JetWired
November 21, 2001. © American Airlines and Mick Doherty. Originally formatted and sent as an e-mail.
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** High Priority **

JetWired v.3
November 21, 2001
Jetnet: http://jetnet.aa.com/

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Welcome to JetWired, the weekly e-mail newsletter update for members of the AMR Publishing Board, consisting of the former Webmasters Forum, Editors Council and Teamsite Users Group. If there are additional members of your team who should receive this newsletter, please let us know.
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Prologue: As this newsletter is being distributed on Wednesday afternoon before the (U.S.) Thanksgiving holiday, it's quite likely that many of you are reading this the following Monday; in that case, please allow the UX team to be the first to offer best retroactive wishes for the holiday. That's the great thing about asynchronous communications (like e-mail) ... it's never too late to be early.

1. MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION
(This is a recording ... the following news blurb will self-destruct in 30 seconds ... )

If you are new to this newsletter and would like copies of previous editions, please let us know and we'll be happy to send them along. All copies will be archived in the revived Webmasters eRoom in early December.

Still Looking for Updates ...
Thanks to the more than 120 members of this newly-organized Board who have replied to the request for updated information. That's more than half of the total membership ... if you have not yet replied, please check the attached Excel document (PublishBoardv3.xls) to make sure your information is correct.

If you need to correct or update your name, title, station, etc., send the information to mick.doherty@aa.com ... please include the corrections in the body of your e-mail rather than in a re-attached secondary version of the Excel document.

Again, this document is not complete and not for redistribution. When the final updated version is completed, it will be republished via this newsletter. The official list and its updates, like this mail list, will be maintained by the IT User Experience Group.

Board members who do not respond with updated information by 01/04/02 will be removed from the distribution list. Thank you in advance for your response.

2. NEWS & NOTES

Can We Talk?
Anyone who's ever been involved in promoting a new Web site knows that the best possible publicity comes via "viral marketing," also known as "electronic word of mouth." To that end, the Jetnet team is anxious to engage the help of the more than 200 members of this Board in properly promoting Jetnet to AA/Eagle employees.

The attached (JetnetTalkingPoints1121.rtf) is a "living document" addressing the most common questions we are currently receiving regarding Jetnet. If you receive such questions, you can of course forward them on to us at jetnet.comments@aa.com (Note:"to us" here actually means "to Erin Marshall," who has the pleasure of owning that particular Groupwise account). However, please feel free to respond to questions directly using the information in this "Talking Points" document. It will be updated as necessary and continue to be redistributed via this newsletter.

What's missing from this original draft? Let us know.

Jetnet Password Distribution Underway
Many of you have seen the following daily blurb in HeAAds Up! over the past two weeks:

***
Passwords to Jetnet, the new employee portal, are being distributed via traditional postal mail to workgroups between now and the end of November. All of your employees should have passwords in hand no later than Dec. 5. Announcements regarding specific workgroup mail drops will be published in the appropriate communications vehicles. If you or your employees have any questions about Jetnet, please contact jetnet.comments@aa.com.
***

Now, as Paul Harvey would say, here's the REST of the story ...

As of today, six (6) Jetnet mailings have been dropped. In some cases, numbers are approximate:

- Eagle (11,650 EE) ... 9/26
- Non-US EE except Europe (8,574) ... 10/30
- Mgt/LOA w/reinstatement rights & ExPats (8,956) ... 11/2
- TWU employees in TUL, AFW, DFW (13,518) ... 11/5
- TWU/ MIA, ORD, JFK, LGA, LAX, SFO, SJC, SJU (16,239) ... 11/15
- Agents and Clerks (19,035) ... 11/16


Future mailings are scheduled to take place as follows:
- Flight Attendants (22,555) ... 11/27
- Pilots (10,550) ... 11/29
- Europe (2,500) ... 11/29
- TWA cutover (7,000) ... 01/15/02

3. STYLE POINTS
We've taken the next step forward in putting together the AMR Publishing Board Style Manual ... please see the attached (AMR-Stylebook.rtf) document for review. Again, this is a draft document ... please let us know what's missing (TWA-related information, for instance), what's outdated ... all of that. And should this stylebook, which is currently focusing on text and usage, include statements on logos, fonts, image use, etc.? Your comments are not only welcome, but necessary.

4. MEET THE TEAM
Each week, we'll take a look at the roles and responsibilities of various groups who have representatives receiving this newsletter. And, as with everything else in our industry lately, it all starts with Security.

Introducing ... IT Security
If you're not familiar with the roles and responsibilities of the IT Security team, you're not alone - the department itself is still relatively new. IT Security first became an independent department in the second quarter of 2000, and consists of personnel based at HDQ who combine to offer more than 75 years of administrative and technical security expertise and audit experience in the government, private, public and military sectors.

"We're often asked about the difference between IT Security and Corporate Security," says Senior Security Analyst PJ Varrassi. "And both groups are tasked with addressing the security needs of AA. But there are differences in the focus of the job and in the chain of leadership."

Corporate Security, under the leadership of Safety, Security & Environment (SSE), addresses the security needs of the company through investigation of theft, fraud, misconduct and and other scenarios that could undermine the company.

IT Security, which reports directly to CIO Monte Ford, has as its mission to secure resources - such as information - from accidental or intentional modification, destruction, disclosure or availability denial.

According to Varrassi, who is also Project Manager for the IT Security Policy and Procedure Committee, "Working together, Corporate and IT provide a full spectrum of security services."

In the coming months, IT Security will be introducing a number of enhancements, including security project consultation to business units and vendors, security project management, new technology assessments, user awareness programs, computer-based training, and a security Web site, among others. Watch Jetwired for related announcements.

5. RECOMMENDED RESOURCES
This is the part of our show where we point out good resources or articles relevant to the various tasks of the AMR Publishing Board. Think of it like the end of "Reading Rainbow" when LeVar Burton, before he became Geordi LaForge, told the kids how great it is to go the library.

If you have suggestions for this space, please send them along. These two pieces are courtesy of Clickz, one of the finest Web publishing/marketing resources to be found anywhere.

>>> Write Smart, Write Simple
http://www.clickz.com/design/cont_dev/article.php/925571
What can a hillbilly with a sixth-grade education teach you about writing online? Learn how to cook up content as tasty as a mess of grits and hog jowls. By Susan Solomon.

>>> Developing Your Project Doesn't Have to Be Rocket Science
http://www.clickz.com/sales/traffic/article.php/902491
Failures don't happen by accident. They happen because too many development projects are done "the way we've always done it." There's an adage: The definition of insanity is to keep doing things the same way but expect a different result. By Brian Eisenberg

6. JUST FOR FUN

Contest This!
Twelve Board Members responded to last week's question ("Identify the Shakespearean reference embedded in a news item in this newsletter and the play from which it came") ... and ALL of them got the answer right. The phrase "toil and trouble" is from the Shakespearean tragedy "Macbeth."

Listed in order of when their responses were receieved, congratulations to Christie Reyenga, Don Tabberer, Michael Franklin. Kurt Iverson, Kathleen Stucker, Cecilia Tung, Kyle Kramer, Tim Wagner, Donna Bourgeois, Merry Janes, Erin Marshall and Johnathon Bear.

These twelve winners will have their names entered into a drawing for an exciting prize later this year. As noted last week, though, don't get your hopes up for a new car ... previous prizes have been more along the lines of a $10 gift certificate to Blockbuster. Reyenga and Marshall are the only two Board Members to have correctly answered both trivia questions to date and each will have two entries in the prize drawing ... or more, depending on future answers, of course.

Don't Know Much About History ...
This week's contest entry is a simple history test ... name, in order, all the men who have served as CEO of American Airlines. Here's a hint: the last word in your reply should be "Carty."

The Funny Papers ... er, Pixels
Know a good story, joke, urban legend? Send it along for next issue. Here's this week's closer.

Last week's list of actual newspaper headlines proved to be extremely popular, so here's a second helping of "I-can't-believe-we-printed-that" editorial goofs, courtesy again of the Columbia Journalism Review:

- Red Tape Holds Up Bridge
- Man Struck by Lightning Faces Battery Charge
- Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half
- Air Head Fired
- Sex Education Delayed, Teachers Request Training
- Autos Killing 110 a Day -- Let's Resolve to Do Better
- British Union Finds Dwarfs in Short Supply
- Death Causes Loneliness, Feeling of Isolation
- Farmer Bill Dies in House
- Milk Drinkers are Turning to Powder
- Nicaragua Sets Goal to Wipe Out Literacy
- Smokers are Productive, But Death Cuts Efficiency
- Grandmother of Eight Makes Hole in One
- William Kelly was Fed Secretary

I'll take responsibility for two headlines that ran in a small newspaper in northwest Ohio when I was working there years ago. One was attached to a high school football game story about Toledo St. John's handily defeating Tiffin Columbian; that headline unfortunately read "Titans Smoke Columbian."

Later, a local pastor announced an annual event in a story under the headline "Fr. Walters Kicks Off Winter Carnival." Unfortunately (again) in those days when "paste up" meant actually pasting the headline to the broadsheet, the second part of the headline fell off somewhere between the office and the printer, leaving the headline to read "Fr. Walters Kicks Off."

Got any good stories on yourself? Send'em along!

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JetWired is an informal, internal publication for members of the AMR Publishing Board. The content of this newsletter is proprietary and not to be shared with any individual not already on the distribution list. Do not forward without permission. © 2001 AA.

Contact information:
Mick Doherty
mick.doherty@aa.com
817-963-2009 office
817-919-2870 cell

Just testing to see if anyone reads down this far ... if so, let me know and you'll get an extra entry in the contest drawing.