A missed opportunity for airports

Is there an opportunity to create a ‘real-time/face-to-face’ network within airports?

Connecting with associates and friends over LinkedIn or Facebook is beneficial; these advancing tools surely have their place in our society.

Eye contact, gestures, and verbal exchanges, however, are vitally important to form, build, nurture relationships. Waxing poetic over Wi-fi won’t bring this to life.

Some face-to-face networking happens in airport bars or restaurants, but is there a way to blend technology (who’s in the airport, whom does he know? what does he do? what’s keeping him up at night?) with executives and managers who’d love to better themselves and others during his layover?

As long as an executive is ‘open’ to an exchange, he could post his ‘need/interest’ (for example: I am Joe Smith; I am waiting for a flight to Dallas, TX; I am seated at Gate H2; I have 3 hours until the flight departs; I’d like to figure out how my business could leverage cloud technology.) These messages shouldn’t just be broadcast via social networks, but over the TVs that play the same monotonous news headlines over and over again.

Businesspeople usually have hours before their next flight and they are usually in ‘business mode’ since that ‘just-completed’ meeting or phone call.  How about giving them a chance to grow while waiting to depart? Maybe you’ll gladly want your flight delayed so you can continue to nurture a relationship.

Until next time,

Dan Naden