Defining Hospitality

Ron Swidler is the Founder of the Hotel Tomorrow and the Chief Innovation Office at the Gettys Group for 33 years. He knows that it takes courage to be innovative and creative. Ron’s passion is to strive for the best for his company and clients. He joins host Dan Ryan to talk about his experience with #hospitality and how he views it. 

Takeaways: 
 
  • It takes many hours to become an expert in a certain area, but it also takes a certain amount of luck as well. 
  • Surround yourself with people that you trust that can be advisors or mentors. That way when you start a new project you’ll have a supporting cast helping you. 
  • It takes a lot of courage to be vulnerable and admit when you need help. Asking for help isn’t a terrible thing to be ashamed of, it’s what a good leader does. 
  • Hospitality has evolved into noticing how you make people feel. When we are at our best we are caring for others. 
  • There is a bit of selflessness in hospitality, as it is about giving back to others and making others feel comfortable and welcomed.
  • You need a signature for your company. You need something that when someone thinks of your company, they have an image in mind that fits your brand (i.e. Disney and Mickey Mouse or Cinderella's Castle). 
  • Bringing people’s attention to a better way to do projects (i.e. sustainability, community focus, etc.) is important as you can influence someone to have a better impact on a community.

Quote of the Show:
 
10:02 “Most people are familiar with Maya Angelou's quote about forgetting what I've said or what I do, but remembering how I make you feel. And I think ultimately that's what hospitality has evolved into. And I have an interesting theory about how that's going to progress out into the future because we're only at one step of that evolution. But I think when we're at our best, we're caring for others. There's a bit of selflessness in that.”

Links:
 

Shout Outs:
 
3:24 “Outliers”by Malcom Gladwell
3:59 Roger Hill
4:00 Andrew Fay
6:17 Marriott
7:49 Phil Cordell
7:53 Hilton
10:04 Maya Angelou
11:52 TripAdvisor
14:12 Disney Castle
18:59 Matt Phillips
21:57 USA Today
24:54 HD Expo
25:05 Howard Wolff
25:08 Starwood
25:13 Christian Strobel
25:38 Parsons School of Design
33:37 “Exponential Organizations” by Salim Ismail
35:56 “The Inevitable” by Kevin Kelly
37:46 Blair Batwani
40:33 Kraig Kalashian
44:46 “Radical Evolution” by Joel Gero 
44:46 Bill Joy 
45:06 Ray Kurzweil
48:47 Chris Milk

Ways to Tune In: 

Creators & Guests

Host
Dan Ryan
Host of Defining Hospitality

What is Defining Hospitality?

Welcome to Defining Hospitality, the podcast focused on highlighting the most influential figures in the hospitality industry. In each episode we provide 1 on 1, in depth interviews with experts in the industry to learn what hospitality means to them. We feature expert advice on working in the industry, behind the scenes looks at some of your favorite brands, and in depth explorations of unique hospitality projects.

Defining Hospitality is hosted by Founder and CEO of Agency 967, Dan Ryan. With over 30 years of experience in hospitality, Dan brings his expertise and passion to each episode as he delves into the latest trends and challenges facing the industry.

Episodes are released every week on Wednesday mornings.

To listen to episodes, visit https://www.defininghospitality.live/ or subscribe to Defining Hospitality wherever you get your podcasts.

[00:00:00]
Dan Ryan: Today's guest has a passion for pioneering new ideas and approaches. He's a keynote speaker at numerous industry conferences. He is the chief innovation officer at the Getty's group. He is our founder of the hotel of tomorrow. He's also a good buddy of mine, ladies and John. Ron Swidler.
Welcome, Ron.
Ron Swidler: Thank you, Dan pleasure to be with you as always the most flattering thing you said was that I was your friend. So thank you. Aw.
Dan Ryan: Now you're making me blush in this bright sunlight. Um, so one of the things [00:01:00] that I appreciate so much about you and there are many, many things, but this idea of being a chief innovation officer, um, because one of the things, one of the many things I appreciate about you is you're always kind of out there pushing and trying new things.
And I guess maybe we're kind of kindred spirits in that way. And I'm just a believer like, Hey, if you stop innovating, you sink or you die. Well, maybe not die. Well, maybe you do die, but like, how did you, where did this passion of constant innovation and reinvention come from within you? And. Tell us about that.
I really am curious.
Ron Swidler: So, uh, that's a great opening question. So thank you for that. You know, sting was interviewed recently, uh, after getting off the Ted stage and he was asked to define creativity and his answer was courage and. And I loved that as an answer [00:02:00] because I feel like it takes courage.
Creativity takes courage, innovation takes courage, um, and kind of trying to see what you're capable of. I mean, even as a kid, I was kind of challenged to say, what are you, what are you capable of? What, what, what, what is, what is the world look like? Uh, if you bring your full potential. And so throughout my course, to my career now, uh, 33 years with this wonderful organization to get these groups, um, and over time, we've just said, Hey, you know what?
We need to keep changing. We need to be innovating. We need to keep up with expectations of guests, expectations of clients, new technologies in the way that we do things. And so all of that led to this kind of curiosity, this need for creativity and this courage to support it. So. Innovation is a passion, um, because I get bored easily as well.
Uh, I feel like if I was just [00:03:00] doing the same thing over and over again, I would get tired of it. I think other people would get tired of as well. So this passion and drive is self-serving, but it's also, uh, just kind of trying to keep up with the world that's changing so quickly. Quite honestly,
Dan Ryan: it is really, I mean, the amount of change that we've all just gone through in the past, call it five years is astounding and it's amazing to me.
I hear this all the time and I think I went to the Getty anniversary party, but 33 years now that's just wild, like on, uh, on the origin story side of things. Walk me through like the very beginning, like how did y'all meet. How did you wind up on this journey of where you are right now?
Ron Swidler: Uh, luck, you know, I think if you read Malcolm Gladwell's book, um, which one was it?
Wasn't tipping point. It was. One with 10,000 hours now I figured outliers [00:04:00] outliers, right? So he believes that you have to have all the conditions have to be right for something good to happen, but you certainly have to have some luck too. And I certainly had luck. I was working, I graduated with a degree in interior design actually.
And, um, among other interests, uh, found a job, worked for a year and then came to Chicago, looking for a job and was a waiter at a restaurant where Roger and Andrew and the other founders of the Getty's group were having lunch with Roger's family. And by luck, they were at my table by luck. I overheard their conversation about starting a design firm in the same building, where the restaurant was by luck.
I kept going back and, uh, well, not by luck. By opportunity. I kept going back and refilling their water, uh, to overhear their conversation and, uh, approached them afterwards and said, look, I'm a designer, actually, not just a waiter looking for work here. And that led to a part-time job. Um, they hired me as a [00:05:00] draftsman and as a, you know, do everything, answer the phone.
There were actually phone calls that would come into a central line back in 1988. Dan, you may remember that. Um, and, uh, and I worked part-time for 11 months, um, until we had enough work that I have, meaning I was working downstairs at the restaurant and upstairs at the Getty's group, I would literally show up work in the morning, put on a tuxedo, go down and wait tables at an Italian restaurant for the lunch shift, come back to the Getty's group, work the rest of the day, go back downstairs and work the dinner shift at the restaurant.
So, um, Yeah. So I guess I'm, uh, you know, I was lucky, but it was also, it took some more
Dan Ryan: well it's and hearing you say luck, luck, luck, numerous times. I think it was Thomas Jefferson who said the harder I work, the luckier I get.
Ron Swidler: Uh, I love that line and we'll give it to Thomas Jefferson. Uh, I don't know if it was him or not, but I, but I love that [00:06:00] idea.
Um, right. You have to create the conditions, um, uh, for good things to happen and hopefully they do. Um, and I was, I was, I was very fortunate, but it has been a great journey and I've innovated, um, my job, uh, and done my part to innovate our company over time. And, um, you know, been given an opportunity through my, my partners and friends here to explore what's possible.
And you know, what a gift that is right to say, uh, we believe in you one of the most courageous things, going back to courage instinct for a second. One of the most courageous things was when we started the branding agency 10 years. And we were trying to convince Marriott at the time that, um, we were capable of doing branding, um, at a time where they were just learning what the autograph collection could be and what these kinds of unique boutique destination, personality driven experiential hotels could be.
And, um, [00:07:00] I remember the meeting, I said it was with Tina Edmonson. I said, Tina, I said, we don't know the best way to do this yet, but we're confident we can figure it out. And that's courage. Right? That's, that's convincing someone that you have the capability without the experience. That's, that's part of the world we're living in today too, right.
Is to say, I don't know how we're going to figure this thing out, but I have enough belief in you and the other people. You're I mean, look, you're on my advisory board for the hotel tomorrow project. Thank you, Dan, for that opportunity. Well deserved every bit of it. Um, but the. That, even that philosophy of how do you make it in a world that pandemic or no pandemic is changing so rapidly and part of my philosophy, but also our Gettysburg philosophy is surround yourself with people who you trust that can be advisors that can be mentors.
That can [00:08:00] be, you know, the, the kind of people that you can, you want to share life's adventures with. And when you start something new, um, like an ambitious project, like the hotel tomorrow project, um, you're figuring it out as you go along. I mean, Phil Cordell, who's an amazing leader, by the way, if you don't know him from Hilton, I've had the pleasure of working with Phil several different times on different projects.
He liked to say, when we were working on creating the tempo brand together, he said, you know, we're assembling this plane as we're flying. So. If you're comfortable with that, then, you know, you can be on this team and if you're not comfortable with that, that's okay too. But you know, just know that, you know, that w w we have a, we have a lot to, um, to still learn as we go.
I think
Dan Ryan: admitting what we don't know and being willing to take a risk, it is definitely courageous. And I think, you know, hearing, I didn't know that you [00:09:00] waited tables downstairs. I, I, somehow I missed that memo, but one of the things that I'm really curious about with respect to this whole hospitality world is I actually never waited tables.
I worked in retail. I worked in factories. I did all these things when I was a kid, but I knew I picked apples, but I never actually. Delivering hospitality. And that's why I think when it was, when I moved out to California and I, and I felt that for the first time, um, it allowed me and inspired me to take risks of trying to make other people's feel, feel comfortable and, and being awestruck by those that do such a good job at it.
So if I, if we go back to the Ron of waiting tables and a tuxedo, which is hilarious, did you do drafting and a tuxedo after as well?
Ron Swidler: No. I changed clothes. At least I took my blazer off. So if you keep the Botox. Of course I did. You know, it's a business environment. There was no such thing as business casual in [00:10:00] 1988, it was tuxedos required at the Getty group.
Dan Ryan: So if you think about the idea waiting on Roger and Andrew and Roger's parents at that table, and then going upstairs and working in designing these spaces, where are, that are meant to make others feel comfortable? Like how would you define hospitality? What's the thread that runs through.
Ron Swidler: Yeah, you, you had talked about, um, kind of making people feel good and you know, most people are familiar with Maya Angelou's quote about forgetting what, you know, what I've said or what I do, but remembering how I make you feel. And I think ultimately that's what hospitality has evolved into. And I have an interesting theory about how that's going to progress out into the future because we're only at one step of that evolution, but, but I think when we're at our best.
We're caring for others. Um, and there's a bit of of selflessness in that. Um, and hospitality, ultimately, you're caring for [00:11:00] other people and, and the pandemic brought to light this other kind of, you know, re re kind of reset the, you know, Maslow's hierarchy of needs a little bit because safety at a hotel before was defined as one thing.
And then during the pandemic safety became standardization and cleanliness, and because we're dealing with a deadly virus out there, so, um, I think how you make people feel is, and really caring for people. And some people are kind of are wired that way to, to be, um, kind of, and I I'll quote, Ritz Carlton here, ladies and gentlemen, serving ladies and gentlemen.
But the basic idea is how do you take good care of the people that have chosen to stay with you, whether they're guests in your home, or are there someone at your table or there's someone who's chosen to, to spend the night at your house? And I think what we do at the Getty's group really well is think about the entire [00:12:00] guest experience.
Um, that's really why we started the branding agency 10 years ago was because, you know, design, you remember Dan design was designed for design sake back then, because think about how hotels promoted themselves with pretty pictures. It was pre, you know, social media, it was pre TripAdvisor and online review sites.
It was if we had a website which was brochure, where for a hotel that we owned and we, we did actually own some hotels 10 years ago. Um, it was take the prettiest picture of the prettiest room, put it up on the website and tell people that it's available. And at what rate, um, Then, of course the, the, the sh the paradigm shifted to be that the guest was in control of it.
Isn't what you say about yourself. It's what the guest thinks about you. So now think of the importance of making people feel great. Um, it just rose in importance because it become, it became completely transparent. There was no opacity anymore. You couldn't, you couldn't show one [00:13:00] renovated room when you've only renovated part of the hotel and not all of the hotel, you have to be representative of the entire guest experience.
Um,
Dan Ryan: you said something it's that you feel that we're at our best when we're caring for others. And, uh,
I think that's really kind of at the essence of this exploration that I'm going through and will really with my guests on this podcast. And actually last night I just watched 60 minutes and they did a piece on this hotel out in Fogo island. Have you heard of Fogo island? It's like way Eastern Newfoundland.
It's like a 30 minute
Ron Swidler: time difference,
Dan Ryan: I think. Yeah. Yeah. Next stop Ireland. And they, they interviewed the founder of the hotel. Um, the, her name is escaping me right now, but she said for her it's love of a stranger. And again, that's ma that's really caring for the others. Like the Maya Angelou. Um, [00:14:00] I actually don't know if I've ever heard that one.
So that is incredible. And thank you for
Ron Swidler: sharing. Oh, well I should have, I should have given it to you verbatim, but, um, w what she said was, uh, people will forget what you say and people will forget what you do, but they won't forget how you made them feel. And it's interesting. We're, we're going through, we're developing a new brand for a client of ours right now, and it's a very interesting concept that we're working on and we are trying to kind of go for what I think is, is kind of the Disney castle.
It's the, it's the brass ring. It's the, the thing that you want to be known for, right. That, that is an ambitious kind of moonshot. And that is, could you promise exceptional service you're regardless of, could you focus more on service delivery and yes, you have to support it with [00:15:00] interesting food and beverage and programming in a beautiful environment.
And, um, but could you, could you really. Win market share. And ultimately the hospitality industry, as you know, is all about, um, you know, market share. Could you really win market share by using technology to help you in providing the most caring hospitality and maybe the most efficient hospitality as well?
Um, we used to think that luxury was in luxury. Hospitality was defined by the number of people, the quality, the size of the room, the amount of space, the quality of the fit and finish around you. Well, I'm not sure that that's the definition of luxury alone anymore. That still is a definition of luxury. I remember I was, was working on a project in Macau
this is back when Macau was first being established as a, uh, a gaming destination. And, [00:16:00] and they had just filled the land between Kawan on and type a for the co type peninsula. And we went to one of the. Uh, casinos that was there on Macau. And when you walked in, I can't remember the name of the casino.
There was a glass floor and arm guards around the perimeter of the room and gold bars, real gold bars, or fake gold bars that looked real underneath the glass Bulletproof floor. And that was their way of saying this is a luxurious, expensive place that you're entering. And I thought what a strange way of defining luxury.
Okay. So maybe that's an old way, the gold standard, right? Maybe that's an old way of defining rich or defining luxury. What is, what is luxury look like going forward? And maybe it is this personalized service that has just the right amount of attentiveness. Maybe it's transformative, maybe by staying with us at our hotel, you come out better than you came in.[00:17:00]
Um, that would be. A beautiful promise to deliver on, but a lot of what you can do now is exceed expectations on service delivery. And I know that's particularly hard in a, in a resource constraint world that we're living in right now in this kind of, you know, period of time. But if you could get that right, that's the brass ring, that's the, I call it the Disney castle.
My buddy Paul is a former Disney guy says, what is the one thing that you associate with Disney? And don't say, Mickey mouse. And the answer is the castle because it's viewable from the entire park. It has to be. That's kind of, what is your signature
Dan Ryan: kind of, I would say it's a small world.
Ron Swidler: That's cause they, they, that got stuck in your brain, right. They hearing that song over and over again. Yeah. But I
Dan Ryan: also think, um, You know, through all these conversations and connections, it's like each conversation that [00:18:00] I'm having with everyone just in life and on this podcast, it just really, what I love about it is it makes the world a smaller place.
And if it's, if you tie it back to when we're at our best, it's caring for others, right. It's kind of shortening someone else's journey. Right. Hey, I want to make sure you're in good hands here. And actually that's, what's exciting me so much about, uh, the hotel tomorrow project that you founded because at its core, it's about shortening other people's journeys.
It's taking the best ideas, cramming them into a crew, adding fire, uh, seeing what comes out, but then also having it be open source so that everyone can benefit it. Everyone can learn from the direction. And the direction and kind of those, the birth of those, all those new ideas. How did you come up with that idea for the hotel of tomorrow?
Ron Swidler: Yeah. [00:19:00] Okay. So this started in 2003. I had a friend of mine through, um, literally my father-in-law who was a professor at Northwestern at Kellogg, had a student in his class who was, um, a guy that reminded him of me. And he said, I want you to meet this guy. I think that he's a really interesting guy. I think you'd enjoy meeting them.
So I meet this guy. His name is Matt Phillips. He's also on the board of hotel tomorrow. And this guy, his job is as a breakthrough strategist to come up with new innovations for industry. So someone like paramount comes to him and ask some prison advice on how to rethink their theme parks. He is looking for people like me as thinkers to contribute to a two day workshop there.
He was hired by a fortune 100 company to come up with some new solutions and he hires me in for two days. We're in this [00:20:00] intensive. Ideation facilitation, conceptualization presentation, mind blowing experience we generated, I can't remember what the actual number was, but hundreds of concepts in these couple of days, and I came out of it and I said, whoa, wait a second.
Here. The hotel industry doesn't do that. The hotel industry doesn't bring together. We had a guy from NASA. We had a woman from a reality TV show. We had some really interesting people. All, we had a guy from IDEO in the room. We had some amazing people in the room who were contributing their way of thinking to a problem that was unrelated to their area of expertise.
They were in the room because they could think quickly on their feet, they could connect dots. They saw the world differently and they could work well with others. And so I was invited into that room and I went through that process. I said, wow, we should do. [00:21:00] Uh, way for the hospitality industry to come together in a similar way.
And we could bring in vendors, we could bring in owners, we could bring in operators, we could bring in designers, we could bring in people from even outside the industry and see what they think about the future of hospitality. That was the. Essence of where it started. Now, the process of building a think tank around that idea, as you might imagine, is far more complex than that.
Getting people to believe in what you believe in, um, raising the interest level, the money, the getting the time commitment, building the infrastructure, all of that over time took, you know, it, it took a commitment and a passion to, to in a belief that, that it was in everyone's best interest because to your point, Dan, it was, it had to be a win-win when it had to be something that would benefit, um, Everyone involved, right?
Whether you were a vendor or you were a hotel brand or a [00:22:00] designer, it had to be beneficial to the Getty's group, or we wouldn't do it because, uh, it was a big investment of time, um, to, to build this thing out and they had to be a benefit to the industry or why do it right? We had to be able to share what we came up with in a way that was easy for people to understand it.
You know, we were in tons of media sources. I remember USA today, put us on the cover of their life section. Um, and that was a big deal to us because we reached hundreds of thousands or millions of people with our thinking. And it was all to your point to close that gap between your present thinking and perhaps your future thinking or a future thought that may or may not come to fruition, but at least it opened up people's minds to the possibilities and things did come out of it.
I was, uh, literally in a meeting over on Michigan avenue earlier today with a client because he's renovating this [00:23:00] building and we're working on it with him. And he said, so do you think we could put one of these rolling robots into the lobby here and the habit come outside and draw people in. And you know, that robot that, uh, I've seen in a loft hotels.
And I said, well, I know that robot, we conceptualize that robot in 2005 as part of the hotel of tomorrow project. Um, and so there were a lot of ideas that have since come to fruition that may be through our, you know, process. We, we opened people's ideas, uh, open their minds to new ideas and possibilities.
I think,
Dan Ryan: you know, tying it back to sting also to really go out on that and get stakeholders. It really took, not just belief, like you said, but also so courage to, Hey, this might not work, but let's see what we can do and get it out and share because truly it [00:24:00] is open source. You do put it out there. I jokingly always say that, you know, everything that we do from design to art, to everything it's all built on and inspired by someone who did it before us or nature.
And I call R and D I mean, there is true R and D, but really you're, you're inspired by all this other stuff. So it's really like rip off and duplicate. Right. But if you, if you do it in a way that it helps others shorten their journey, I think that that's a, I mean, it's super admirable and I think that's really what excites me about the project, because you know, you've been doing this for years, but really in this tumultuous time as we come out of whatever we're coming out of.
It's really exciting. What's on the other side. Yeah,
Ron Swidler: it is exciting. Um, and I do want to get there, but I wanna, I want to close the gap here in the, uh, in the storyline. So. In [00:25:00] 2004, we had our first, um, we had the first hotels from our project and we brought together, um, about, I don't know, 50 or 60 people, and we had some great support and, um, We came up with these ideas and we showed them in Vegas at HD, um, uh, at HDX Bo, we built this like 20 foot by 90 foot, long futuristic museum, exhibit of concepts and thanks to HD for their support.
And at the time we had, um, Howard Wolf from w a T G and we had Starwood and we had, um, V those were the, you know, Christian Strobel was a big believer in what we were doing. Chip was a big believer in what we're doing. So part of it is when you have an idea that you feel good about, and then some people who you really admire say, yeah, that's a damn good idea.
Um, I'll support you on that. Then, then it kind of blows wind into your sails. And you, you feel like you have that momentum to build it forward. So there was 2004. We, [00:26:00] we, we made it larger in 2005. In 2006, we got Parsons school of design involved in, we started breaching out to more university involvement.
After 2006, we internalize. We said, this is, uh, it was, it was over a hundred people. It was an annual event. It was costing us a lot of time and money to pull this thing off. And we said, we've built a process that would benefit us as a company. We need to continue to look to the future. We need to have an internal ideation and facilitation process for our own projects because when the brands are coming to us or clients are coming to us and saying, how do we design.
Not for today, but for tomorrow there's a whole other kind of set of expectations, right? This isn't simply saying this seems to be appropriate today, but how do you really tap into a deeper sense of where things are going to make sure that your solutions can last? So we internalize this whole thing and we kind of left [00:27:00] it there.
We did other, we did some other things, um, with some other friends in the industry, but nothing at the scale of, of really the hot project until the pandemic hit. And in 2020, um, you know, the world changes and we thought now more than ever, we need to bring people together to help us solve problems. We can't solve on our own.
I don't know what. Safety and standardization looks like in light of the pandemic. I don't know what integration of new technology looks like to help with, you know, contact tracing or touchless interactivity or, um, I don't, we don't, we couldn't answer these things. And so he said, everyone's asking themselves the same questions.
Why don't we bring people together and hopefully be a catalyst for bringing out the best in thinking and behavior, hoping that hotels would do what they could to support their local communities in their [00:28:00] employee, team members and everything else. So. Um, so when we really brought it back to life, so I just wanted to say that, yeah, 2004 or five, six things really escalated.
Then we just internalized all of that for our own benefit and our client's benefit. And then we kind of, you know, uh, looked at the world and said, we need to try to make a difference for everybody's benefit. Um, last year. And as you know, we're doing it again this year. Um, but this year is like we're, we're, we're pushing further out into the future in our thinking in our process.
It's
Dan Ryan: almost as if in 2004, look, the design process is an iteration. It's, it's a process you get from point a to point B, but it's almost as if with the hotel tomorrow and it's in its birth. You like Phil Cordell said you, you created a process by which you can build the plane while taking flight. Right.
Then after internalizing it, you know, in [00:29:00] this existential threat for all of us, you're like, you know what, we need to share this with everyone. And I think that's, I mean, that's just incredible as far as the, to bring it back to my Angelou and just, you know, caring for others, like, yes, we're all going to benefit from this and it's by your leadership that we're doing it.
And it's crazy the growth that is happening just from, I know you mentioned Parsons, but just getting more and more schools involved, more and more brands involved, more and more other firms that are even competitive to yours, but it's not even about that. It's about the bigger idea about, about it. So I guess I'm just super grateful to be a part of it and also, um, to just learn more and more about it.
So I just want to say
Ron Swidler: thank you. Thank you, Dan. Thank you. Um, look, I just, you know, I, I try to. Look at the world with eyes wide open. And, and when we, we see [00:30:00] many things changing very quickly and we don't know what the implications will be for ourselves, uh, or for our businesses. Uh, and if we are honest and say, we don't have the answer for ourselves, nor should it be an answer just for ourselves, it should be an answer that benefits all then how do we take in what is, uh, you know, an ever-growing amount of information on the subject of the future, on the subject of hospitality and bring the information in a useful way to people?
Not just so they can read about it, but they can start thinking about applying it. I mean, that's, that's really the, uh, an important aspect of the hot project, um, is. The it's it's how, how can you try on some of this information? So if I told you that AI artificial intelligence or, or smart, [00:31:00] smart, anything, um, was going to change the way we live in the future, you'd say, okay, I get it right.
But then I said, well, think about AI as a, a light bulb, that when you went from fire to, to a light bulb, that you could electrify something and all of a sudden, whoa, that object had so much more value in life. Okay. And now I could tell you, oh, that light bulb was actually on the internet right now, so I can turn it on or off from my phone.
Um, and you've just taken, um, A lot of, a lot of possibility here and given it intelligence or some form of artificial intelligence or smartness. Right. So, but then I said, now I want you to think about what you could do with that in the future of a hotel guestroom, just around the bed, for example. What [00:32:00] about, what about that present environment that serves a human need for rest?
Could you give additional, you know, kind of intelligence to, and, um, put it on the internet? What would the future of the hospitality guest experience look like? If that bed was. And that's how we ended up with this bed XYZ concept that we came up with last year. So we're asking people, not just be aware that there are, that sensors are available to, to, to, to measure all of these things or to adjust all of these things.
And that they're so affordable and they're ubiquitous and your, your handheld device has the power to interact with those sensors and et cetera, et cetera, but solve the problem for yourself. Look at your own business and say, what if those case goods could tell me the day they were installed and the person who actually put, made that joint.
And [00:33:00] if it failed, uh, you know, which room it was in and, um, you know, it could talk to other, other, other pieces of furniture of the same vintage, uh, and monitor their performance. And like all of a sudden, this. Ability to imagine the future for your own, whatever your area of mastery is or your business is.
Um, that's when information becomes valuable, when you can start to apply it in some way, and that's what the hot project is. Otherwise we could just send people articles, oh, you should read this. You you'd find this interesting. Even if it was personalized, read this article, it relates to your business.
That's fine. But what if I said, I put three other people in the room with you who also would be affected by, you know, this, this future and this technology. What might you do with it together?
Dan Ryan: You know, as you were speaking and thinking about this open source sharing of information, Um, I'm [00:34:00] reminded of a book I read called exponential ex exponential organizations written by a guy named, I think his name's Salim Ishmael.
And he basically, the premise is okay. We can all get our head around linear thinking and linear progress, right. It's a straight line, but once things get exponential in growth, humanity and our brains and the way that we think about it, we just can't comprehend it. Uh, an example that he used was just over, uh, The the, the growth of mobile phones, not even before smartphones analysts from all the different banks, it'd be like, oh, it's going to be a 20% of 50% increase.
But no, it was like, it was exponential. And every, every analyst missed, missed it over and over. And if you think about, as it pertains to our industry or any industry with respect to AI and blockchain and just machine learning, and what does all that mean? We can't get our head around what it looks like.
We, we can't [00:35:00] even fathom. So the more that we can kind of pull back and even with hotel tomorrow, pulling back that curtain and peering into what might be, it would might help season our brains to. To be able to picture that future.
Ron Swidler: Yeah. So, so Thomas Friedman, who you might remember from, um, you know, the world is flat, was his most famous book, but he also wrote a book called, um, thank you for being late.
And there's a diagram that he puts in the book that shows. Yes. The, the rate of adoption of things like, you know, uh, television and the internet and cell phones, and they all follow this, you know, quickly rising, exponential growth path. Do you know what the path looks like for humans evolution? Our ability to change, it's just slightly better than over time.
It's just slightly better than the flap. Okay. So at some point, this, this quick [00:36:00] rise in technology and our slow rise in human evolution created a gap that now technology and its rate of change has far exceeded humans ability and rate of change. And so we will feel like we can't catch up. That's an interesting idea.
Right? So Kevin Kelly, the author of a fantastic book called the inevitable, um, 2016 book on the 12 inevitable forces that are changing in the future. Um, he says that's because the technology hasn't evolved enough yet for it to be more intuitive, to be more adaptive, more personalized. And so his belief is that our version of technology growth in human growth end up becoming sinked, that he w that that technology aids, the human evolution far more than it has to date right now, a device sits outside of your body.
It [00:37:00] doesn't read your thoughts or give you thoughts, but it sure is a lot of information in your finger at your fingertips. That's not going to slow down. So, um, in, in light of all of this, trying to chatter about interesting evolution of, of technology is, is back to the other parallel path. We've been walking down together, which is the, the rate of change as humans.
Like what are, what do, how are we hospitality again, is how you make people feel as you and I talked about and taking care of people. It's about people, right? So. More than ever. I feel like the pandemic has brought to light the importance of caring for one another and caring about one another. One of the most amazing things about technology is that it can be an empathy tool, which purely means that you have a greater level of connection, understanding and shared feelings as another human being, not empathy [00:38:00] with a machine, but empathy with a person.
So Hilton who's been, uh, supportive of the hotel tomorrow and they're there. One of the sponsors has been running and one of the speakers at our event is a woman named Blair Botswana. Who's been running, um, empathy training using virtual reality so that the executives at Hilton could have a deeper understanding and appreciation for what it takes to clean a guestroom.
To, uh, to, to, to put a, uh, room service delivery tray together, uh, and more because if we are making decisions with more knowledge and more empathy than the decisions we make will be different, right? So another company who I'm actually, um, uh, doing an interview with later today, mind click who's. One of the sponsors of the hot project is focused on the technology, doing the analysis of the sustainable rating of all the products that go into all the hotels.
[00:39:00] Literally the products that go into making the products that go into hotels. And so they will be able to map the carbon footprint of a hotel of a guestroom. Of an entire development and with this additional information, right? Whether it's VR and empathy or, or it's information that can guide us to make different decisions.
I mean, that's what the hot project is about. How do we bring enough information to people's attention in a way that they feel they can understand it, they can start to apply it, and then maybe they will make some different decisions in the future about the projects they work on. So we talked before about, okay, renovation and design 10 years ago, 20 years ago was about aesthetics pretty for pretty sick.
Okay. Nothing wrong with that. You had to compete against the hotel up the street that just renovated. You need a beautiful design. Now it evolves into story-driven design, experiential design, et cetera. That was the conversation we were having about [00:40:00] autograph collection and others that were focused more on unique guest experiences and story amplification.
Right? Some future of the hospitality industry through different lenses, through a sustainability lens, through a wellness lens, which is back to our transformative travel conversation or through some other lens will change the, say it was community, right? So we have this Kia Wetherspoons and amazing community builder, um, who talks about design equity.
She's one of our speakers as well. She's saying, what if the purpose of hospitality was really about community? Now, if you will, over-index on community. What is hospitality look like? What is the purpose of that? What is the role and opportunity of that hotel or restaurant to its local community? Um, And we've seen beautiful manifestations.
I would do a shout out to my buddy Craig collation from KKK D [00:41:00] architects who opened his own restaurant just prior to the pandemic, um, who then when his restaurant was struggling, decided to start just giving away food, to feed all the needy people in the neighborhood. And of course that is design equity, that's community building that's that's, you know, and I th that's another level of giving and caring, um, and empathy.
Um, that's just a beautiful kind of example of maybe that's maybe that's the lens you choose to look through for the future of hospitality. Yeah.
He's
Dan Ryan: one of my faves as well, but going back to the, on the technology side, you know, there's all these nascent and burgeoning technol, and I guess nascent and legacy technology, that's just evolving at such an incredible rate, right?
It's also brings me to think about the idea in the star Trek, future of the Borg and just being fully [00:42:00] connected. And if you think about the downside of that and what you're seeing through hotel of tomorrow, what's keeping you up at night with respect to the technological side of things.
Ron Swidler: Okay, well, so you remember when Napster first started and there was a digitization of music and the music industry was, was obviously fighting like crazy to, to hold on to their assets, but w everything wants to be digital. Right. And with, with that digitization of books, digitization of an access to everything, cyber security, which it seems to be, you know, a threat constantly it's in today's news, it was in yesterday's news.
It'll be in tomorrow's news. Um, you know, what, what concerns me is that with a heavy reliance upon technology, um, [00:43:00] We are at greater risk. We are with, with a digital, with a digital connected, um, network of everything. Um, there is risk that people seeking to take advantage of others, uh, will continue to, um, you know, try to capitalize on that.
Um, that concerns me. Um, I don't, I wouldn't say it keeps me up at night. Um, but I would say that we should all be particularly wary and cognizant of the threat that's around us. Um, and it, I remember, um, my dad, um, who has, uh, uh, you and I have talked about my dad's business and is a glass artist and, and former lawyer.
And I remember when he first got his first Mac computer, it was like a bubble back, Johnny ive designed Mac, and he said, I'm Ron, I'm not going to put this on the internet because that way it'll be safe. No one can get to it. Dad, what do you think [00:44:00] the purpose of the computer is? Then? He said, well, it's just, it's just a place for me to store digital stuff.
I said, okay, well, at some point, you're going to change your mind about that. So, I mean, that's like the that's like the balance that we have to strike is, you know, if we want the ability to have so much information, virtually all information available to us at any time, um, in our pocket, then that means that, uh, other people can have access to it too.
If we're not taking extra precautions. Yeah. I get
Dan Ryan: concerned. It's not keeping me up at night, but are we building a tower like this huge tower of Babel, you know, and what comes after that?
Ron Swidler: Yeah. Um, so there was a, now I'm going to have to try to radical radical evolution. There's a book by Joel Jarrow called it's fun that, uh, by the way, you and I keep like [00:45:00] name-dropping authors that people should read.
Um, and actually, you know, at the end of your podcast, maybe you have like a list of all of these, so people could actually have the we'll
Dan Ryan: definitely put it in the show notes
Ron Swidler: for short. Okay, cool. Cool, cool. So Joel, Gero wrote this book called radical evolution and, um, and he takes. He takes three different views on the future.
He has bill joy from sun Microsystems, founder of sun Microsystems was who's in this kind of dystopic kind of point of view on, on where things are going. And he has Ray Kurtzweil at the other extreme. Who's kind of saying no technology is the panacea that, you know, will, will change our, our lives and the world for the better.
And then I can't remember even who is kind of stuck in the middle there who was kind of both, um, you know, cautiously optimistic or pessimistic or whatever, but, but it's a beautiful book that kind of says, Hey there, what people choose to do with technology, uh, and the evolution of thought and [00:46:00] resources, uh, You know, is, is, you know, up to them and it could go lots of different ways.
So your view of the future is, is obviously colored by your view of the world. Um, I have a tendency to think more optimistically and a glass, half full kind of perspective. There's all kinds of potential. We're living in, we're living at a time. Look at us having a recorded podcast, um, uh, from other parts of the world using technology, zoom technology that didn't exist, um, to this degree.
Until recently supported by other technology and high-speed internet and all these various things. We're living at a time where a lot of that Saifai future from several years ago is already become real. So, um, we do have so much, and I don't mean to be like, you know, so pie and, and sunny [00:47:00] disposition about everything, but in grateful for everything we should, you know, I, I believe there's, there's a lot of positives out there, um, to be grateful for.
And we are living at a time where so much is available to us that can make our lives richer and the world a better place. And, and
Dan Ryan: on that side of the glass half full side and putting your rate, CURT's wild hat on, like, what's excited you most about the future.
Ron Swidler: Yeah, this is a personal, uh, this one's a personal one. So my parents are getting to an age where they're less able than they used to be. And, um, years ago I promised my, my stepfather that we were going to go take his fishing trip. The four boys, I'm one of four boys. We are going to take my dad fishing and his health and life and circumstances kept us from taking this fishing trip and I've felt bad about it ever since.
Um, but I went to [00:48:00] visit them recently and I brought VR headsets and my dad and I virtually fished together. He could sit in his lounge chair, put on his headset and we could be virtually in a boat together with all the sounds and sights and feelings of being together, talking, sitting on a virtual boat together and bringing in some virtual bass into the boat.
And that. Is amazing, right? That, that is, that is transformative. Um, and for the people that haven't tried VR yet, and it's still in its earliest, there's a beautiful Ted talk by Chris milk, by the way, um, who talks about where VR is going, where it is now and where it's going. And he talks about it being very, very early in its evolution.
Kind of like when the first movie theater showed a train coming down the tracks towards [00:49:00] the camera and the people screamed and ran out of the theater because it was so believable. VR is at that early almost laughable stage still. However, it's the difference between watching a movie and being in the movie and if you are unable to fish, but you can feel like you're fishing with your son in a.
Even if we weren't sitting in the same room together and we were, we could just as easily be, you know, um, sitting on opposite sides of the world and have that shared experience beam. If technology can do that, can give you a deeper level of connection or shared experience. Even if it's virtual, that's a pretty optimistic kind of powerful future that, you know, I I'd like to enjoy even more.
Dan Ryan: And it just makes me think about star Trek even more. And in particular star Trek, next generation, that where they had the [00:50:00] holodeck and they could go in and experience anything, you name it. And it, you know, Jean-Luc Picard was one of my favorite care is one of my favorite characters. And I think, you know, as you tie in that idea of.
Belief and courage. I think his one quote that I actually have a placard in my office, so just make it so right. Those are words to live by. And I think that the stuff that you're doing, um, with hotel tomorrow, and just also in your full-on day job with Getty's group is really just about making it. So it's making and taking those risks and having the courage to try it, no matter what the outcome and the support by the leaders you surround yourself with to try that.
And to me, it's just, it's incredibly inspiring for me also to help me feel supported, to try new things when I see other people doing it. So I, again, I [00:51:00] just want to say thank you again.
Ron Swidler: Oh my God. It's my pleasure. You know, and there's something else. Maybe I'm getting too personal, but I'm going to go this way anyway, just cause you and I have this shared kind of philosophy.
It takes work, you know, courage, courage, and stupidity are pretty close together. Sometimes when someone else's, uh, looking at you. Um, but, um, You know, I think that if, if we spend the time to think about, if we hit pause every once in awhile, slow down, ask what's most important, um, in our lives and try to live according to a higher, you know, Purpose or deeper commitment to, to living.
And, um, you know, I think that that's, that's part of the secret to, um, you know, I, I don't have any great pearls of [00:52:00] wisdom to share other than I'm, I'm not as courageous and innovative and creative as a lot of people who I admire. Uh, so I have to set myself on that spectrum right in the place that feels right for me.
And everyone probably has to do the same thing. Um, I think
Dan Ryan: it also goes into, you know, you mentioned that idea of, um, community and building communities and peer groups and surrounding ourselves with others who kind of want to test, test the boundaries of the way things have been done. Um, you know, that's community building right there and thinking about the community that you built with hotel of tomorrow, um, it's, it's inspiring as well.
Ron Swidler: Well, thank you. Thanks for that. I'm hoping it does inspire. I mean, that's the, that's the hope and everyone. Yeah. I haven't said this yet, but everyone's invited to participate. Um, you know, there is a financial commitment that's required just so we can offset some [00:53:00] of the costs of what we're doing, not at all the costs of what we're doing, but, um, some of the costs when you build an Airship in the metaverse, which by the way, when I told you we were doing this, you know, like four or five months ago, you're like, what?
Um, cause everyone was right. But somehow like mark Zuckerberg getting up there a couple of weeks ago and in his keynote and saying, no, no, no, no, no. We're changing company to Metta and we're going all in on virtual reality. Um, because of. What you can achieve in connection level of connection between parties, not just looking at your screen and seeing somebody, which by the way, is already a nice step forward over just talking blindly to someone.
But the level of connection you feel in VR, standing as an avatar and, or sitting as an avatar, doesn't matter, and talking to someone else, it is a shared experience. Again, it feels like there's something there. So, so all of a sudden we say, oh, we're building this [00:54:00] Airship in the metaverse. And people's reaction is, well, of course you are because you should be the future includes some other form of hybrid togetherness, right?
Virtual togetherness, whatever that means. Right? So since we're still in the early evolution of VR and because it's becoming more affordable, you can buy an Oculus two headset now for $300. That is incredible technology. Um, but still, you know, it will be superseded by the next best thing, just like the I-phones continue to evolve.
Um, but it costs money for us to hire these world builders, to create this Airship and organize these events and everything like that. So we are inviting everybody to participate if you have the means to do so. Um, and it's only like 775 bucks to come to our series of events on our air ship in the metaverse in the first quarter next year.
[00:55:00] And we hope that people do because, um, you'll get to experience what I think is a real early indicator where things are going, uh, You, and I've talked a little bit about conferences before and what you can get out of going to a conference, either as an exhibitor or an attendee and there's limitations.
There's wonderful things that happened and collisions with people you haven't seen and reconnections and all that wonderful stuff too. But there's lots of things that could be improved upon. And there is a place for some form of virtual conferences where you don't have to travel, but you can still be together.
You can collect data on who you've spent time with. You can share information easily, you can collaborate, you can do a lot of things in, in a, in a digital world that you can't do in real life yet. Um, and there are many things you can't yet do in the digital world that you can't do in real life.
Dan Ryan: I think that within, particularly with the hotel tomorrow and they, the Airship in the [00:56:00] metaverse, what I'm most excited about is to just.
In the sense of like that field of dreams. If you build it, they will come. Like you've built it. I'm so excited to see how everyone comes. And then also to think about all the different, new ideas about, wow, what are the implications that I can think of? And can't think of in this new, um, kind of ready player, one world, if you could think of the best possible outcome for, for a successful hotel of tomorrow in 2022, what does that look like?
Ron Swidler: Hmm, well, I hope that we reach our goal of having 200 participants members. Um, we've already met our goal is relates to the 20 sponsors that have stepped up, including Facebook Metta. Um, and I hope that people are through [00:57:00] experiencing VR. And hearing the ideas that are being presented about our future, that they're inspired to go back to their own companies and say, I just experienced something.
And I've heard some things that I think we need to pay attention to. And we need to start thinking differently about how we're doing what we're doing. And it may be a commitment to sustainability. It might be a commitment to new partnerships. It might be a commitment to, you know, um, health and wellness.
It could be, it could be anything that kind of triggers that, but because they're not just sitting in a ballroom hearing a speaker speak, but they're in a Airship listening to an avatar and then breaking out into interactive Q and a sessions with that speaker, um, which those will be in zoom because it's too hard to handle that many people in VRA.
Um, [00:58:00] I hope that they come back and that the next big ideas may have been germinated as a result of the hot project. Um, and then the other,
Dan Ryan: yeah, I just want to, I want you to finish that, but on the health and wellness side, um, I have the Oculus and it's a ma it's really, really cool. It's so awesome. But I did, uh, a meditation app and it was like completely hallucinogenic.
It was unbelievable. And it just, it really took me somewhere else. And I just had to share that, but keep going with your
Ron Swidler: Nope, but that is, that is part of the health and wellness focus for the hot project too, is, you know, they're the stresses and strains of life. And the stresses and strains and anxiety of travel right now.
And I know you've been traveling as I've been traveling throughout the pandemic, and it's a different experience than it was pre pandemic. And, uh, for, for, for [00:59:00] people who have a greater level of concern about their health or their health of others who they'll come into contact with it is stressful. I mean, it is, you are now putting yourself at risk, not because you're flying an airplane.
Um, but because you're coming into contact with people, inevitably who, who may be, um, you know, uh, putting you at risk. Health and wellness is the psychological, what is, what is, what is the hospitality industries opportunity and maybe even responsibility to lower your heart rate, to, to make you feel safe and comfortable recover from that travel experience that you just had prepare you for your next travel experience.
Um, and yeah, I mean, so, so yes, the Oculus and, uh, as a, as a big fan of, of meditation and of head spaces, my go-to, but, um, the VR experience is transformational. You can sit on a mountain [01:00:00] top and feel like you are overlooking, you know, the desert sky at sunrise and be convinced that that's, that's your surroundings for this, you know, important pause that you're putting into your day.
So the place I was going just prior to that, that, that thought was, um, I'm a big fan of what the Ted conference has done. And part of our aspirations, uh, is to take the lessons that Ted has been so incredibly adept at applying and bring them to the hotel industry. And they have a program called TEDx as you know, um, that allows, uh, regional, small regional conferences to pop up with speakers and, and inspiration.
And, um, and they give you the tools to develop these small conferences on your own. And our hope is that the hotel tomorrow project can have something similar and call it hot X for now. Um, but the [01:01:00] idea is we can give the tools to you so you can run ideation sessions about the future with your colleagues, with your peers, um, with whatever group you choose to.
Um, so that's part of my hope you asked what the, an ideal outcome would be for 2022. Part of the ideal outcome is giving people the tools to expand the message, uh, to expand the toolkit, to open more people's eyes than we can from the 300 or so total participants in our project this year. I
Dan Ryan: love it. And then, you know, going back to the Ron in the tuxedo,
Ron Swidler: who
Dan Ryan: actually was very courageous in going back to a Roger's table and repeatedly asking to keep their Waterfield and also ask for a job at the same time, knowing what this new current version of [01:02:00] Ron knows and everything that you've seen in those 33 years, what do you go back and tell that Ron and the tuxedo filling up the waters?
Ron Swidler: Mm, wow.
Yeah. I didn't believe 33 years ago, even though I told you that I was as a kid, I was, I was, I was, you know, my father was a glass artist. You know, my, my, my family said I was very, very, very fortunate. Uh, and we didn't grow up with a lot of money, but we, we, we prioritize education and family and, and, and creativity come from a family of artists, painters, and glass artists and chefs, and, and they said pursue what you love.
Right. So what a gift that is right. Find what you love, pursue that, and you'll make a living at it. So here I was an interior designer at [01:03:00] the design degree, um, and no job waiting tables, and I really didn't. Believe then that I could make a living doing what I enjoyed most, what I was most passionate about.
I couldn't know that yet. I hadn't, I hadn't, I hadn't achieved much of that dream yet. So I think I would tell that tuxedoed waiter at frescoes on north pier, building in Chicago, just to continue to believe in yourself and pursue the thing that means the most to you. Um, because if you, if you really do believe that, and if you, I think, uh, are very lucky, I'll go back to that.
Um, you can, you can achieve some of what you set out to achieve. Maybe all of them.
Dan Ryan: , where you're talking about that luck, you have to really create that luck by [01:04:00] putting yourself out there and making yourself vulnerable.
Ron Swidler: Yeah, I did. Um, And, you know, I have two amazing kids.
Um, one who's, you know, post-college getting her PhD and the other one, who's just finishing up his undergrad degree. And somehow my perspective shifted a lot when I had kids. And, and now you're hoping that they achieve some of what they were able to achieve and I'm trying to help them make good decisions, but ultimately they're old enough to make their own decisions.
So it's back to this is that idea of doing what you can. And I hate to say like trusting the universe, but, but kind of believing that they should pursue what they're most passionate about. Me, my son, my son is a, is a, is a writer he wants to write for film and television and, and, um, that's a creative [01:05:00] field that, um, isn't, isn't necessarily an easy one to, um, Have a sustaining kind of income level, but I hope he, I hope he does.
And my daughter is, is as, at this point in tends to be a professor and, uh, uh, she's, she's an amazing, amazing person as well, but it's kind of the guidance that you asked me to give my myself in 1988, um, is similar to the kind of guidance I give my kids now. Right. So that's, that's the beauty of the cycle, you know, have we created the conditions for, for the people we love to be able to do something similar, pursue what you care most about.
Dan Ryan: I say, fuck it. Like you have to trust the
Ron Swidler: universe. Yeah. Yeah.
Dan Ryan: Otherwise we going to trust, you got, put it out there. We're all riding this wave.
Ron Swidler: Yeah. Well, [01:06:00] without that, I think it would be. If you didn't believe that if you didn't believe in the opportunity for all of us, um, that might be debilitating so better to better to pursue.
And, and again, it's just see what you're capable of. I don't know what I'm capable of. I don't know what anyone's really capable of until they try or I try. And that's, that's when you get to know yourself, not by, you know, sitting in, sitting in, waiting for something good to fall out of the sky.
Dan Ryan: Yeah. And then you can always rely on baseball because look, if you're up there, you're putting yourself in the batter's box.
If you hit one out of three, you're going to the hall of fame.
Ron Swidler: Yeah. Yeah. I could go on a whole baseball tangent with you if you want, but we'll save that for the next. Let's save that for the next one. Hey
Dan Ryan: Ron. So I just want to say thank you in the meantime, where can people connect [01:07:00] with you? And we'll also, we'll put it all on
Ron Swidler: the shoulder.
Oh, thanks. So lots of different ways to connect with me. Um, first of all, you can find me, of course, on LinkedIn. You can find me, um, on, uh, on hotel tomorrow on Instagram or, uh, the Getty's group on Instagram. Um, you can reach me at R S S. Those are my initials at Getty's dot com, G E T T Y s.com. Um, yeah, I'm easy to reach, uh, and happy to happy to have, uh, you know, an increasing network of relationships.
Wonderful. Um, and that sounded weird. That sounded like I'm looking I'm in a committed relationship with a lovely woman. My friend,
Dan Ryan: I'm here for you. Hey, Ron. Um, you made me feel great. You always make me feel great. So I just want to say thank you for being in a man.
Ron Swidler: Uh, there's two kind. You made me feel great and welcome.
[01:08:00] And, uh, you are a representative for the hospitality industry, Dan, your generosity, your kindness, your intellect, and thank you for sharing your platform with me. And, uh, for being my friend.
Dan Ryan: Very welcome, Ron. And for all of you listeners out there, if this helped change your ideas of hospitality and how to give and receive, and also from an innovative point of view, please pass it along.
We love getting the word out. Thank you all very much.