we sometimes like to call a "nerd bird," an airplane traveling between two locations such as San
Jose, California, and Austin, Texas. In such a plane, more than half the passengers are likely to
be in the industry, the salesmen, techs, and executives who keep the whole business going as
they dart from technology center to technology center.
Look around and you'll see most mostly white, male, often pear-shaped fellow travelers, often
hunched over laptops, elbowing each other as they desperately try to finish their presentations,
write-ups, analyses, or whatever else they're working on before arriving in the destination city. Of
course, first class is full, since everyone travels all the time and has plenty of miles for an
upgrade. But the vast majority are squeezed into coach with barely enough room for their knees,
and definitely not enough to lay out their papers and open their notebooks while balancing the
beverage of their choice on the edge of their tray-tables.
I was on such a flight one day, between somewhere and somewhere else, toward the back of the
plane in the rows out to which a certain subtle bathroom smell has a tendency to drift. I was next
to the window and the aisle seat was already occupied by a guy in the trade. As we waited for
people to find their places, we idly speculated on whether or not the center seat was likely to be
taken. "Oh," he said, "it sure will. This flight is overbooked."
"Well," I said, "maybe we'll be lucky and get a pretty girl."
"No such luck," he replied with world-weary knowledge. "More likely a fat guy."
People were working their way down the aisle and dropping into remaining seats all around us.
But ours stayed free. Five minutes, three minutes, one minute. It looked like we were going to get
that treasured smidgen of comfort, an open middle chair. We began to pile our reading matter,
coats, water bottles onto the seat in anticipation.
Just then, one minute before the door was scheduled to shut, a huge man, out of breath from
running, stepped onto the plane. He was as wide as he was tall and encumbered with all sort of
carry-on bags that he certainly should have checked. As he worked his way down the plane, his
sweaty flanks catching the seats on both sides at each and every row, he seemed to be squinting
in our direction.
"He's looking at us!" my companion said.
"It can't be!" I answered.
"It is!" he said, as we scrambled our stuff off the center seat and stuffed it under the seat or into
the seat pockets in front of us.
The fat man arrived and wiped his forehead on a hairy arm. He had long hair and a full beard,
and in a loud voice began making self-deprecating fat-man jokes, as he jammed his bags into
the overhead bin. Clearly, he had made these same jokes many times before. They appeared to
serve as a kind of apology to people he was about to put upon. They weren't remotely funny. The
looks of speechless horror on our faces must have been familiar to him, and he smoothly ignored
their implications. In shock, the aisle-seat fellow politely got up from his seat and stood aside.
The fat man edged into the middle, let his weight go, and fell into the seat, setting off a seismic
wave surely detectable on the Richter scale.
He looked around wanly and said, "You don't mind?" as, to our disbelief, he lifted both armrests,
allowing his bulk to flow into our heretofore personal spaces. He tried to ease the moment with
more fat-man jokes, none of which, in my stunned state, I can remember.
This was a long flight, as I remember, and I settled into my misery, pressed against the window
by this mound of flesh. Needless to say, I lost contact with the guy on the other side. The fat man
folded his arms as a way of mitigating his bulk. "Don't worry," he said, "I'll probably sleep most of
the way," a comment I found hard to interpret. He continued to chat lightly about this and that,
probably hoping to comfort us somewhat about our recent loss of the possibility of having a
decent flight.
The plane took off and reached cruising altitude, and as I was getting out my laptop to work on a
piece due yesterday, he mentioned that he was the CEO of one of my competitors. Work, out of
the question.
At this point, you could be forgiven for thinking that we had already reached the depths of dismay,
but, as the Cat in the Hat might say, "That is not all, oh, no! That is not all!"
I'm an industry analyst, and analysts often act as sources for the press and other media. In his
meanderings, he happened to mention that he had just appeared on The CBS Evening News
with Dan Rather, a slot that I myself had nearly snagged (this anecdote dates the incident,
clearly). The booker had called me first, but in juggling phone calls, I had put her on hold, and you
don't put the booker from the CBS Evening News on hold. So, when I went back to the call, I was
greeted by dial tone.
So, this guy was taking my space, preventing me from working, and had stolen my three seconds
of fame to boot! What could be worse? Only his snoring, as, head back, mouth open, he
serenaded us across the country.
* * *
But nerd bird experiences are not always so benign. Here's a tale of how indiscretion on the nerd
bird literally cost a company its entire business.
A friend of mine in the semiconductor manufacturing business was traveling from here to there
between the obvious places when he began to overhear a man sitting across the aisle talking to a
woman sitting in the seat in front of him. My pal realized that the man was working for a direct
competitor and was talking about issues he was facing in launching a new product.
At the end of an hour, my friend knew his competitor's price, the bugs in its chip, and who its first
(and, more importantly, anchor) customer was.
As he got up to deplane, my friend was recognized by a woman who had been seated in front him.
She said hello and asked him whether he was still with his company. When he replied, yes, the
man across the aisle knew that he had made a major mistake. But it was too late.
As soon as he was off the plane, my friend called his salesman, giving him the details. His
company not only won the business by undercutting his competitor's price and pointing out where
the flaws in its product were, but because this customer was pivotal for winning more business,
the other company never was able to properly launch its product and within a year had closed its
doors. That anchor customer was supposed to be the reference for the next customer.
Lesson: you can be sure your competitors are on the nerd bird.
