Wanted: an artificially intelligent travel agent

When my son told me his wife was pregnant, my first instinct was to let out a “whoop!”  My second was to buy a plane ticket so I could meet my grandson.  The due date was February and I knew it would be tough (and expensive) to get a ride to Fort Lauderdale at that time of year. 

It turns out that when you make a plane reservation seven months in advance of the trip, you are likely to have your airline change your itinerary unilaterally.  When the change came through in December, I frankly took no notice of it.  Reviewing it now – a few days in advance of our departure – revealed that we are stuck with a four hour layover at JFK, which I look forward to about as much as a bout of e. coli. 

What to do… what to do?

I know what I would have done back in the day.  When I was a 100,000-mile per year business traveler, I would pick up the phone (or have my secretary do it) and ask one of the many travel agents who valued my business to find me a better itinerary without costing an arm and a leg. 

“What’s a travel agent?” you ask.  A travel agent is a person whose job has been disintermediated by the Internet.  There are a few left but many work out of their homes and concentrate on clients who want to go on cruises or exotic vacations.  According to the Department of Labor, their numbers have been reduced by about half since 1990.  The rest of us are stuck with Travelocity, Expedia or one of the many struggling-to-differentiate-themselves apps you can download to your smartphone.

When we think of artificial intelligence these days, we tend to focus on robots or perhaps the variety of devices that enable the smart home, like the Nest thermostat or the Roomba vacuum cleaner. 

But, another tool in this budding arsenal of enablers is Big Data.  So, someone, please invent an artificially intelligent travel agent who will take advantage of all that data.  We can call her Siri… no, wait…  That’s already taken.  How about Barbie?  Oh, no…  I’ll call her Cassandra.  (If you prefer a male, perhaps you can call him Brad.)

What would she do?  She would identify all options; call her contact at Jet Blue (or interact with its database) to see if we can make a change with little or no cost.  She would call me and offer a quick overview of the best options, taking into consideration that I would rather leave early than arrive late (Jet Blue’s imposed change has me doing both).

If I were traveling internationally, Cassandra would review the security recommendations of the US State Department; outline the risk of theft and assess the safety of any women on the trip.  She would summarize the best days to travel by reviewing the available fares from major airlines and know if we should wait a month before buying a ticket to get a better price. 

Then she would scan my social media to see which of my friends and colleagues have traveled to the same country recently and message them to gather any recommendations they may have.   She might check Yelp! while she was at it. 

Armed with all that information, Cassandra would plan my travel, make my reservations and send me on my way.  This is not a pipedream.  A startup tech firm, Wayblazer, is using IBM’s Jeopardy-winning Watson to create the future world of travel.  Doesn’t technology always provide a solution to the problem it creates?

I look forward to the day when Cassandra is my travel agent… at least to the extent that a voice recognition error doesn’t ship me off to Auckland when I want to go to Oakland. 

WHO WILL LEAD?

The Power of Why

I’ve just returned from Los Angeles where I attended a three-day congregation of my colleagues.  These events always have a wonderful effect on me and this occasion was no exception. 

Every day was packed with breakout sessions, each better than the last.  I left feeling that I needed another day to get to all those I wished to attend.  The last of these was titled “The Power of Why”.  A gentleman named Kevin, whose petite stature was contrary to the cowboy image of his home province of Calgary, led the discussion. 

Kevin began with a reference to the oft-viewed TED talk by Simon Sinek (How Great Leaders Inspire Action) but quickly segued from a corporate to a personal perspective.  Our values drive our behavior in our most important relationships, he asserted.  The PowerPoint slide listed them – family, friends, colleagues, customers and so on. 

But this was a participatory exercise not a slide show.  First question – no time to ponder -- what is your “Why”?  One word, write it down.  Then write a few sentences to explain how that word drives your behavior. 

Sociologist Brene Brown, through her writing and in another powerful TED talk, teaches us that all humans crave connection with others.  That’s the word I wrote down: connection.  That’s my “Why” and the weapon I yield in my inner quest to connect to others is to smile. 

I never catalogued the lessons I learned from my mother until I eulogized her.  Among them was to greet people with a smile.  Until Kevin mildly coerced us into writing down our “Why”, I never realized how these two seemingly disparate ideas were joined.  Smile when you greet someone and they usually smile in return.  BANG!  Instant connection. 

But true connection only comes after that first smile.  A smile can be superficial.

“Hi, John.  How have you been?”

“Great.  And you?”

“Terrific!”

Friendly, for sure.  But no connection whether the conversation started with a smile or not.  To make a true connection, we have to permit ourselves to be vulnerable.  “In our culture,” says Dr. Brown, “we associate vulnerability with emotions we want to avoid such as fear, shame, and uncertainty. Yet we too often lose sight of the fact that vulnerability is also the birthplace of joy, belonging, creativity, authenticity, and love.”

I think this is harder for men than women.  As one of my Vistage colleagues reminds us, “ten thousand years ago – back in the caves –vulnerability could lead to death whether by the claw of a saber-toothed tiger or a spear in your chest.”  So, my desire to make a connection with people necessitates overcoming several millennia of counter-programming.

Doing so requires courage, commitment and reciprocity.  It requires focus, compassion and openness.  That’s why I enjoy my work with Vistage.  All of these elements are required to get the full benefit of the program.  And, those who join our peer groups sign up for it – all of it.

I have reached this point only after a lifetime of playing the role of alpha-male.  That’s what was expected of me.  Only recently, have I learned that most of the unhappiness in my life has been the result of trying to live up to the expectations of others.  What truly drives me is making that connection with another human being.  That’s at the center of my values. That’s my “Why”.

In my soon-to-be-published book, The Reluctant CEO:  Succeeding without Losing Your Soul, the protagonist faces failure in his hero’s journey until he can reconcile his values with his behavior.  In other words, he needs to find his “Why”.

“Your values are what gets you up in the morning,” he is told by those closest to him.

If you don’t behave according to your values, you will constantly be at odds with yourself.  You’ll be in physical distress, treat others badly and destroy the relationships that you value most.

So, what about you?  What’s your “Why”? What do you value most?

WHO WILL LEAD?