If you go to the FAA’s NextGen web-site, a wide banner tells you that this is about “Giving the World New Ways to Fly”. The banner is of course the link to the NextGen 101 Video. I clicked and watched for the next ten minutes or so… At the end of it I could not but wonder: who commissioned this thing and who accepted this product?
Boooooring is the understatement of the century if the term is applied to this “video” which is in fact little more than a rather poorly constructed series of slides with little movement and even less impact. The voice over says all the right things although that too could have been made at least half way exciting… but it wasn’t.
Of course seeing something as low quality as this video, one can start all kinds of mental games. What did they have in mind when they created this video? Who was the target audience? OK, big bosses need simple explanations but this is rather overdoing it…. Kids in kindergarten need more action or they will fall asleep. The population in-between? No, they do not watch this kind of video.
What about the company who made it? Did they get a specification that had called for the most unimaginative presentation in the world? If so, they have succeeded brilliantly. If they did not, did they decide all on their own to propose this horror to the FAA? How did they convince the guys with the money that this was exactly what you needed to promote NextGen?
Did the company not feel obliged to tell whoever was ordering this product that it would need to be something vibrant, fresh, innovative and informative, something different from all that has gone before… but in a positive sense of course.
Luckily this not the only NextGen video and the others are markedly better. Just as well, NextGen deserves better!
Watch the video here.