I am writing this from about 33,000 feet over West Virginia.  I am on my way back to Dallas from a great week visiting customers in New York City.  As always seems to be the case these days, my flight was delayed.  We sat on the runway for around 2 hours and 15 minutes before we were finally given the green light to take-off.  I don’t normally get hooked up to the wi-fi on flights.  The times when I am on airplanes are the last times in my life that I am actually disconnected from the world.  I enjoy getting lost in a book or a crossword puzzle and thinking about nothing at all.  Events on this flight inspired me to get connected and get writing.

We’ve become information junkies whether we like it on not.  Television, radio, cell phones, text messages, smart phones, ticker crawls on every channel, and we haven’t even mentioned the internet.  We have email, Facebook, Twitter, ICQ, Foursquare, and about a million other ways to communicate and receive information.  What happens when we’re cut off from that information?  I’ll tell you what happens.  People freak out when they don’t feel like they know what’s happening.

We taxied out from the terminal and took our position.  The pilot was more than forthcoming telling us everything he knew about our situation.  Weather west of NYC was stacking up traffic and causing delays.  He told us the tower would let us know when things cleared up.  He also told us when they released the traffic to the south, we were 3rd in line.  Good enough if you are listening.  Here is the problem, most of us don’t listen anymore because we don’t have to, we have information.

A man in the row behind us started to panic.  He called his buddies on another flight.  He kept looking out the window watching other flights (certainly going another direction) take off and loudly complaining that WE were 3rd in line.  This went on for about an hour and he was counting down the time until the 3 hour rule kicked in and we returned to the terminal.  I’m sure he was disappointed that we took off.

What’s the point of all this?  We expect information at all times today and we’re lost without it.  Our listening skills continue to deteriorate becuase we’ve grown accustomed to not using them.  We need to keep this in mind as we attempt to communicate through whatever channel we might be using.  Clear and concise bits of information are what people like to digest.

Think about the new “attention span” as you are building out a communication plan.  Are there points where your customers will need information and feel left out?  Remember Mr. Impatient on my flight and how freaked out he was.  Kill us with information.  We crave it and need it in today’s world.