United Breaks Guitars

Like an old, dusty book of notes rediscovered, it's good to come back here. Almost four years ago (!) I set out to record, diary style, my musings about technology. Looking at the right of this page at the smatterings of entries dating back to 2005, it doesn't feel like it's been that long since my very first entry, and I'm nostalgic reopening the New Post screen once again, remembering the original scope and vision of what this would all entail over the years. The intended audience was never the general public, hundreds of thousands of other blogs struggle and strain for that spotlight, often grossly exaggerating their own popularity and sense of ubiquity across the tubes of the internet for some sense of place in the cyber universe. As a pragmatic person, I find this sort of self flagellation tiresome. But, as a disorganized person often prone to purging my writings over the years, I feel less apt to do so when they are floating around out "there" vs. stuffed somewhere on my personal computer, even if no one ever discovers them.




Anyway, what brought me back to blow the dust off this old electronic book of thoughts about technology is what is happening to, or because of, the little guys out there standing defiantly in the face of a variety of Goliath's. This entry is about the David's.

I haven't checked, but I'm sure dozens or hundreds of other tiny little blogs have opined in the past few days about a recent story in the news that has little guys everywhere rejoicing as they perform victory dances to an inspirational little ditty of stick-to-it-iveness that has so far resulted in a big win for "our side". Last week, on July 6, 2009 Dave Carroll and his band the "Sons of Maxwell" released a youtube music video of his catchy newly minted hit song "United Breaks Guitars" detailing an unfortunate incident that happened on March 31, 2008 in which he and his fellow band-mates watched in horror as their professional instruments (guitars) were abused and severely damaged twenty feet below them on the tarmac through gross negligence by the ground crew at O'Hare, ultimately resulting in a total loss of Dave's $3500 guitar. As infuriating as the incident must have been for Dave and the others to watch, strapped in their seats on the plane, the real frustration for them unfolded over the next year or so as Dave was dragged through the bowels of the United Airlines Customer Service Matrix, specifically and deliberately designed (in my opinion) to drive customers away empty handed by sending them down countless customer service dead ends, rejections, and general apathy again and again until either the customer (David) or the Corporation (Goliath) buckled. An endlessly hopeless customer service organizational model designed as such is no accident, and sadly it's no secret that United Airlines is no stranger to stooping to such tactics to set a precedent of disseminating minimal capital expenditures to achieve adequate customer satisfaction. Anyone who's ever attempted to reach a resolution on health insurance claims was likely sucked into the same endless and grinding cogs of that customer dissatisfaction system.

As months went on and call after call to United's customer dissatisfaction mechanism proved again and again to achieve its quiet, steady and cold objective, devoid of any humanity Dave's dissatisfaction steered him to a different path than the thousands who perished inside the cogs before him. He decided to harness the power of his own voice through song and broadcast a message. But Dave and the band knew singing their song standing on a street corner was clearly going to net at best a brief 30 second splash on the local Halifax, Canada TV news. If lucky, maybe a few tens of thousands of people would see the 30 second splash just before they dozed off as they watched in bed that night. The band realized that there are other mediums to broadcast their message that could potentially reach many more viewers and possibly -- if they're lucky! -- some mid level manager at United might catch word of it and do the right thing. It was with this objective in mind the Sons of Maxwell and Dave "David" Carroll took their fight with United "Goliath" to the internet airwaves with this video.



Catchy song, huh?

Tough to get that chorus out of your head. The harder you try, the louder it plays. "United Breaks Guitars....United Breaks Guitars....United Breaks Guitars....", and so on. Actively trying to forget that chorus is like saying "don't picture an elephant". I'm sure to United's dismay, it doesn't work to forget that chorus. The power of negative suggestion is indeed powerful. And lots of people are humming along. Lots, and lots, and lots.

The above video was released, as I said, on July 6th. As I type this sentence, the hit count is 3,124,867 views. Three million, one hundred twenty four thousand, eight hundred and sixty seven views, and counting. I wonder how many of those people will choose to fly another airline for their next flight either because of some fear for their personal property or (more likely) to "stick it" to a big company that represents to them all the other Big Companies that have "stuck it" to them over the years.

It's unknown the exact number of these lost customers, but at least a few of those views were sourced from the corner offices of some very important people at the United Airlines Headquarters who asked the very same question. Their refusal over the past year to compensate Dave Carroll for his $3500 guitar (and thus open the doors for compensating other legitimate claims to be made by future dissatisfied customers) could cost them plenty. There's no way to estimate the exact figure of course of bad publicity, especially in an industry as cutthroat as the airline industry, but needless to say there could very well be a change of course or at least a reduction in the number of grinding cogs in the mechanism once known as the United Airlines Customer (Dis)Service Department. What is inspirational and heartening about all this is Dave's desire for the $3500 compensation he's owed to be given by United to a charity of their choice.

It's no longer about money, that's irrelevant. It's about doing what's right, and that's where United stumbled.

What's also fascinating to me isn't how the technology that made this all happened works, but rather that it worked. There's an old saying by Andy Warhol that is so relevant today that I dare call it prophetic -- "In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes." In the hallowed halls of massive corporate PR departments at companies that make tens of billions of dollars, famous people speaking out against their products are dangerous. In the past, it was a snap to muzzle these folks by ensuring the TV networks who reap financial benefits from the tens of millions of advertising dollars spent there keep such stories on the editing room floor and away from the public, but now......yes, but now things are different. Or, at least they are for the moment.



Expanding on what was started by Johannes Gutenberg's press five hundred years ago, we need to maintain his vision. Complexities are far greater today, certainly, but the need exists. With over 6 billion human beings living on this planet, it's paramount that there are tools at our disposal to communicate freely, without corporate or governmental control. Yet another reason why humankind's most democratic of communications platforms must remain neutral.