Super Sully

On his way to a perfect landing in the Hudson River, Captain Sully flipped the ditch switch that sealed up the plane like the armor on the Batmobile; kept the plane steady and brought the Airbus down like he was landing on a runway back at LaGuardia.

The passengers then unbuckled their seat belts and without even reaching for the overhead compartments grabbed their dual purpose seat cushions, blew some air into the little pipes on their life jackets and in an orderly fashion exited the plane.  When the wing was full of people, other passengers were told to go back to another exit and get on the rafts that had more space.  A couple of gentlemen even gave up their places on the wing, got back into the plane and went out a front exit onto a raft.

Captain Sully walked the plane twice to be sure that everyone got out, and then said goodbye to his ship and walked out an exit to join his passengers in waiting for help to arrive. 

Chesley B. Sullenberger III has to be the coolest man alive this morning.  When I heard about the ditch switch, that sealed the deal for me.  Sully is a super hero.  He was calm, focused, knew the right buttons to push and used his glider flying experience (an apt hobby for a superhero) to execute an otherwise routine landing on one of the nation’s businest waterways.  Yes, other factors were in alignment for Captain Sully (after, of course, the unfortunate goose incident)–the weather was clear, there were no boats trolling this particular part of the river and he was apparently transporting the most serene airline passengers in the history of commercial aviation.

Witnesses reported a big splash, but Captain Sully, in true superhero fashion, deserved a grand, if unscheduled, re-entry into New York. 

We so needed this hero to land in our lives right now.  Captain Sully won’t fix the economy, end the war or solve the country’s health care crisis.

But I bet he could.

Update: I just had a great idea! U.S. Airways could get out of debt by allowing passengers to select flights with Captain Sully flying the plane! It could be a new search criteria for flight preferences.  Kind of a Get There Safe Guarantee.

Another update: my dad just told me that Captain Sully probably won’t fly an airliner again, he’ll be promoted to the top of U.S. Airways or hired away by a huge aeronautics company.  Maybe Obama will name him to be head of the FAA.  Or put him on the NTSB. 

Oh Sully, we hardly knew you.

Corner Office, View of the Front Yard

 I was a telecommuting pioneer.  I telecommuted when telecommuting wasn’t cool.  I kept an inbox on my desk for reading materials.  I put off phone calls so I could talk with lots of people on telecommute day.  I scheduled meetings with clients who were closer to home so I could maximize my time in the office.  I worked extra hours on telecommute days so I could show that I was soooo much more productive when I worked at home.  I set up a home office with a door that closed, and hired a woman to watch my son downstairs while I worked dilligently up in my office, pausing only during those times when I’d hear my son crying for mommy and later his little feet running down the hall once he discovered where I hid all day. 

He’s ten now, and still runs down the hall to see me when he comes home.  And then he grabs the Wii remote and asks for a snack.  But I digress.

 Luckily, the days of having to prove your worth every day you worked at home (versus showing up in the office and just looking useful) are over.    With the economy the way it is, employers know that the employees they keep will work hard no matter where they are because they are grateful for the job.  And the ones they don’t keep are  becoming consultants or are working full time looking for their next job–from home. 

It is no longer a requirement to have a “professional”-sounding street address (suite number and all) for a business.  My dad keeps a post office box for his business and goes down to the post office every day to get the mail.  While I like the structure of that (at least it requires that you put on shoes), I don’t think I need it.  Unless, of course, I start receiving a bunch of checks on a regular basis.  That would be worth the trip to the post office.

Anyway, way back in the early 90’s I worked from home one day a week and gave my boss a plan for each telecommute day and a monthly report on what I got done on my work days at home.  By 1998, big as a house and awaiting the birth of my first and only child, telecommuting allowed me to work right up to my due date (my son was actually born on his due date, a testament to my impeccable organizational skills). 

A few years ago, I left my reasonably pleasant, lucrative, stable job and joined Parsons Brinckerhoff, where I worked at home doing a little project management and a lot of proposal writing.  A friend who lived with me at the time built me a great office downstairs in the hallway on the way to the laundry room.  I called it the cave, and spent hundreds of days happily working away down there, my wireless laptop and wireless phone allowing me to navigate the world of big consulting while wearing my sweats.  I traveled a bit, but my home base was my home base.

Last March, I decided to take my writing skills and transportation upstairs and start my own consulting business.  My dad, a successful entrepreneur himself, insisted on painting my guest room and gave me his office furniture while he and my mom bought a set that would let them work side by side in their own home office (that’s a blog post for the future all its own).  I now work from home full time in a beautiful, professional space.  I’ve got a sign on the door that says “Welcome to Paradise”.  I make my own hours but if I don’t work, I don’t get paid.  And if I don’t get paid, I lose my house. And if I lose my house, there goes the home office.  Circle of life.

Of course right now I am sitting on my bed with my laptop resting comfortably on the lap desk I picked up at Costco last Sunday.  I can heat my bedroom on a single zone and let the rest of the house sit cold.  Oh, and I’ve got CNBC running just in case Madoff makes a run for it (no, I didn’t lose millions to him, I’m just fascinated by the story).  My office, down the hall on the right, holds the same stature as my office did when I worked 32 miles and an hour and a half away in Stamford.  I actually feel like I am telecommuting, saving myself the 20 step round trip commute to my serious office. 

Wow, that sounds a little strange.  But maybe its progress.

Feast or Famine?

So it did seem like a good idea at the time.  Back in March, I thought I could live on my experience, contacts and good looks (well, maybe not the last one) and build up a business that, by now, would be thriving.

What a difference 8 months makes.

I’ve been working those contacts and pushing that experience to anyone who would listen.  I thought that the transportation business was recession proof.  Not exactly.  States are holding back projects as demands for education and social services eat up potential match money.  Transit operators are straining under the surprisingly dual reality of formerly incomprehensible increases in ridership and decreased support by their communities to actually pay for it.

The news that President-elect Obama is making good on his promise of infrastructure investment makes me hopeful that the transportation sector will be re-energized.  Nothing like a big healthy highway construction project (or–be still my heart–a bridge replacement) to put people to work and send motorists scrambling for the nearest exit in search of a way out of their cars, not to mention information on the project itself.  From my first job in transportation, running the public information project for the Connecticut DOT’s replacement of the Mianus River Bridge on I-95 in Greenwich, I’ve been fascinated by the process of both getting the work done in hostile conditions and crafting communications stategies (also in hostile conditions) to keep the community informed and reasonably happy.

Things are looking up!

Hold’em if you’ve got’em

Okay, I know that’s not the way the saying goes, but it is the point of this post.  We’ve seen increases in public transit ridership, carpooling and vanpooling over the last 6 months or so that we would otherwise get with (really, really good) marketing and a whole lot of aggressive outreach to commuters, employers, and anyone else we could find.

So the mantra that I am encouraging my clients to adopt is RETAIN CURRENT CUSTOMERS.  We’ve all heard the standard “its less expensive to keep a rider than to get a new one.”  Well guys, we’ve got them now.  The baselines have risen in double digits for some operators. 

So when you all sit down to plan your fall marketing plans, remember that you’ve been given a gift, albeit at the cost of higher gas prices and hardship for many people.  Let’s hope these new converts are content with their new commute.  Or are they ways we can make them even happier?  This is the windfall we fantasized about (at work, I mean).  A shift from changing behavior to rewarding behavior and improving capacity and service could be a challenge for some systems, who may have had their 2009 marketing plans cast in stone before gas prices began to rise.  Cast that stone aside–ill-placed bible reference, I know–and make 2009 the year of innovation in developing strategies to retain riders.  At the end of the year you’ll be much further ahead than you would have been if you’d played it straight.

Have we missed the bus?

As I pulled into the normally mobbed Costco gasoline station the other day, I stared with horror at the price sign–$3.99  (and 99/100 of a cent) per gallon for regular.

I know, for most that would be a welcome sign.  Finally, gasoline below $4 a gallon.  But as an industry that has been searching for way to get people into bus, train, subway, carpools, vanpools, telework, bicycling and walking*, is our great opportunity just about ready to pass us by?  Have the people who have tried MARTA in Atlanta enjoyed it so much that they are going to continue (and did they get a parking space at the station I hope?).  Did all those people who tried the bus for the first time get a seat, a comfortable ride and arrive at their destination on time?  Are newly formed carpoolers bonding for life or secretly resenting that they have to share the ride?

I worry about this.  The increases in ridership didn’t have too much to do with the efforts of highly professional, skilled TDM professionals or brilliant advertising campaigns (but if only I’d had one out on the street at the right time…..).  It was $4 gas.  What this experience has shown me is that there is a huge discretionary market for alternative transportation–higher than I think anyone in their wildest dreams ever expected.  We interact with the captive market and the super long commutes and the people who are fed up with traffic and maybe want to save a little.  There’s a little bit of “last resort” in all of that.  But with $4 gas, these new riders suddenly saw our alternatives as a viable and maybe even attractive option.  Did we do enough to make their experience enjoyable? Of course we want every rider, transit dependent or discretionary rider, to have the same excellent experience when they use BTSCVTW (call me lazy–my son and three friends are out back on the trampoline and probably are in need of some adult supervision because its all fun and games until someone pokes an eye out; my mom used to say that all the time). 

I know that transit operators, TMAs and others work very hard to make the travelers’ experience as easy as possible.  We should keep that as a top priority and maybe concentrate on incentives to maintain some of these new riders for a while rather than spend marketing dollars on attracting new ones.  We will never, ever attract as many as $4 gas did.  Let’s hold on to a few of them.

I don’t want people to have to pay $4 a gallon for gasoline.  That’s not my point.  I know it hurts people.  Heck, it hurts me since I made a knee jerk boneheaded decision to buy a Mercury Mariner SUV last year–I’m a single mom with one son, sure he’s got sports stuff but that’s what trunks are for. 20 miles per gallon. And I have to put a flag decal on the back so I can distinguish it from all the other silver SUVs in the Target parking lot. Seriously.

But when the price of gas goes down, as it most likely will, I want to be sure we keep those new riders.  It’ll cost a lot more to get a new rider to keep one–if I didn’t hear cries of pain coming from backyard I would do a search and look up that number, but I know it exists.  That’s a real big shift in how we think about marketing.  Retention has always been mentioned but never really taken seriously.  Now’s the time to pay attention to all of our BTSCVTW’s.

*I propose an industry standard acronym for that since I’m tired of writing it out.  So here goes: BTSCVTW.  Not perfect.  Any transit modes that start with vowels?

Slooooooow Start!

Not quite sure what I thought this was going to be like.  I knew I wouldn’t be flooded with teaming opportunities within the first month and need to hire an aswering service to take in the calls from local operators who were dying for me to impart my marketing wisdom on their systems.

Not exactly the way its working out, nor is it the way I should have expected it to work out.  This is a sloooooow building business.  Even my extremely conservative dad thought it would be a year before I started seeing some money (and with out his encouragement I would have given up, defeated!).  There are two levels: forging, re-establishing or maintaining relationships with exisiting consulting firms who are always looking to put teams together.  That’s the long term stuff–from RFP issue to actual invoiced and paid work could be well more than 6 months at light speed.

During August, I will be meeting as many transit operators and smaller agencies as I can who might have projects that don’t need to be bid, but can be done quickly with a single consultant–writing, marketing plans, training, strategic plans, newsletters–I rock at stuff like that, and enjoy it too (see my web site list of capabilities for my menu of services, maybe one fits a need, or triggers an idea?)

After investing about 2/3 of my life savings into this and working with some great designers to hopefully give off a professional image–when I’m not tripping myself up with misspelled URLs and typos on business cards–I am finally in building and sales mode.  What I enjoy most about all of this work is that it is truly based on relationships–with clients, with team members, with consulting firms, transportation organizations.  What I have learned, a bit the hard way, though, are the two tenets of consulting: assume nothing and trust no one.  But if I can build a career and still get stabbed in the back for lack of trust in my partners, I’d rather be in that space.  The assume nothing stands–you barely ever know why you don’t win a contract, even if you get a debrief, so you do your best work in the proposal and keep your fingers crossed, pray, meditate, or whatever floats your boat.

I know this isn’t exactly on the top of your blog list, but I would be most grateful for other independent consultants to share any advice, horror stories and, even better, happy endings here on the blog.  Perhaps many would benefit from your experience.  Once I get some of my own, I’ll be happy to share that, too!

Anyone going to the APTA transit coordination meeting in Providence August 4-6? I would like to meet the two or three people who are reading my blog.  I’ll even buy you a beer.

Obsessive Brand Disorder?

I recently completed a very interesting book by Lucas Conley entitled “Obsessive Brand Disorder.” (available through Amazon.com and through www.publicaffairsbooks.com).  Throughout the book, Conley slowly (but effectively) builds a case of whether we have come to a point where everything, everyone, every place, every aspect of our lives needs to be branded in some way.  Think about it–cities?  Can a city of millions of residents be distilled to the one element that will resonate with potential visitors, but not leave some lasting impact on its residents and spirit?  Even people are branded.  Millions have been made by gurus who promise to identify your true essence so you can market your brand to potential clients, employers–and even online dates.  It may not be how you think of yourself or even what you do or enjoy best, but if it hits the needs of the market, that’s the brand they’ll steel you toward.  Kind of minimizes us to one-dimensional beings, don’t ya think?

I worked on a project a couple years back that sought to brand a major transit system.  We finally decided that rather than brand the system–which in a city of such diversity meant different things to different people–but to brand the ACT of using the system.  Sure seemed like a good idea at the time.  I’m cool with branding an action–you can always bring your own interests and personality to how you use it, but use it just the same.

Conley also talked about the extensive market research that went into identifying just the right brand for a product, service, city, you name it.  As a veteran of dozens of multi-state, qualitative and quantitative research projects to find brand triggers, I was amazed at the multitude of alternative means that he mentioned that got even deeper into our emotions.  Facial recognition–both “hidden” as part of focus groups and deliberate in specific studies, can identify the slightest movement that could indicate displeasure or acceptance of an image, concept, or celebrity.  Brain scans are also used to see which concepts “light up” certain areas of the brain and indicate a positive reception.

I have two thoughts on branding (that I can think of at this time): 1. They are very useful in streamlining outreach campaigns and bringing disparate elements of a program (different transit operators, for example) under a seamless brand.  and 2. Despite extensive evidence from the most popularly branded products in history, the transportation industry insists on rebranding its systems every time it embarks on a new marketing campaign.  Spruce it up–sure! But change the look, feel and attitude of your system because your new ad agency might have a better idea?  The greatest thing lacking in transportation marketing today is, I think, brand equity.  Multi billion dollar companies price their equity separately at a value of millions and millions of dollars.  But often, transportation systems toss out their brand as if it is campaign related and not the core of its identity.

Vacation?

I’ve been at this for four months, and while I haven’t set the world on fire yet I have received a great deal of encouragement from all of the professional colleagues who I have had the privilege of working with over the past years.  Its an interesting business, probably not terribly not unlike other consulting businesses–you have the big projects, where a single consultant is part of a larger project team primed by one of the big firms, then you have the smaller projects that keep the cash coming in at a reasonable pace.  In the meantime, I am contacting everyone who I have ever met over the past 20 years in the business to let them know I am available and eager to work with them.  So far, so good.  But no work yet.  Thank God for supportive parents (not in the financial sense, thanfully, or I would have bailed out for their sake).

I have worked independently (but for companies) for probably the last ten years, and there was always a line between work time and vacation/holiday time.  And even weekends.  Since I travel with a wireless laptop and carry a blackberry, I am essentially 100% available and working, all of the time (except that wonderful period when the flight attendent forces us to turn off all electronic devices–I find that to be quite freeing).

So now I’m in Florida.  Am I working? Am I on vacation? My son is certainly on vacation.  Guess I’m doing a little of both.  But since work is fun and still exciting, I guess its okay to slip a glance at the blackberry once in awhile.  Since noone appears to be reading my blog anyway, maybe I’ll ease up and write a bit more about the vacation than the work.  Though I did bring 6 business books so I can start recommending reading resources.  Like you all have time to read.

So happy Independence Day (I told my son that the name of the holiday was really Independence Day; he insisted that was the movie with Will Smith and the name of the holiday was the 4th of July; try to win an argument with a 9 year old, its pointless).

Can you hear me now?

I’m writing this entry as my knight in shining armor, Stan, is actually attaching my blog to my website.  If you like my site, contact me and I’ll put you in touch with Marcy of Sassi Designs, who led me to Randy and Stan.  Together the four of us have labored (well, Marcy labored in a couple of ways–she welcomed her first baby, Bryson, to the team 4 weeks ago!) to turn my practice from a hopeful concept into a living, breathing business. 

For all of you out there who have wondered “should I quit my job and live by my own talents or squander my life making someone else look good” my answer is GO FOR IT. And there’s nothing like making that first step to put the fire in your belly (ouch, sorry again, Marcy!).  I’m no Gen X or Y-er, but I have passed the point where I think that being rich is a goal.  Its not a goal, its a destination, and then you have to live your life.  Would it be worth the trip?  I want to enjoy every day of the journey, and this is how I’m going to do it.  I’ve got an MBA but my business plan reads like a Don Miguel Ruiz book (The Four Agreements–read it!).  I want to do quality work with great clients.  I want  the flexibility to work a month in Florida if I feel like it (and I do feel like it).  I want to chaperone my son’s class trip to Lighthouse Park beach (actually I can cross that off my list, once was enough).  But aside from stealing every second I can of my son’s childhood, I want to help move transportation choices into the mainstream.  I welcome you on my journey and hope you’ll tag along!