Arnold Waldstein's Blog

My infatuation with this city seemingly knows no bounds and the project “Art Adds” which is putting local artists on Taxi cab top billboards is yet another example why I never tire of this place. It just constantly renews me…and itself.

NY is a major character in the daily lives of the people who live here. Endless movies have recognized this but it’s the city itself that keeps making heroes of its people and the people feed the city by recreating this uniqueness through celebration and art. It’s a natural response to glorify the energy of NY urban life, downplay the difficulties and celebrate those that memorialize the place through art and individual spirit.

“Art Adds” is something small and seemingly trivial but telling about the place and its people and the need to memorialize itself. In a nutshell, Show Media, a Las Vegas company that owns 500 or so of the cab top billboards, forfeits $100,000 of revenue for the month of January and donates the ‘billboard space to artists to give back to the city and because ‘art adds to the public’s vision’ of the city itself.

Sometimes it’s a formal gift like this one, or it’s Lichtenstein tiled art in the midtown subway, Keith Haring murals bordering a school in the West Village or an endless array where art intersects, soothes and inspires in this perpetually busy and cozy place.

The three NY artists in this project represent the wild diversity of this place. Alex Katz, a  figural artist with roots in the pop art movement with an homage to people and diversity. Shirin Meshat an Iranian visual artist, with a nod towards the immigrant cab drivers themselves. And Yoko Ono, taking “The War is Over” theme that she and John Lennon carried around the world in 1969 and displaying it as sign language as moving art on the cab’s 14 x 48 inch ad space usually occupied with airlines and gentleman’s clubs.

Check out the New York Time’s article on the project.

NY is a place that celebrates itself daily with small things spotlighted on a world stage.

Google’s Bar Code logo today prompted a technology snafu déjà vu.

Here’s the short story.

A week ago, I flew from Los Angeles to JFK on American Airlines. One piece of baggage arrived, one didn’t. So I headed to the baggage reclaim area to start the tracking process.  Normal assumption that if they tagged it, then they would scan and track it.

The AA baggage person stated profoundly that the bag wasn’t here and it most likely would come in on the next flight and they would call me and have it delivered.

Something seemed amiss. If the bag was bar coded, it was scanned like a UPS package and they should know definitively where it was. My god, they scan deli goods at Whole Foods to track inventory, surely they scan luggage.

I strolled around to Oversized Luggage to look myself. Lo and behold, there was this storage room with a wide open door, with a guard, sleeping on his chair and my bag sitting on a rack amongst others! I simply took my bag and headed into the city. Bag must have come in on an earlier flight and was put in ‘secure’ storage.

Next morning, when I called they told me my bag was still in LA. Duh, I guess not.

I then reported the incident, talked to a supervisor or two and let it go. I was also told that American Airlines doesn’t scan any luggage. The bar codes on your luggage ticket don’t relate to the flight, to the bag, to anything.

On one level, this is oh so Seinfeld and wryly funny. You know—incorrect assumptions, sleeping guard, where’s the bag when you already know it’s with you.

On the other side this is bothersome and damning to AA. Today we live in overtly transparent world. Everything is open to anyone. Anyone can find out anything and this drives, in life and in marketing,honesty.

I’m into technoloy. I see bar codes, I assume trackability. So do most I bet.

I’m not accusing American Airlines of anything other than inefficiency. Or maybe just stupidity.

So, the answer to what is behind an American Airlines barcode? Obviously nothing.

Whether online or offline, people define the personality of the company.

Every once in awhile, someone just does a great job of doing their job, and you realize, that it’s all about rare people who really care about their customers. It’s all about the human touch.

Case in point is this travel story. I’m a stickler for planning, so my trip to Europe was like a moon launch—you know, first flight out in the morning which never gets cancelled, upgrades in place, just enough time to navigate connections. Never a checked bag.

So for the first time in millions of air miles, first flight out has mechanical issues, connections out of NY to Rome would be missed, everything was overbooked… a bad day was inevitable. Changed routing, tenuous connections, no connectivity, Heathrow was unavoidable and bad coach seats were a reality.

American Exec Platinum were efficient but mortal and I ended up with tenuous coach connections too gross to reiterate.

Enter, someone who cares with skills to navigate the technology. So, the Admiral’s Club hostess at LAX, just did it. She grabbed some tickets that guaranteed me getting to Rome, then called her friend in Chicago, over-rid the  upgrade system and got the ‘pond crossing section’ upgraded.  She then sat on the phone and the second the system allowed it, not only got me on an earlier flight, but upgraded as well.

I asked for her info so I could write a recommendation. She said “ this is my job and glad to help. Have a great holiday and sorry for the inconvenience”. Wanted to shoot her photo for the blog. She wouldn’t allow it.

Make’s me realize that technology is changing our world but people who care whether in front or behind the system make it work. They as well, make the systems they create more humane.  And creating companies that can attract these inspiring individuals is what our jobs as executives really are.

Our customers will thank us.