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Welcome to the Future of Nuts About Southwest

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Aviator C
What's a good way to celebrate a blog's second birthday? Well we thought the best way was to take our blog and make it even better. Thanks for joining us on our slightly belated birthday celebration as we roll out our exciting new Nuts About Southwest platform, or as we call it around here, our "blog 2.0 site." Don't worry, this is still the Southwest Airlines blog, and you haven't landed in a time warp! Rest assured, everything you liked before is still here, but we have added a lot of new "stuff" that will give you more choices in information and even provide you the ability to personalize your Nuts experience.

Okay, so where do we start? Well, the effervescently efficient and engaging Christi Day has prepared an introductory video that will give you a quick tour of the site. You can find Christi's video on the right side of the home page, underneath the new Flickr photos area. Her video, along with this post, will be your "instruction manual" for the new stuff--although it's gonna be a lot more fun to watch Christi than read my words. We are guessing that this new video blog section will be one of the most popular spots at Nuts About Southwest, and Christi and her producer, the imaginatively innovative Paula Berg, have been hard at work traveling across our system compiling a series of videos that will take you behind the scenes with our Employees (some of whom you will recognize) at work. Christi's video series will post every Monday, and the video section will have all the blog posts that contain videos.

Again, the blog pretty much remains the same, with the exception of the previously mentioned video section that will now contain posts with videos. If you want the blog displayed in a full screen (similar to the way it was before), just click on the "BLOGSOUTHWEST" bar above or click on one of the "read more" links under each post. Although a few have left the Company, most of our bloggers are still with us, including your favorites like Bill Owen, Ray Stark, and Carole Adams, along with some new folks who work in different areas of the Company like Reservations, Cargo, and Customer Relations/Rapid Rewards. The blog will still be (we hope!) insightful, topical, informative, and fun. Now, let's talk about some of the new stuff.

On the upper right of the home page, you will see an area for photos, and these will come from our Flickr group. (Is it my age, or what, but every time I see Flickr, I think of "My Friend Flicka"?) We'd LUV to see your pics on any subjects related to Southwest Airlines, and this is the place to post your photos. Now take a gander under the blog and video blog sections for two more new features: One is our new weekly poll that will ask your thoughts on everything from current issues to funny topics. The area immediately to the right of the polls is our new headline service that will provide you with the latest news from Southwest Airlines.

Below the polls and headlines are two feeds from our official media site: One consists of Southwest-produced videos like our commercials and the other links to official Southwest photos. And finally, but definitely not least is the home of Red Belly RadioTM with the smooth voice and Renaissance-man mind of Steve Heaser. This audio podcast will run on a weekly schedule with new posts on Wednesdays. Steve, who has been doing this on our internal site for awhile, will have some fascinating reports for you.

But wait, we have more. Rest assured you will still be able to access, view, and comment on all of our features, but by completing your profile, you have access to other features like being able to set up a profile and customize the "My Favorite Feeds" tab.

What you see today is the result of at least a year's worth of dreaming and a good six months of hard work to bring you these new interactive options. None of this could have happened if it weren't for the efforts, guidance, and friendship of Chris Ronan and his Team at RD2, Inc. Without them, we would probably still be hoping and dreaming instead of unveiling and displaying. What you see today is really a "work in progress," and there are more new features still to come in the next phase, so don't wander off.

I've rattled on for enough now. Go, explore, and be sure to return, so you can let us know your thoughts.
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