For a while, I’ve had this idea to write about the interesting people I end up sitting next to on airplanes. The first time I did this was one I entitled “The day my father died.” My life changed that day and, more than three years later, I find myself tearing up just thinking about it. That’s why it’s time to do this. Yesterday I had yet another one of those moments when you realize you’ve met someone at exactly the time you were meant to meet them.
Call it what you want: Fate, serendipity, etc.
My travels to Miami this week involved a connection in Cincinnati. I scored an upgrade to first class and ended up sitting next to a pediatric eye surgeon from that city. While I never learned her name, the couple of hours we spent sitting next to each other on the way to Miami forever changed my life. It didn’t happen in some crazy profound way, but I was compelled to write about it.
Social existed long before the internet
There was a time I was painfully shy. Want to know how I changed that? I started talking to strangers I met, everywhere I met them. I’ve spent a great deal of time on airplanes over the years and, before laptops and iPhones, all we really had were books and conversation. I’ve met some of the coolest folks whose names I never knew or can’t remember on airplanes. It’s just who I am; I talk to everyone.
Back to our story
So last week I picked up my new eyeglasses. It’s my first time wearing progressive lenses and getting used to them has been difficult. I’m not complaining really. I can still see, but it’s just a frustrating adjustment process. Somehow my seat mate and I began discussing glasses and she let me know she was a pediatric eye surgeon. She suggested I just take them off in close quarters and embrace my near-sightedness. However, she changed her mind after she asked for my glasses and looked through them while twisting and turning them. It turns out this right eye of mine really is a mess, and not a hot mess.
She asked what I did and, as soon as I mentioned color verification, her eyes lit up (maybe the pun was intended). We talked for quite awhile about rods, cones and color blindness. She presented a hypothesis that if you don’t want to lose the 6 to 8 percent of the male population that is color blind, then your website and/or PowerPoint presentation should feature blue as the key color. Apparently all forms of color blindness can still see blue.
This of course made me wonder if our “Buy Now” buttons should all be blue instead of green? It’s time for some split testing, right?
The lesson
Stop being shy and start asking questions. Do you know how to start a conversation on an airplane? Question 1: So are you headed to [city you are flying to] on business or pleasure? Wait for a response and then ask Question 2: Oh really? What sort of work do you do? If those two questions can’t start a conversation, maybe one was not meant to be started.
[…] a recent flight, I sat next to a pediatric eye surgeon and we had an interesting conversation about the use of red and green in slide presentations. The […]