I’m on a flight from Dallas to Philadelphia right now. Yes, right now. I’m typing this from the plane using American’s new gogo internet service since the Admirals Club gave me a free pass. I know this has been around for a little while on certain planes, but this is the first time I’ve been on a flight and have had a chance to test it out. It isn’t really all that exciting, but I am wondering how this will change the world of business.

I have been flying a lot lately (I’m on a 6 flights in 7 day streak right now) and have actually really been enjoying the opportunity to take a nap during the day, catch up on more in depth reading and make some progress on some of our bigger writing objectives. And I’ve churned out a couple of killer slides that probably wouldn’t have made their debut without some kind of disconnection from the real world. So here I am re-connected to Facebook, skyping with co-workers, updating my blog, ping-ponging on email and not really doing anything particularly important.

I’m feeling quite a bit of ambivalence about this. As long as they have rules that ensure people “do no harm to their neighbor’s disconnection”, hence AA’s rules around not viewing porn, not video conferencing and not making calls, I suppose it can be useful to be connected and I just have to be more personally disciplined on how I use my time. Isn’t it sad I secretly hope they charge by the minute so that I have to be thoughtful about how long I’m online like when I’m on vacation typing from an internet cafe?

P.S. The coffee sucks. But thank goodness for exit rows.