LUV and the Blogosphere

[blusk]

Birds do it. Bees do it. Even educated Southwest Airlines is going to do it–to [mis]quote that old song. Since there are, no doubt, blogs about the birds and the bees, and since airplanes also have wings, we decided to do Nuts About Southwest, a blog about Southwest Airlines. For us, the experience is a lot like going on a blind date–will our readers like us? Can we find something to talk about? And most importantly, will they come back again to post their own messages? We promise that we are a lot more fun than most blind dates... Well at least we hope so, and we hope that you are as Nuts about Southwest as we are. Our goal is to earn a bookmark on your browser, or even better, a RSS feed on your reader, by making our corporate blog interesting, timely, and FUN for all involved. We look at this blog as the place where our Employees "come out to play," and we hope you will join us on the playground with this blog by posting your own comments. We are really excited to show the blogosphere a behind the scenes viewpoint of our folks. We don't think it is surprising that Southwest is taking a lead in establishing a truly interactive airline corporate blog because we have been the airline Leader in using the Internet. On March 16, 1995, we became one of the first airlines in the world to set up a home page on the World Wide Web. That first web page, the "Southwest Airlines Home Gate," was pretty rudimentary, but it featured our schedules, route map, and Company information. Over the years, the page evolved into today's southwest.com. Needless to say, we are very proud of southwest.com, but it really is a formal (as much as anything about Southwest can be called "formal"), communication device, and we wanted a way to establish an online, ongoing dialogue with you. Our goal is for this blog to go beyond the facts and numbers to give you insight into our fantastic Employees–what motivates them, how they do their jobs, and a look into the way they serve you, our Customers. In other words, we want this to be a place where you can see just who we are and why we are Nuts about Southwest. In order to do that, we have lined up an exciting group of bloggers that include Frontline and Headquarters Employees. Among the Frontline Employees lined up to blog are some of our Pilots; Flight Attendants; Airport Employees; Mechanics; folks from our Marketing, Schedule Planning, Properties, People and Leadership, and Executive Office Departments. We hope to add additional bloggers as we go, including some of our Officers, who will show up as guest bloggers. So, there you have our initial lineup. Because a lot of these folks are on the road, you may only see their individual posts two or three times a month, but since we have such a strong lineup, you should always see fresh material–unlike those tired standup comics that promise new material at the eleven o'clock show. If you want to know more about the groundrules for the blog, check out our user guide. Remember, this is your blog too, so we encourage you to participate, and don't forget to share your opinions with us. With all of that out of the way, let's get going!