My friend and colleague wanted to make a point, draw a contrast, for greater understanding. He used the term and a graphic of a jet “cockpit” in his business advertisement as a metaphor for mastery of a complex problem and the means to control it.

Often, after we have stayed up late into the night writing and rewriting multiple versions of copy on an ad, and satisfied we gave it our “all,” we then ask a trusted colleague to give it one more look-over: a review of terminology and check for functional readiness on soon-to-be-published work.

Although “cockpit” is commonly recognized, he didn’t know, or even suspect, it’s been made obsolete, that it’s not part of aerospace vocabulary, until he showed his near-final version of the ad to a new connection in that industry, asking for a critique. The response: that term had to go. It’s archaic and ahem–very sexist. The industry now uses a different word: “flight deck.” He made the change right away.

Pivot.

How often does someone review your LinkedIn profile and think you are using old-fashioned formats, “pipes” {these things: | }, keyword-seeded headlines, or just your title in the company in the headline?????

Or worse, copied your resume into your profile. Eeek!!!

YIKES! Better fix that. Hop into the LinkedIn flight deck and file your flight plan. Test the instrumentation. Get clearing for takeoff by asking others for a review before you commit to firing the jet engines.

You may have to work on a major renovation to come up to today’s expectation, beating the common denominator and being—and you knew this was coming—amazing-er!