The cold and basically automated response by Boeing to 9-year-old Harry regarding his drawings doesn't seem to have caused as much harm as it has good. Yes, it is certainly upsetting to see that such a big and respectable company, a company that many children such as Harry look up to, was unable to give an encouraging response to one of their young fans who was so eager to hear back about his airplane designs. But people in social media sites live for this kind of buzz. We love to vent and fuss about things that bother us, and sites such as these make it extraordinarily easy to communicate to the world the things that peeve us. The fact that there was a reaction by Boeing, and that they did apologize and admit fault, doesn't necessarily mean that they were "put back in line." It wasn't that they really messed up this situation, they just didn't handle it the best way possible, and thanks to Harry and his dad, next time they probably will.
Lucky for Harry's father, John Winsor, this was a great opportunity to get some free publicity for his company, Victors & Spoils. I doubt, however, that he had any idea that his posting about the situation with Boeing on his blog was going to get this sort of attention, but I assure you he welcomed it with open arms. His company has now gained much recognition after the story was published in The New York Times in May of this year. Now can we hold any of this against him? I say not, as the whole story has seemingly caused no harm.
It is hard for me to find any true harm in John Winsor revealing this story to the public. I, for one, would never hold that sort of "cold" response against a company, especially one as big as Boeing. According to (www.airplane-trade.com) and (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Boeing_customer_codes), there are hundreds of airlines all over the world that use Boeing jets, and for good reasons such as cost and reliability. I wouldn't hold the fact that they didn't know how to handle a letter from a 9-year-old fan against them, and I don't think any airlines would either.
As a large corporation such as boeing, we can only imagine how many letters, drawings, design ideas, they get on a daily basis from people all over the world. One can only imagine that they have to have some sort of set standard and procedure they follow to avoid loss of productivity and man power by having someone designated to respond to these emails and letters daily. The fact that little Harry even got a response from the company was good enough for me, as some companies wouldn't have even done that. I just think it became an issue because of who the boy's father was and he as a marketing professional saw the potential in what the story could become and lo and behold..we're here talking about it so...it worked!
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