PILOTING PROJECTS

How to keep a pilot project flying: Advice from Matthew Maier in the current issue of Business 2.0:

1. Show Bosses the Money (early customer testimonials and surveys showing potential sales are powerful weapons for garnering a piece of the budget.

2. Set Milestones, Hit Them.

3. Form internal alliances. Communicate wins to other divisions and demonstate how sister business units can benefit from a project's success.

Interesting advice, which certainly can be extrapolated to law firm environments (especially IT) as law firms begin to embrace "Project Management" protocols.

Maier's list comes in the context of an interesting article on how Connexion by Boeing has been struggling post-9/11. Its in-flight WiFi service ran into some big bumps, but it now appears that chieftain Scott Carson is leading a turnaround. A trial run on German's Lufthansa drew strong passenger response, and the company has landed contracts with Scandanavian, Singapore and China airlines. But a major U.S. carrier deal remains elusive, reports the magazine.

The technology appears similar to that being touted for inflight cell phone use (see below) -- Passengers connect to the plane's 802.11b network (at broadband speeds) via laptops or PDAs, says Business 2.0. An antenna in the roof of the aircraft would transmit information between the plane and a network of orbiting satellites.