Aviation Rekindled

My interest in aviation began when I was stationed at MacDill Air Force base in 1970. My private pilot license was issued 1/15/1971, a mere forty years ago. A commerical license followed in 1976 and then an instrument rating in 1977. After moving to Connecticut in 1981, the flying days were over. The topic of aviation was rekindled by Nick Nash, a summer intern at IBM shortly after we had formed the Internet Division of the company 15 years ago. Nick went on to get a degree, magna cum laude, at Harvard. He is now a Vice President at General Atlantic, a global growth equity firm. Nick was an excellent communicator and he asked me one day if he could do an interview on the subject of aviation. Nick titled the interview “I really prefer having an engine!”

Ten years later, I got very interested in aviation once again when the Elipse 500 was announced. The Eclipse was the first of a new class of aircraft called the Very Light Jet (VLJ). With a number of breakthroughs in aviation technology, the Eclipse promised to offer a dramatically more affordable business model for jet aircraft. The small six-seat business jet is powered by two lightweight Pratt & Whitney Canada PW610F turbofan engines. Unfortunately, the company went bankrupt in 2008. A new company was formed recently and they are building a new version of the aircraft, to be called the Eclipse 550, with planned deliveries in 2013.

Another VLJ was announced in 2006 — the Embraer Phenom 100 — developed by Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer. The Phenom was much more appealing than the Eclipse — significantly more space, larger windows, and great performance. My partners at Executive Jet Partners LLC (EJP) and I ordered a Phenom in 2006 and just over three year later, I went to Brazil to bring it back to Connecticut. It was quite an adventure. See the full story here.

EJP is a private company owned by three retired executives in Connecticut who have a love of aviation.  Two of the three are private pilots and all three love to fly.  EJP took ownership of the Embraer Phenom 100 executive jet in October 2009.  The Phenom has six seats – two for the pilots and four for passengers. It is certified by the FAA for single-pilot operation, but most passengers are more comfortable with two pilots up front. It can fly 1,365 miles non-stop at 41,000 feet altitude at an airspeed of  435 mph. Like many aircraft owners, EJP makes the Phenom available for charter when the partners are not using it. We hope to make a business out of aviation charter. To make that happen requires a good partner who is an expert in managing aircraft. Enter Corporate Flight Management (CFM). CFM is a private Smyrna, Tennessee company that manages aircraft; provides marketing, dispatch, and scheduling; coordinates maintenance; and provides pilot services. (See the CFM blogs for some interesting aviation commentary). CFM pilots are experienced professionals and are trained and certified in the aircraft that they fly. CFM has a division based in Danbury, Connecticut and currently has seven airplanes in their fleet, two of which are Phenom 100s. See the entire CFM fleet here.

Chartering a private aircraft is not inexpensive, but it is incredibly convenient.  When sharing the cost among multiple passengers, the cost approaches first class airfare.  One of the many advantages of private aviation is that the aircraft can take off and land at thousands of airports not serviced by the airlines.  For example, if you have a business or a personal reason to go from Danbury, Connecticut to Springfield, Illinois, there are no direct flights. A connecting flight through O’hare in Chicago departs Laguardia at 6 AM and gets into Springfield at 9:18.  If you live in Danbury, you would have to leave home at 3:30 AM. The available return flights take four hours or more. One flight leaves at 12:15 PM (which leaves you about an hour for your visit) or at 6:20 PM, arriving into Laguardia at midnight and getting home almost 24 hours from when you got up. A charter flight can depart directly from Danbury at 7:15 AM and arrive in Springfiled at 9:15 AM. You can arrive at the Danbury Airport at 7:05 and be in the air at 7:15 AM. You can take whatever baggage you want and use your laptop from takeoff to landing. Without even mentioning amenities, the best part is the return flight. It would be scheduled whenever you choose to depart. You can bring as much baggage as you want and be productive for your entire flight. The cost would be significantly higher than a commercial flight, but the convenience is incomparable.

Charter is not for everyone. It is incredibly convenient albeit very expensive. But if you want to splurge for that special vacation in Florida, Canada, or the Bahamas, or if you have a business trip where productivity and your time are valuable, then charter is worth considering. When it comes to passengers on a charter, you can have the plane to yourself, or bring three to seven others (depending on what kind of plane you charter) with you at no additional cost — you charter an airplane, not a seat. An interesting approach to sharing is at Social Flights – a startup company that is using the power of the Internet to enable like-minded travelers to find each other and share the cost of a charter. If you have questions about a charter or want to get a no-charge quote for a flight, contact CFM  at 615-220-1761, or e-mail them at charter.dispatchers@flycfm.com. If you just want to chat further about any of this, feel free to contact me at john@executivejetpartners.com.

Tags: Aviation, brazil, charter, embraer, flying, phenom

e-shipping

All the retailers are trying to become e-tailers so that Amazon doesn’t take all their business from them. They have a very long way to go to get with the program. Amazon has been honing their web presence for 16 years and they have it down to a science — and to putting the customer first. Seems everything they do makes sense. Amazon Prime, for example, is fantastic. Some of the things aspiring e-tailers do make no sense. My wife ordered a pair of gloves for one of our daughters-in-law. The unbreakable product arrived in a box that could have contained a suitcase or a television. The unbreakable unscratchable gloves were surrounded by enough packing material to handle a few table settings worth of dishes. Go figure.

Tags: amazon, e-tailers, online retail, prime shipping

Kindle Update

Thanks to Mary Keough, over at IBM, for reading my post and correcting me on the weight of the Kindle Touch. I was thinking of the new $79 Kindle when I said six ounces. I weighed four devices this morning to make sure I got this right. Here is what I found.

I have to admit that I am vascillating a bit between the Kindle and the Kindel Touch. They are both very light and a pleasure to read on. The touch screen is nice, but the simple buttons on the Kindle create a certainty about your intentions. When I swipe, sometimes I go back a page to make sure I had not swiped two pages. With the Kindle, a click is always “a” click. All the Kindle devices are great, and I suspect the Fire will keep getting better with software updates and follow-on models.

Mary asked about the advertising and quetioned whether it is worth the extra $30 on the Kindle or $40 on the Touch to get the device “without special offers”. My opinion is that it is not worth the extra money. The special offers appear as a screen saver when you stop reading. They are totally unobtrusive. You can easily not even notice them. If you want to look more closely and are interested in something being offered, you can go for it. Speaking of reading, the biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson was really great (see Apple at Grand Central Terminal). I am now reading Fall of Giants: Book One of the Century Trilogy by Ken Follett. I have read most of his books, and this one too is really good so far. 

 Other patrickWeb stories related to the Kindle

Tags: amazon, apple, fall of giants, fire, founders hall, ipad, iPhone, isaacson, ken follett, Kindle, kindle fire, kindle touch, steve jobs

Kindle Fire – Part 2

On September 28, Amazon announced three new Kindles — a $79 Kindle, the $99 Kindle Touch, and the $199 Android-based color touch screen Kindle Fire tablet. Technology pundits have criticized the Kindle Fire’s touch screen and various aspects of the user interface (see Daily Report: Kindle Fire Attracts Critics, and Buyers – NYTimes.com). I have observed the shortcomings also, but I think the device has a market niche that will be well served — people who like to read books. At $199, it is less than half the cost of an iPad. Amazon will relentlessly promote the Fire on its site and is rumored to be nearly ready to provide software updates for better performance and improved user interface.

I remain a believer in purpose-built devices. The iPad is great for documents, weather, stocks, surfing the web, and reading books at the kitchen counter. The Kindle Fire is great for reading books. That is what it does best. It can also do most everything the iPad can, but not everything. I don’t see myself giving a slide presentation with a projector and the Fire. I don’t plan to put 40 gigtabytes of dropbox folders containing all my data on the Fire. The Fire is great for reading a book, listening to music, or watching a movie. It is basically a media player. You can do many tablet computing tasks, but that is not what it is best at. The device I like the best for reading books is the new Kindle Touch. It weighs six ounces and has no moving parts. Turning pages and setting bookmarks is as easy as a touch. You can change the font size to the optimum and read comfortably for long periods of time wherever you may be — incuding outdoors in the sun, which you can do with an iPad. If I am at the kitchen counter and want to read for ten minutes, I launch the Kindle app on the iPad and it automatically takes me to wherever I left off on the Fire or iPhone or wherever I last read — a seamless experience. So many gadgets, so little time! I plan to donate the entry-model Kindle to the senior center.

Tags: amazon, apple, fire, founders hall, ipad, iPhone, Kindle, kindle fire, kindle touch

Why You Should Embrace Your Company’s Heretics

CNNMoney’s Fortune published a story last week called Why You Should Embrace Your Company’s Heretics. The story was written by Polly LaBarre. I have not talked to Polly for ten years but we did attended a number of the same conferences back then. This new story described my evangelism of the Internet and she said some complimentary things. The story is accurate, but I never thought of myself as a heretic. One fellow board member who read the story sent me a note saying he thought heretics were burned at the stake. Back in 2006, Polly and Bill Taylor, founding editor of Fast Company Magazine, wrote a book called Mavericks at Work where they described 50 “mavericks”. I was one of them, but had not yet been promoted or demoted (not sure which it would be) to “heretic”. I was labeled with the term “rebel” by Gary Hamel in his Waking Up IBM: How a Gang of Unlikely Rebels Transformed Big Blue that appeared in the Harvard Business Review in April 2001. A few months before that, Fast Company magazine published an interview I did with Polly where we talked about technology futures (see Think Ahead: John Patrick). The only heretic I can think of is ”Homer the Heretic” — an episode of The Simpsons‘, which originally aired in 1992.

Tags: CNNMoney, Fast Company, Fortune, Fortune Magazine, Harvard Business Review, heretic, IBM, john patrick

Apple at Grand Central Terminal

It was a coincidence that I had a board meeting in New York City yesterday, on the day that Apple was opening it’s fifth retail store there. The store opening was planned for 10 AM with collector teeshirts to be given to the first 4,000 visitors. I arrived at Grand Central Station from Connecticut at 8 AM and there was already a line of 2,500 people. When I returned to the train station at 2PM, the shirts had been gone for two hours. I was one of the many thousands who visited the store, which will have 315 employees. Some day my grandchildren’s grandchilren will tell friends that their Pop Pop was there on opening day.  The Wall Street Journal reported that more people visit an Apple store each quarter than visit Disney’s four biggest theme parks in a year. It was quite a site to be there yesterday. I took some pictures but the one’s in the WSJ are much better. There is a short video done by Engadget that is worth looking at (see  Apple just arrived at Grand Central Terminal, we hop aboard video).

After visiting the new Apple store, I could not help but think about Steve Jobs. He will be revered for many generations as a great innovator and business leader. After you read his biography by Walter Isaacson, you will also respect this great biographer. I met Walter in 1996 just before he became editor of Time Magazine and I was greatly impressed with his embrace of the Internet. He came to IBM with some colleagues and we brainstormed about how the publisher might take advantage of the Web. None of us really knew the right strategy at the time, and unfortunately, the publishing industry still has not figured it out. Industry by industry, it was Steve Jobs who showed the way.

Steve Jobs – by Walter Isaacson is already the biggest selling biography of all times.  Jobs not only authorized the biography but gave Isaacson access to his home, his family, and his innermost thoughts over a two-year period leading up to just before his death. Great biographers write about great people. Isaacson’s books about Benjamin Franklin and Einstein were great but much harder for me to read. The Jobs biography read more smoothly in part because I could identify directly with the technology issues so aptly described in the book. I know or have met many of the characters in the book. Although not a technologist, Isaacson did a gret job in desscribing the technolgy issues in layman terms. He offered an insight that will help many readers better understand the impact and potential of technology.

The basic premise of the Steve Jobs philosophy was to create a simplified and integrated experience for the consumer. Critics say that the integration of iMacs, iPods, iPads, etc. with iTunes and Mac OSX represents a monopolistic strategy. After reading the biography, I suspect most people will be convinced that it was an intense desire to make things easier has been the driver. Jobs would say that products and profits are both important, but elegant and simplified products are most important. It was the intense drive and focus of Steve Jobs that made such products available to the mass market and catapulted Apple to become the most valuable company in the world. 

I continue to believe that the Amazon Kindle is the best platform for reading books, but I read the Steve Jobs biography on the iPad. 

Tags: apple, ipad, isaacon, steve jobs

Johannes Brahms

The Variations on a Theme of Haydn by Johannes Brahms was good, the Suite from The Nutcracker by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was excellent , but the Johannes Brahms Symphony No. 2 was fantastic. His second symphony was composed by Brahms, the German compser,  during a visit to Austria during the summer of 1877. The composition was short compared to the reported fifteen years it took Brahms to complete his First Symphony. The second symphony was scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, and a strings section. The Ridgefield Symphony Orchestra is 70+ in size and performed the symphony with great aplomb. It was the best orchestral sound I can recall hearing from the RSO in the three decades I have been listening to them. Maestro Steichen was masterful and articulated every detail of the Brahams composition. We are fortunate to have such a great orchestra in our community.

Brahms was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1833, 42 years after Mozart had passed away. He lived to be 64, much longer than normal at the time, and he was interred next to Beethoven and Schubert, two composers he greatly admired. I find it interesting that Brahms met with Wagner in Vienna and they listened to each others music. Among his works were the Hungarian Dances, four symponies, a half-dozen great piano sonatas, including the Ave Maria. I love music of all kinds, but on Sundays I listen only to classical music. I am grateful for Pandora which lets me select from so many excellent streaming channels. Today I listed to Boston Baroque.

Tags: brahms, classical music, germany, Ridgefield, symphony

Boomerang Your E-mail

I wish I had a dollar for every task management application I have used over the last few decades. There are many good ones, but the task manager that consistently works for me–and that I always end up relying on the most–is email. It is not true for everyone, but for me, an email in the inbox is a call to action. If there are more than a handfull of emails in my inbox, I do not feel I am in control of my life. When I have answered an email or taken some action based on that email and I then delete the email, I feel I have accomplished something. When the inbox is empty I feel very good — I have things under control. The problem is that on many days, getting to an empty state for the inbox is just not in the cards. Enter Boomerang!

Boomerang for Gmail is a browser plugin (for Firefox or Chrome) that I have found to be a great productivity tool. It is not a task manager, per se, but it greatly enhances my ability to get to the empty inbox state. If I receive an email invitation to attend an event and the RSVP date is two weeks from now and I don’t have time at the moment to consider it — Boomerang! I click the boomerang button and select “return to my inbox in 4 days”. You can click on choices such as in an hour, four hours, tomorrow morning, tomorrow afternoon, in a week, in a month, or at 3PM on March 14, 2013. A couple of clicks and the email is out of your inbox — but it will be back at a time when you are ready to deal with it. You can also send yourself an email and click the boomerang button to have it sent to you every Saturrning as a reminder to put out the trash. I have one email that comes to my inbox on the first of every month to remind me to update a Google Doc that I maintain as a log with my business use car mileage. Another one on the 15th of the month reminds me to update my steps database from my pedometer. If I am really busy when one of those mails arrives, no problem, just click the boomerang button and have it come back to you in a day or two or next week.

Boomerang also helps with workflow. For example, I may  read the news on the iPad with Pulp and see a story that I think would be of interest to others.  I hit the share button in Pulp and it sends me an email with the story link. I see the email later but I am not ready to write a story just yet — Boomerang! A couple of clicks and the email comes back to me Saturday morning. Another very powerful feature helps with follow-up. You can send someone an email requesting something and select a boomerang option to have the email return to you in four days if there has not been a reply to your email. A few clicks and you get a follow-up system. Boomerange also works with the iPad and iPhone. Maybe something better will come along, but for now, Boomerang for Gmail is helping me organize things the way I want and allowing me to stay on top of things and keep a feeling of being in control.  If you overuse it and everything gets boomeranged and nothing ever gets done, well then you have other problems that technology can’t solve!

Tags: boomerang, e-mail, email, productivity, task, task manager