On his eight-hour flight to New York from Switzerland last month, Jeff Jarvis, a well-known blogger, found himself seated next to a woman eager to discuss management theory. But he had work to do.
When, after a while, the conversation failed to find a natural end, Jarvis resorted to the road warrior’s tried-and-true trick: He donned his headphones.
Jarvis, whose book Public Parts argues about the virtues of engaging with people online, conceded that such experiences made him wary about doing the same in an airplane setting. “So often we do sit next to utter strangers,” he said. “And the lottery does not have great odds.” But what if those odds could be improved with access to the information that passengers already share about themselves online? This month, the Dutch carrier KLM began testing a programme it calls “Meet and Seat”, allowing ticket-holders to upload details from their Facebook or LinkedIn profiles and...
Click here to see the original article>Jarvis, whose book Public Parts argues about the virtues of engaging with people online, conceded that such experiences made him wary about doing the same in an airplane setting. “So often we do sit next to utter strangers,” he said. “And the lottery does not have great odds.” But what if those odds could be improved with access to the information that passengers already share about themselves online? This month, the Dutch carrier KLM began testing a programme it calls “Meet and Seat”, allowing ticket-holders to upload details from their Facebook or LinkedIn profiles and...