Six women, one flight, and nobody knew

Six people from the same trip booked flights separately, over several weeks, without coordinating. All six ended up on the same plane. None of them knew until someone recognized a face at the gate.

That is a happy accident, but read it the other way: the group had no view of itself. Six people would happily have sat together, shared rides to the airport, and split the parking. The information existed. It was just spread across six inboxes.

Ten systems, zero overlap

The same trip ran on a cruise app, a spreadsheet, two group chats, a Google Form, an email thread, and whatever each traveler's airline used. Each system knew one thing. The organizer was the only place they all met, which is how one person becomes the switchboard for fifteen.

The flight manifest above is what the group could have seen with one shared surface. This piece is a draft; the full story lands with the build-in-public series.