Blogging the Stratosphere...Connexion as the killer application...

It’s the morning after a great afternoon and evening on the Boeing Connexion flight of yesterday. We all had a great time! The technology was flawless, the Boeing team truly delightful. At dinner, 4–5 of us gave little toasts. I was mulling over what I might say, and was reminded of one of my favorite books, i.e. The Death of Distance, by Frances Cairncross. The thesis of Ms. Cairncross is that technology by eliminating time and distance changes relationships forever.

Clearly Boeing and its’ jets have changed forever how we travel, and have changed our view of distance forever. Now adding the dimension of real time communications via the net, they have upped the ante dramatically. In one of the comments that I read on another blog regarding the trip, the suggestion was made that this type of technology assured more compulsive behavior. My thoughts are that it is about choice. My choice is to spend the money, arrive on top of things, and make the time count. Others may choose not to, that’s their option. But being able to handle complex matters from 30,000 feet in real time is to me a wonderful way to pass time as compared to watching a 3rd rate movie, making small talk, or reading junk.

The flight was so comfortable that I didn’t take the tablet out, but I remain steadfast in my notion that a tablet PC on a plane with Connexion service will be a powerful tool for reading and annotating documents, etc. When coupled with Skype, it will be a world class solution.

When I get time, I will post my photos of the trip to Flickr, but in the meantime there are already a bunch of pictures posted here! When you have an experience like this, you wonder what’s coming next….