One of the benefits of an open approach to marketing is that it allows your own staff to create little bits of extra value for customers. A small but interesting example cropped up the other day in the Southwest Airlines blog. One of their pilots, David Evans, says that when you have 25 minutes to turn a plane round, you start to get pretty savvy about where to grab a good sandwich in a hurry at airport. So he's starting to gather recommendations on where to eat at US airports to share with customers.

Aren't all airlines sitting on mountains of really good information about airports tucked away in the minds of their staff? Wouldn't it be nice, cheap and easy to serve some of it up to us like this? Way better than the tired old plugs for the Car Rental company you've done a deal with.