us everything you owe". I knew that was a non-starter, but I also knew that was a fight that could wait for another day.  As for Wells-Fargo Home Equity, after much wrangling they basically admitted that they couldn't do anything for me until I had a job.

After three months, I still hadn't found a job.  So I wrote back to the bank and asked for an extension on the forbearance.  Again I had to submit a sheaf of documents, and checked daily for a decision.  The bank representative apologized for the delay, saying that "my type of loan" was particularly hard to resolve because there were some unspecified number of "investors" that had to be consulted.  So there was more than one "Mr. Big", and the bank wasn't one of them.  Getting to someone that could actually negotiate an agreement was going to be hard.

Dancing with Mr. Big

While all this was going on (and shortly after starting my new job), I received an email saying that Wells-Fargo was holding a "home preservation workshop" in Oakland. That sounded rather sanitary. I didn't know if it would help, but I decided to go, if only so I could talk to a person face-to-face and ask some questions about the process. I showed up in the morning, again somewhat surprised (though I shouldn't have been) by the sea of humanity there.  What I had thought would be a quick one-hour conversation turned into an all-day affair.  I basically went through the entire process again, resulting in what the loan adjuster thought was victory. The unnamed "Mr. Big" investors who had bought the derivative secured by our home loan had agreed to add the missing mortgage payments to the back end of the loan. Happy days were here again! I felt bad for the adjuster working with me; she was quite excited to score a victory. Why wasn't I jumping for joy as well?

I was very appreciative, and really wanted to take the deal, if only to be done with the process.  But as I thought about it, I realized that after nearly a year of negotiations, I hadn't really gotten anywhere. All I needed was some relief on the mortgage amount, and we could make it work. But I was told that this was the best deal I could expect.

Don't Cry for Me, Argentina

Department of Obscure References

We got together at home and talked about whether to stay or not. We might be able to do it, but it would be tough. We made a mortgage payment as part of the modification agreement while we continued to debate the advantages and disadvantages of staying in the home under the terms of our mortgage.  Then I received a cheerful letter from Wells-Fargo saying that they had helpfully paid our back property taxes, and that we could just go ahead and tack on some extra cash to the monthly payments until we had caught up. At that point, it was "game over".

It will be tough to move, no question.  We love the area, love our neighbors.  And some of us (ahem) are resistant to change.  But we've gotten over the emotional part of it, and are looking forward to the part where we get our financial footing back again.  We plan to stay in the area and know that we can be happy in a variety of housing situations.  So no worries there, and more good things to come.

Life Lessons

• Get out of your bubble.  The Great Recession that I thought was just affecting me was affecting lots of other people, from all kinds of circumstances.  As with layoffs, what felt at first like a personal problem turns out to be something commonly felt. 
• I still believe in rational decision-making, but it's clear that I don't understand what matters to the people that bought my loan.  They must know they're going to lose money in the deal.  They must have their reasons for making the decision they did; just don't ask me to explain it.
• All loans are not created equal.  There were people on each side of me in the "home preservation workshop" that were getting loan modifications worked out in real time.  As best I can tell, these people had loans that were backed by government agencies, or eligible for federal modification programs.  So the banks seem most willing to work with homeowners when they share the financial impact with the government... imagine that!
• No one at the bank knew what was going on, what the process was. I would be told that I couldn't make a proposal for a lower monthly payment, and then be asked on the next call what I thought I could afford. Each person I talked to wasn't sure what the process was.
• As I learned from a loan modification workshop, you want to get in touch with the mortgage holder's "loss mitigation group". They won't be called this; they'll have some happier name. But "loss mitigation" puts you in the right frame of mind: you're a potential loss, and their job is to make that loss as small as possible.
• The above is important because you'll begin getting calls from the collections department. These people, too, will have some happy-sounding name, like "Home Equity Solutions". These people will generally be very nice (I had only a few calls from people screaming at me to pay my past due amounts); maybe that's one benefit of so many people being affected by our dry-heaving economy. They may be nice, but they are not your friends. They have one and only one mission, and that's to collect on your debt.
• Take detailed notes of every contact you have with the mortgage holder. I also learned this during the loan modification workshop. Even though all of your conversations are summarized and put into some giant computer file (along with scans of all the documents you send in), the person calling you will invariably not look at that information. So I when they asked me for the hundredth time why I was behind on my mortgage, I would politely redirect them to their computer file.
• Having detailed notes also helps deflect some of the BS that collections people will toss at you. When I was told, "your loan modification request was denied" I was able to politely ask if it was bank policy to not notify the customer of this fact.

Perhaps the biggest lesson of the entire experience was to untangle the emotional associations we have with home ownership from the financial facts on the ground. I've learned in the past few years that I can be happy in a variety of housing circumstances. I also know that living without some "buffer" between income and expenses is not a recipe for happiness. We've re-learned the value of counting your cash and not counting the willingness to pay as an asset to spend today. Even Wimpy had to make good on all those promises to pay someone Tuesday for a hamburger today.

So this chapter is closing, but another one opens; one that I know will benefit me in the end.  Onward and upward!

Welcome to Spirit Airlines, Brought to You By…

You've probably heard of Spirit Airlines. These are the people that want to charge you for bringing luggage onboard (in addition to the current practice of charging for luggage you check). I've written previously about why charging for bringing a bag on to the plane makes more sense than charging for a bag you check. But Spirit seems to have missed that point; they are apparently out to squeeze a few bucks out of their passengers any way they can, including a proposal to force passengers to watch 30-second spots while flying.

C'mon folks! You're missing the big picture here. I'm a big fan of looking to other industries for examples of how I can address challenges in my own field of battle. And in this case, the preeminent example of advertiser tie-in's is right in front of our collective face: televised sports. Think about it for thirty seconds and you'll come up with all sorts of examples: everything from "the Dutch Boy 'points in the paint'" in basketball, to baseball's "when it's time for a change, think Speedy Oil Change…" as part of announcing a pitching change. There's not a moment that occurs in a sporting event that hasn't been considered for some kind of sponsorship. I mean, when the legal disclaimer at the beginning of a sports broadcast "this broadcast is for the sole use…" is brought to you by some law firm, you know you've traveled down the tail of the frequency distribution on what can be offered to a sponsor.

So let's imagine a flight on Spirit Airlines, as crafted by the ad folks from NBA, MLB, and NFL…

Pre-Flight

Good morning passengers. My name is Mary. I'm your Head Flight Attendant. Welcome to Spirit Airlines Flight 885, bound for Orlando Florida. Today's flight is brought to you by Sea World. Shamu on down and check out the show!

The Captain Morgan captain for today's flight is Captain Everett, he's accompanied by First Officer Woodward. Cindy, Duane and I will be your cabin crew.

Now, would you please direct your attention to the monitors for a brief safety message, brought to you by Brinks Security. When you want to feel safe, get Brinks for your home!

This is your captain, from the flight deck. We're currently 5^th in line for takeoff on runway 29R. We'll be taking off to the North, then vectoring toward Indianapolis. From there we'll climb to 30,000 feet and head toward Roanoke, Virginia, then on down to Orlando. Weather in Orlando is brought to you by the Weather Channel: when disaster strikes, find out afterwards on the Weather Channel! I anticipate a smooth flight today, but it's always a good idea to keep your seat belt fastened when seated; that's what we do here in the cockpit. And when we're in the market for new belts, we go to Bernie's Belt Emporium, located off of East 55 just outside Akron. Now sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight to Orlando.

Beverage Service

Ladies and gentleman, we'll be starting our Michelob Light beverage service in just a moment. We have tap water and weak coffee available with our compliments. Beer and wine are available for an extra charge, but you can avoid paying this charge by watching a series of video advertisements on your personal video monitor. Today's beverage service is brought to you by Gatorade and its "G" line of performance products.

Final Approach

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Captain Everett. Please direct your attention to the monitors for our T-Mobile Friends and Family "final approach" message. We're about 100 miles out from Orlando now. The weather in Orlando is hot and muggy; puts me in the mood for a McDonald's latte! I'll be turning on the "fasten seat belts" sign in just a few minutes, so this would be a good time to take a stroll to the restroom. Remember, if you "like" Spirit Airlines on Facebook, there's no charge for admission!

Approaching the Gate

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Head Flight Attendant Mary. Please remain in your seats until the Captain has parked the plane at the gate and turned off the "fasten seat belts" sign. This will be your indication that it is safe to move about the cabin. Remember Volvo, when safety in movement is your priority! Have a wonderful day in Orlando, or wherever your final destination may be.

See, lots of possibilities!  So if you see any of these innovations on your next flight, remember--you read about it here first!