Business Aviation, Twittering the Recovery

The cover of the June 15th edition of Time magazine is a picture of an iPhone, or a similar device, with a Tweet about the cover story on Twitter, the innovative fast growing social network. What could this possibly have to do with the recovery and growth of Business Aviation? Read on.

In my last article for Hangar Talk I wrote about Glenn Hutchins, founder of Silver Lake, and his prediction that innovation would lead us out of this recession. This week in the cover story for Time Magazine, author Steven Johnson writes about the amazing growth of Twitter, the social networking site that has grown using "end-user innovation," a concept that Johnson explains as, "where consumers actively modify a product to adapt it to their needs.”

Twitter was introduced to the Internet and the social networking community in 2006 and like blogging was picked up first by teenagers as a way to stay connected. They have a compelling need to know what their circles of friends are doing. In fact when you go to Twitter the first thing you see is a text box asking the question, “What are you doing?”

When I first saw this my questions were, “Who cares, and why do I want to know?” But alas I am not a teen or even a 20 something, but believe me, they want to know. Not what I am doing, but what their circles of friends are doing. Then came The Campaign. Hundreds and maybe thousands of young campaign workers wanted to stay connected. With Twitter they could do so, and view the Tweets, which are limited to 140 characters, on cell phones and BlackBerries as text messages (SMS), and on computers. I have a feeling that the need for Twitter feedback, and not just email, might have been behind President Obama’s fight to keep his BlackBerry.

Johnson tells of attending a small private conference on the future of education attended by 40 educators, entrepreneurs, scholars, philanthropists and venture capitalists. At the beginning the organizers announced that anyone could record their comments and questions on Twitter. During the conference comments were being displayed on a screen. Before the end Tweets were pouring in from far beyond the confines of the room where the attendees were sitting.

This week I am attending the Air Charter Summit where over 100 business jet operators will be assembling at a hotel and discussing how to address and solve some of the very significant challenges facing the business jet industry. Will this group be Twittering their thoughts in real time along with many others not at the meeting? Maybe not, but think about how more productive the meeting might be with thoughts, not just from the 100 physically present, but from many others not able to attend in person.

(Full disclosure, Steven Johnson, the author of five best selling books, contributor to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Guardian, Wired Magazine, and a futurist much in demand on the lecture circuit, is my nephew.)