Love it or hate it, this whole “2015 thing” is kind of cool. I’m in a community meeting and a guest prospect calls the inn about staying tonight. I see the call didn’t get answered. A text/email transcription hits my phone immediately. I text the sender that I’m in a meeting but that we have space, and ask if it’d be okay to call him in 30 minutes. He replies pleasantly from the Vegas airport. I go to the car a short time later and open my Surface Pro and call him back, using the same pocket computer/cell phone that is also my data link—talking through the Bluetooth car system so I can type. I enter a reservation on the real-time system in the cloud. Also produce his welcome instructions for a late-night self check-in, email them, and print them back at the office so a copy will be in the room. Car is warm now since I remotely started it. I put the codes in the door so it will open when the guest arrives late in the evening. Oh, and if he has any trouble (which he won’t), I can always see the door and open it—on my watch! What a world. When I think back to the number of people and cost to do all that in 1987 (including office staff and “while you were gone” pink note pads), some of this technology investment of time and money doesn’t seem so bad.
