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I had the pleasure of speaking on a panel with Benet Wilson, Biz Aviation editor at Aviation Week (and oh so much more) and Morgan Johnson, social media guru at jetBlue Airlines at the ACI-NA Technology Conference in Orlando this past Wednesday.

Now, I've been on what seem like a gazillion social media panels since we started blogging, tweeting, FBing, Flickring and YouTubing but this ranks as one of my all time favorites. Benet is an uber-social, super cool journalist who is clearly on top of all things aviation. Morgan shared some very cool examples of how they have used social media to help solve customer problems and to respond to a crisis (like that big snow storm around Valentine's Day 2007- poor dears).

What was even cooler was that the IT managers in the audience were very engaged in the topic and genuinely interested in supporting their respective airports marketing and communications departments get more involved in social media. Sometimes IT and Marketing don't see eye-to-eye on issues like access to social networking sites and legal issues. This group, however, really seemed to get it.

I learned a couple of things too:

Social media isn't a perfect fit for every company, airport or outfit



Airlines with massive followers and fans cannot possibly be expected to answer every call for help immediately but they can get a team assembled to address most issues quickly and effectively.

Benet is even cooler than I thought originally…and that's saying a lot…because I've always held her in high esteem. Follow her tweets @AvWeekBenet, if you are an aviation fanatic like me.