American Airlines, you get a D in communication.

On June 11th, I took a flight from Tucson, AZ to Dallas/Ft. Worth on my way back to Austin. We took off normally. As we ascended, the air conditioning started blowing warm air and everyone's ear starting popping repeatedly.

*ding* "This is your Captain speaking, we seem to be experiencing some cabin pressurization issues. We're going to return to the gate in Tucson. This should be a normal landing but we have deployed fire and rescue vehicles as a precaution. Please ring your flight attendant call button if you need assistance." *ding* *ding* *ding* *ding* They rang frantically.

Luckily, we returned to the ground safely and relatively unharmed. A few people had significant-but-not-life-threatening injuries because of the pressure issues. One person was taken away on a stretcher and a few had bleeding from their ears.

Fast forward to today, I get this message from American. I'm going to get my red pen out and show you all where they went wrong from a public relations perspective.

Subject: R2009/06-16268-00262-006-00 - 5 Points. I'm sure this means something to a computer, but not to me. I would write, "Sorry about your flight" as the subject.

June 18, 2009 - 10 points. A week is a long time for the 200 + people aboard the plane to tell their friends and family about the incident without a formal apology to reference.

Dear Mr. Bramley:

Our manager in Tucson was concerned and asked us to follow up with you regarding your
flight with us on June 11. We can understand how frustrating that trip must have been
when flight 1912 unexpectedly returned to the airport. - 7 No mention of how uncomfortable/painful it was for people aboard the plane. I think this is a form letter that auto fills destinations for any and all technical problems. On the off chance that it's not, people really care about what happened to others. An update on the health of people that were injured would go a REALLY long way in showing that the airline truly cares about it's customers.

As our personnel indicated at the time, a mechanical problem developed en route to
Dallas/Fort Worth and the flight returned to Tucson so our specialists could take a
look at the situation. While our personnel worked hard to minimize the inconvenience,
we realize your important travel plans were disrupted. I am truly sorry. The owned up to it which is good.

In appreciation for your patience, we've added 3,000 Customer Service bonus miles to
your AAdvantage® account. You should see this mileage adjustment in your account very
soon, and you can view this activity via AA.com at http://www.aa.com/AAdvantage®. I
hope this gesture of goodwill helps restore your confidence in us. I like free miles, I wish I knew about this last weekend when I was telling all my friends.

Your loyalty is important to us and I would like to assure you that we are committed
to getting you to your destination as planned. Sometimes, as on June 11, flights
won't operate as planned but our goal is to keep those times to a minimum. I know
your next trip with us will go much more smoothly than this one did. We will look
forward to welcoming you on board soon. - 5 They get me all happy with miles but then they bring it back up again. Let me forget it once you've apologized and made up for it.

Sincerely,

B. J. Russell
Customer Relations
American Airlines

This is an outgoing only email address. Please do not reply. -10 There's no way to respond to this. Not even a phone number. I can't have a conversation with anyone at American about it even if I wanted to. Sure, maybe I could call them up, go through a phone tree, ask to speak to B.J. and reference email #R2009/06-16268-00262-006-00. But that's too much work for an angry person.

John Haydon is at it again.

The Social Media Guru known as John Haydon has created a brand new website to share his insights. He was gracious enough to include me in his launch with a guest post that I wrote about a presentation that I give called Swingin' Social Media. Enjoy.

Lights. Camera. Help.

As of today we have opened up the submissions process for the Lights. Camera. Help Film Festival. What that means is that you can now submit your films simply by filling out the form found on this page.

So if you have a feature length film, short films, and public service announcements (including dramatic, documentary, experimental, and animation) we want to see them.

So what are you waiting for? Double check our submissions page and get started!

All Access Live

I was lucky enough to get hooked up with a company for SXSW called All Access Live. They bought me a badge for interactive and gave me a camera guy for a few evenings and interviews. Some of my video content is up at their site, and some if it didn't make the cut.



What was really interesting is watch all this come together. There was a short time frame and a little venture capital, but it was largely a tremendous amount of work by the All Access staff that made this happen. Now they just have to wait to see if sponsors like their work. If that's the case, they said they wan to train me into a legitimate host.

Anyway, thanks to All Access Live for making my SXSWi 2009 experience unforgettable.

Shiner Beer's Got Spunk

Shiner Bock has been my go-to beer these days. Not merely because I prefer darker beer, but because the taste represents a history and a tradition. It's a local flavor that goes back to 1909. Images of Bavarian settlers, the great depression and prohibition. Hope, despair, persecution and freedom. And now...SPUNK.

The Brewery's hype masters, McGrrah Jessee, duped Heineken out of their traditional event sponsorship by passing out free beer koozies to guests heading into the Austin City Limits Festival.

This is win-win for Shiner because they are neither dinged for having to sell $8 beers at ACL, nor are they out an opportunity to advertise to 65,000, 21-40-year old potential beer drinkers.

The Skinny on Twestival

The Twestival is on Tweeples Twounges.

twDAMN! I hate it when I can't stop making up words that only make sense to 0.2% of the world population.


I was particularly interested in the Austin Twestival because it's billing itself as an event where "100% of ticket sales go straight to charity:water and if we sell out, we build two wells in Africa!"

According to Sarah Bramley (@sbramley), the Africa Regional Manager for Water For People and my close personal sister, "Chartity:water is an organization that largely collects money and distributes it through grants to other NGOs."

To which I asked her, "Then what should I make of the money to people-helped ratio on their site?"

She said, "There are a lot of factors involved and nothing is guaranteed like that. But if they do happen to sell out and two wells are built because of it, I would consider it a great success no matter who actually does the construction."

There it is folks. I'm gonna buy my tickets right now.

Want to be featured? aaron dot bramley at gmail dot com.

Swingin' Social Media

I gave this presentation to a group of small non-profit organizations at Ridgewood Associates' office in Tucson, Arizona. If you would like more information about learning how the jazz basics can teach you sound social media practice, please contact me.

P.S. The advanced version of this is coming soon.

Swingin' Social Media

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