Back in medieval times, when I was a college student in my native Boston, I typed all of my term papers on a battered manual typewriter, the personal computer was only a gleam in Steve Jobs’ eye, and my local baseball team was a perennial loser. Since then, the Internet has revolutionized society, I’ve become the publisher of a Web site, and the Red Sox have won two World Series championships.

In business and in life, change is inevitable. Aviation managers are experiencing incessant change inside and outside their corporate perimeters, affecting the way they manage their operations or comply with new regulations.

I recently discussed this subject during dinner one night, with George and Leann Lehmann, principals of Horizon Business Concepts. The Lehmann’s company, based in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, produces accounting and business management software for general aviation.

We decided to share our conversation with the rest of the aviation world by using our talking points as the basis of a podcast show, titled: "The Customer is Still King: How Rapid Change is Transforming General Aviation Management." You can access this podcast for free at www.AviationToday.com. Here are a few highlights of the 15-minute interview, which I conducted with George:

AT: There has been a lot of wrenching change lately in aviation. Describe the nature of this change, and how it affects aviation managers of all types.

Lehmann: Change is the operative word, and most important is the rate of change. We’ve all experienced the shortening cycles of everything from computer production to news reporting, and aviation is not exempt from this. Twenty years ago change came at us more casually, and we had more time to adapt to new things.

Everyone has to react faster than ever before, and more often than not with either the same or less manpower. We’re working faster to be prepared for more contingencies, while trying to cut our budgets.

The Information Superhighway has made it astonishingly easy for us to bury ourselves under an avalanche of information. This is pushing everyone to look for new and dramatically more productive tools to help with everything from repairing complex avionics to reconciling daily fuel sales.

AT: What tools are aviation managers using, to make sense of this change?

Lehmann: For every different task there are a wide variety of tools. If you’re a maintenance technician, you’re doing online searches for regulations, service bulletins, and parts information. We’re all watching industry news though bulletins from NBAA, NATA, AOPA, and other industry groups, as well as email alerts from the aviation press.

So much is going on every day that we’re becoming dependent on these summary broadcasts to alert us to important changes. Podcasts like the one we’re doing right now are an increasingly popular way to educate ourselves quickly on more of these issues.

AT: Just how important is aviation management software?

Lehmann: The importance of the software is reflected in just one word: management. Being in control of your business is more than just telling your employees what they need to work on.

You can have employees who are busy all day long, but unless they’re focused on the right things you get nowhere fast. Software that lets you identify problems, as well as successes, is key to running any business. Without good management software, your business is running you instead of the other way around.

AT: What new trends do you see coming, as they affect aviation managers?

Lehmann: Ah, crystal ball time. The biggest trends will be the continuation of what we’re already seeing in information sharing. We’ll increasingly turn to the Internet to deliver news to our desk. We’ll increasingly search the Net for information we need to complete our next task. We’ll see more tools pop up on the Net for connecting our business to our customers and our vendors.

We’ll continue to be more mobile. PDAs, iPhones and other highly portable devices will allow us to do more of this, instead of sitting at our desk in front of a traditional computer. Change will come at us faster than ever before.