Thoughts from recent travel:

Heathrow Airport is often rated as one of the most stressful, chaotic airports in the world. I went through there for the first time with my family on our way to China, and I couldn't agree more.

There are a multitude of reasons why:

It's big.

It's busy.

It's old.

But I've got another hypothesis.

Heathrow serves many passengers from UK, but also many Continental Europeans, and as the entryway to many Americans traveling to Europe. If I had to venture a guess, I'd say Heathrow is near parity in people that are accustomed to driving on the right (like in the US and most of Europe) vs driving on the left (like in the UK).

It's pure chaos!

Even when LGA or LAX are busy, most folks in the terminal are walking on the right. And on the many occasions where people appear headed for collision, each one intuitively steps to the right for safe passage.

Not at Heathrow. 👈 👉 👆 👇 😖

The terminals are already busy, but now there are no rules for which side to walk on. And each potential collision requires that little 2 second shift back and forth, looking for a way to pass the oncomer.

In data, organizations are rightfully putting a huge focus on data governance. There's so much friction when people aren't using the same standards and processes.

As I pinballed around Heathrow I certainly felt like a piece of ungoverned data, just contributing to the overall friction and chaos.

Stay tuned for more thoughts from my recent travels!