Being in the aviation industry it seems I spend way too much
time at conferences, seminars, forums, etc., all in an attempt to learn the
latest and greatest on airport development. To keep from falling asleep in hard
chairs and stuffy rooms I look for interesting humor in the proposed
presenters. They don’t consider
themselves humorous, but then they are not on the receiving end of their
subject.
Please tell me why PowerPoint presentations are full of too much text
and minuscule fonts that make your eyes water?
Why do speakers often say, “Now while I know this slide is hard to read
let me explain it?” If you need to
explain it why put it up?
At a recent Airport Planning Design & Construction
Symposium I elected to venture into a session called, “Young Professionals
Innovation Competition.” God knows we
need young professionals in the industry as most of us are older than dirt and
have been involved in nearly every major new airport development in the last
three decades. However, when I hear the
words “young” and “innovation” used in the same sentence I see technology
double talk all over the performance. I
was not disappointed; confused yes, but not surprised.
Three bright
brained late twenty something wonders were up on the podium ready to woo
us with their expertise and brilliance on the social media world… Facebook,
Twitter, Apps and the rest of the whiz bang of the technology world. I must admit that it is impressive how youth
that are less than 10 years out of college, and have minimal aviation knowledge,
have become all knowing. I’m sure not one of these guys even had a pilot’s license (not that the skill of flying a plane is necessary to design
and build an airport). We see that
regularly when we have to go to catch a delayed flight in a 20th Century terminal.
The issue is what do young titans really know? It is impossible to translate because when
they get in that IT mode their mouth runs faster than a Texas roadrunner on a
dusty desert, their vocabulary is a
scoured foreign language of unidentified origin.
The audience is made up primarily of over 55 year old gray
hairs that have been dealing with airport and aviation issues longer than these
kids have been on earth. Most of us came
to the session thinking “I’m open to learning something here (if I can just
understand what is being said).” Maybe
their hearing aids are turned down, or they haven’t admitted they need them,
but this group looks like a herd of deer staring into headlights.
After an exhausting hour of more types of innovative dialect
the session is opened up for questions and answers. A lady who is a bit over 70, still running a
successful runway electrical design company, spoke up. “My mind cannot compute all your ideas
because your mouth runs too fast.” It’s
true, they had given us about 500 pounds of information in 60 minutes, but it
appeared difficult for them to provide a distinct cohesive thought. After several more questions from the
audience I finally stood up.
The moderator looked my way and said, “Now we will have a
generational question.” If I hadn't known her since she was a kid in diapers I would have probably been
offended. Looking at the three young men
I asked, “Could you please dumb down your topic so that those of us in the room
that just happen to run airports, consult to airports, and build them
understand?”
The response was instant and poignant. It immediately sat me back in my chair and
spun by head around. “Lady, if you hate
change you are going to hate being irrelevant!”
Vesta Rea & Associates L.L.C. (VRA) is a national communication, marketing
and political consultant firm within the transportation/aviation industry (highways,
airports, seaports, and transit) based in Houston, Texas. VRA is certified as a woman-owned small
business (DBE) in over 30 public agencies in the U.S. Visit our website: www.vestarea.com
