For an industry famous for its lack of customer service, isn’t it interesting how a simple gesture like the one below gets you noticed?

That is the question!

As you may have heard, Southwest Airlines is reviewing the idea of whether or not to add assigned seating to our service. Through the years, assigned seats have always been a top request from Customers who call or write to us. As we consider whether or not to assign seats, we are looking at it from many aspects, including the impact to our boarding times, revenue, and our Customers' opinion. If we decide to start assigning seats, it will not be before 2008, but we are giving it a thorough examination now. You, our valued Rapid Rewards Members, know our service better than anyone, so your opinion is an important piece to this puzzle. You can weigh in on the age-old debate that has puzzled Customers, Employees, and scholars for years! Please take a moment to fill out our quick Assigned Seating Poll and tell us your vote. The poll will be available online for our Rapid Rewards Members through Friday, August 11, so feel free to pass this e-mail along to any friends or family who are Rapid Rewards Members who may not receive our Rapid Rewards E-mail Updates. The more, the better! This poll is one of several very important steps of Southwest's ongoing look at assigned seating and how it could possibly be adapted to our unique business model. We look forward to your feedback.

Note: To ensure the accuracy of our poll results, there is a limit of one poll per Member. As such, your Rapid Rewards account number will be required at the time of polling.

We've got another guest blog from Jacobs Media's Dave Beasing:

No actor in history has made more money for Paramount Studios than Tom Cruise.  So why would Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone publicly dump the actor?  Some insiders say other studio chiefs are privately wondering the same thing, worried his rough handling of the decision might frost relations with other artists.

Yet for others, that Paramount severed its 14-year relationship with Cruise serves as a reminder that - in business - it's impossible to separate the personal from the professional.  Some say that Cruise's unusual off-screen behavior hurt the box office take of Mission Impossible III.  Whether that's true - or whether a bad script is partly to blame - investors demand results.  They demand that Tom talk about his movies during interviews rather than argue about psychology, that actress Lindsey Lohan not party the night before work, and that Mel Gibson not make offensive, drunken remarks.  Whether you're in movies, television, on the radio - or just hope to be seen as a leader in your industry or community - public behavior matters.

Business is business.  Even show business.

It is truly amazing how the rules of business continue to be written and then re-written.  A great example is Steve Case, AOL's founder, who now rues the day his company merged with super-content provider Time Warner.  Speaking with Charlie Rose, Case noted that the best thing AOL could do was "de-merge" with Time Warner in order to become competitive again with the more focused Google or Yahoo!  "It has not turned out the way I expected," Case noted.  "I'm sorry I did it."

How many other big companies reached mega-status by buying other media outlets, hoping for that elusive synergy?   Remember it wasn't that long ago when it seemed so simple - that broadcasters would buy billboard companies, concert promotion companies, TV networks, and other media concerns.

But the reality is that merging disparate operations always comes down to the quality of management.  It takes great people to bring companies together, to soothe egos, and to truly understand the nuances of melding different cultures.  There are only so many Jack Welch's and Herb Kelleher's to go around.

Sometimes, less is truly more.