Latest / Identity at the Center / #343 - Transforming Travel with Digital Identity featuring Kristin Olsen from Alaska Airlines

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#343 - Transforming Travel with Digital Identity featuring Kristin Olsen from Alaska Airlines · Identity at the Center

0:00
I think for our industry like digital identity is newer and
0:05
part of it is learning how it all fits together and how do you
0:09
talk about it. So one of the things that we had
0:13
to I had to unravel is how do you explain this to 1st year
0:16
leaders? Then how do they explain to
0:18
their leaders and then how do you explain it to guests, Right.
0:24
And I did have the opportunity identity week to roll out like
0:26
what is our plan for digital identity?
0:29
And to this group, digital, digital identity might mean a
0:34
great many things. So we defined it kind of
0:38
narrowly at like if you were a traveler on day of travel, you
0:42
can use a government based ID in a digital format to get through
0:48
your day of travel. And essentially to sum it up,
0:53
it's we want you to be able to use your face or your phone at
0:57
every touch point during day of travel.
0:59
That's that's Alaska's goal. This is identity at the center.
1:10
If it has anything to do with IAM, this is the go to podcast
1:16
now, your host Jim McDonald and Jeff Steadman.
1:26
Welcome to the Identical Center podcast.
1:28
I'm Jeff, and that's Jim. Hey, Jim.
1:30
Hey, Jeff, how are you? Oh, not so bad yourself.
1:33
I'm doing well. I was actually working a little
1:36
bit earlier on a LinkedIn survey, right?
1:40
And so you have very limited characters.
1:43
You can only make your choices like 40 characters long.
1:48
So I'm not even sure if I'm going to post this question.
1:51
But what I wanted to get at was, you know, we've been talking
1:54
about this recommendation or kind of like the basic standard
1:59
that MFA is everywhere. That's like level 1 maturity.
2:04
But look, I'm not breaking any new ground here, but I think
2:09
that that Level 1 maturity of MFA is everywhere is really
2:13
covered by adaptive authentication or contextual
2:17
authentication where you probably have you performed an
2:20
MFA at some point and there's some kind of device recognition
2:25
going on to know that you haven't changed your context so
2:28
much or change your risk profile significantly enough to warrant
2:35
prompting you again. And if you have, it should
2:39
prompt you again. You know, that's kind of my
2:42
going in assumption. And I think it's good because I
2:45
think having to do MFA 15 times a day or 25 times a day would be
2:52
completely irritating and turn people off from this whole
2:55
thing. What?
2:55
Do you think? Well, yeah, that's the whole
2:57
reason I think that we spent a lot of time developing
3:00
conditional adaptive rules. I will say I'm very happy that
3:03
Marriott seems to have implemented this recently.
3:05
I'm no longer getting prompted like every day to put in a
3:09
second factor. So shout out to the Marriott
3:11
team. I definitely appreciate that,
3:12
that enhancement to your authentication stack.
3:15
But that's what's there for, right.
3:17
We, we want to use risk and data associated with your identities
3:22
to try and provide the most secure but most usable passage
3:26
into whatever resources you're trying to get to.
3:27
So I think it's AI think it's a great thing.
3:29
I mean, what what's what's to argue against on that one?
3:33
No, I just think that sometimes it is.
3:36
You take things too literally. MFA everywhere, kind of, you
3:41
know, the first reading of that might be that you asked for MFA
3:45
on every interaction or every news session.
3:48
And you're right, like that looks like that might have been
3:51
the case with Marriott. And I'm not trying to pick on
3:54
Marriott, but if your session timed out, you're in the middle
3:57
of booking a hotel, not only did you need to log in with your
4:01
credential, but you also had to go through an MFA.
4:05
And I think there's was one time password SMS, you know that
4:12
that's just irritating. It is and that's why I'm a fan
4:17
of using it. But to do it effectively, you do
4:20
need the data, right? Has your contacts changed?
4:22
Have you changed locations or browser or device, right?
4:25
These are all different fingerprinting, you know,
4:28
methods to make sure that, yeah, this is still Jim that's still
4:30
trying to book this or No, it's just Jeff.
4:32
He left the Marriott window open for another 8 hours because he
4:35
got sidetracked booking a hotel room, right?
4:37
I'm picking up Marriott, but I like Marriott.
4:38
I'm, you know, platinum with them or whatever it is so.
4:41
Yeah, no, I'm, I'm, I'm titanium for life.
4:43
Yes, titanium. Sorry, I forgot there was the
4:45
higher level. Yes, we don't want to be with
4:47
the peasants at the Platinum. Yeah, exactly.
4:50
Staying in the same room. So no, no, I think let's be
4:55
clear about something though, which is OK.
4:58
We're, you know, this MFA everywhere.
5:01
Yes, it's internal, external, but let's take to the internal
5:04
context. You login, you provide your MFA,
5:07
you know, maybe it's once a day, maybe it's even more than that.
5:12
I don't think in most cases companies are, you know, tuning
5:18
the dials to say, oh, if you do this, that the other it affects
5:22
your risk score in this way and then this resource is this, that
5:27
and the other risk level. And then there's a pairing.
5:30
I think conceptually that's how it works, but I think there's a
5:33
bit of a black box going on behind the scenes.
5:37
Yeah. Well, I think that's probably
5:38
like default policies that probably are the starting point.
5:42
And then if you're a tweaker, you can always go in and make
5:45
adjustments. You know, if it's Microsoft,
5:47
maybe it's a GPO or some other, you know, configurations in the
5:50
Azure environment, or if it's Octa, you know, something
5:53
similar or ping or whatever you happen to be using it.
5:55
It doesn't surprise me because I think you need a starting point.
5:59
If you just give somebody Legos and no instructions, you're
6:03
going to end up with some really jacked up looking stuff, right?
6:06
Some people are going to turn it into works of art.
6:08
Me. That thing's not going to fly in
6:11
the real world. So you need to give somebody,
6:14
you know, a starting point to it.
6:15
And I think that's where the default policies come in.
6:18
But you want to make sure that those default policies are
6:21
secure by design and that they are, you know, effective in what
6:24
they do. And I think sometimes that's
6:25
where maybe vendors get into a little bit of a challenges like,
6:28
OK, well, we had, we didn't opt to turn this check box on and
6:32
maybe we should have, right. There's you can make an argument
6:35
around that side. But I think as long as you know,
6:37
there is a starting point, that's probably a good thing
6:40
where people can at least start there.
6:41
It's OK. I don't need to be, you know, an
6:44
Azure expert with 78 years of experience, you know, building
6:47
the cloud, which didn't exist some eight years ago to develop
6:50
an access management policy. I can click this button and I'm
6:53
trusting that my IDP of choice has gone at least to the length
6:58
of having something that's relatively secure by design and
7:01
and usable for my users. Yeah.
7:04
So you use the term tweaker there.
7:06
And I've been catching up on Breaking Bad or watching it for
7:09
the second time actually. And I will tell you, most
7:12
practitioners are not tweakers. I can almost guarantee that.
7:17
They're tweakers of a different variety.
7:19
So let's just let's just keep it to the identity side of things.
7:21
How about that? Sounds good.
7:23
Speaking of identity, we got some conference codes for
7:26
people. Yeah, let me read this off here.
7:27
So we've got the first one coming up and not too far away
7:30
by the time people listen to this episode is the European
7:32
Identity and Cloud Conference 2025 in Berlin.
7:36
This is putting on by the fine folks over at Cooper Coal have
7:38
been excellent host for us. We're going to be out there for
7:40
the first time, Jim, first time attending the conference.
7:43
It's May 6th to the 9th. We hope to see a lot of people
7:45
out there that we know make new friends as well.
7:48
If you use the code IDAC 25 MKO, you get 25% off.
7:53
So time is running out. I would imagine you really want
7:55
to get flights booked, hotels booked and get registered and
7:59
all that good stuff to make it out there.
8:00
So we're looking forward to seeing that you're going to
8:03
spend some extra time out there doing a couple identity beers
8:05
maybe or something like that. I know you kind of mentioned it
8:07
for. Yeah, I'm going to do at least
8:08
one identity beer, which would be in Oslo.
8:11
That's going to be the Wednesday before EIC and then there's an
8:16
identity or gathering right before EICI think it's a.
8:21
So I forwarded you this information.
8:23
It's officially the the Netherlands branch of I think
8:30
it's for ID Pro and you know, I, I'm not sure.
8:35
So I'm I'm kind of like sketching on some of those
8:37
details, but reach out to me. I'll share the information if
8:42
you're interested. If you're going to EIC and you
8:44
want to do that, attend a beer. I'll share the info with you.
8:47
Yeah, I think you and I are thinking about seeing how we can
8:49
get out there for that, and that'll be super cool.
8:51
It'll be my first time doing it on a beer.
8:53
At that point, you'll have been a pro with one under your belt,
8:55
so you'll be the grizzled veteran it might be.
8:58
Kind of a grizzled veteran of drinking beer.
9:01
So I think now I'm going to take my my game to the next level,
9:06
yeah. For sure.
9:08
Let's see. So after that we've got
9:09
Identiverse that is June 3rd to the 6th, so that'll be in Las
9:13
Vegas. And so it's kind of a busy few
9:15
weeks there for us between Europe and then going to Vegas.
9:18
Lots of people do it. So they'll be, you know, no
9:20
tears for us on the show doing that other than me editing
9:23
videos and putting shows together.
9:24
Why? While I'm probably on a train
9:26
somewhere between Berlin to Amsterdam and then maybe on a
9:30
flight from Amsterdam back to the US and then back to Vegas.
9:33
But Identiferse is going to be fun.
9:35
We've got a code for that one as well, IDV 25-I D AC25 that gets
9:40
you 25% off. So definitely want to take
9:42
advantage of that. Just a reminder, it's at a new
9:45
location this year. It's at Mandalay Bay, not at the
9:47
Aria like it's been for the last couple years.
9:48
It's a bigger spot. So looking forward to seeing
9:51
what the the new digs look like for Identiferse this year.
9:54
Yeah, it'll be cool. And and if people are looking
9:57
for inexpensive place to say the Luxor is connected with a
10:01
walkway, right? So you can get rooms there for
10:05
under $100 usually if you book in advance.
10:08
Yeah, but you want to stay at the Mandalay if you can.
10:11
Luxor's fine, but it is you get you what you pay for from a room
10:14
perspective. Yeah, no, but hey, not
10:17
everybody's like rolling in the money like you, Jeff.
10:19
I've made that trip many times between Luxor and Mandalay.
10:23
It's a good 15 minute walk from there to the Mandalay Conference
10:29
Center. I've done that many times.
10:30
There was one time, I think it was a Black Hat where I was at
10:33
the conference. I had just left the conference,
10:36
got back to my room, and then received an e-mail saying, hey,
10:39
you want some Bose headphones, you need to come back.
10:41
You need to come pick them up. So I immediately turned around
10:44
and went right bomb back to the conference, picked up my Bose
10:47
headphones and then walked right back to my room.
10:49
So I got my workout that day for sure.
10:51
But it's it's a good stuff. It's good stuff.
10:53
They've kept me healthy, right? That's a good deal.
10:55
Hey, one more thing we've got to announce, right?
10:58
We're doing all these codes. We have to announce something
11:01
that you put out there on LinkedIn and the feedback that
11:05
we got was super positive. We are now the official podcast
11:09
of ID Pro. Yeah, super cool.
11:12
Something that we've been talking kind of scenes for the
11:15
last couple weeks, but it is official and yeah, looking
11:18
forward to it. You and I have both been members
11:20
for years at this point. I know that I joined as a
11:23
founding member back in 2017 or 2016, whatever that first one
11:27
was. And I do some other things
11:29
helping out with like I helped out one year with the the CID
11:32
Pro tests, like putting questions together.
11:34
You have one question on that was like my goal, OK, I got one
11:37
on the test and then like board nomination stuff.
11:40
But yeah, looking forward to it. ID Pro has always been good
11:43
partners for us. I just, I mean, it's seems kind
11:45
of natural. We have so many ID Pro people on
11:47
the show anyway like hey why not do this?
11:49
It's totally a natural fit. Yeah, I agree.
11:53
Yeah, so that's exciting. You stole my Thunder because I
11:54
was going to mention too, but yeah, if you're interested, ID
11:57
Pro, ID pro.org, head on over there.
12:00
I've long been a fan of it and we've talked about before, but
12:03
the the membership fee alone pay is just totally worth it for the
12:08
Slack channels and you know, all the community and the
12:10
conversations go on there. It's a lot of fun.
12:12
So. So, yeah, definitely check it
12:13
out. We'll have more information as
12:14
we kind of get things spun up. But yeah, it's exciting times.
12:18
So all right, that's a lot of preamble. 11 minutes, almost 10
12:21
minutes of it. Why don't we get to our guest?
12:23
She's been patiently waiting in the lings, laughing at my stupid
12:26
jokes. And I'd like to introduce
12:28
Kristen Olson. She is the director of product
12:31
management for the Guest Travel Experience at Alaska Airlines.
12:34
Welcome to Identity, the center. Kristen, Thanks for having me.
12:38
Yeah. So thanks so much for taking the
12:39
time. We're going to cover kind of a
12:43
lot today. I think what we'll kind of focus
12:44
on is really sort of that product management in the I Am
12:48
space and the customer experience and how those things
12:50
kind of work together. But hey, it's your first time
12:53
with us. We got to find out.
12:54
How did you get to where you are?
12:56
I just had a mouthful of an intro for you, Director of
12:59
Product Management for the guest experience at Alaska Airlines.
13:03
Tell me how you got into that role.
13:06
And I'm curious, do you consider yourself an identity person,
13:11
something else, a a, a product manager, both like where where
13:15
are you thinking right now? Yeah, I think depending on the
13:18
day, I might have a different answer.
13:21
I don't identify as identity person yet.
13:26
I think that my world and identity is becoming quickly
13:30
overlapping. So I think that it will have
13:34
more, it'll get closer and closer to being the same.
13:37
And we'll talk more about what, what I'm working on getting into
13:42
product management. Honestly, I, one of my passions,
13:45
I know a lot of people who probably listen to this podcast,
13:47
their passion is identity or identity management.
13:51
My history given process, like how do you have enough process
13:54
without having too much process? And so I have spent a long time
13:59
working on internal technology, PM, OS, so project management
14:03
offices and executing and getting work done.
14:07
And their opportunity came over to focus on now not only do I
14:12
get to execute what people tell me to, I get to decide what's
14:15
the best thing for our guest experience and be able to push
14:20
the industry actually in some areas.
14:22
And that's been super exciting as well.
14:25
Well, Jim met you at the Identity Week America conference
14:28
last year. You spoke at Identity
14:29
Conference. And Jim, what does that mean?
14:33
I think it means she's an identity person.
14:36
The water is fine. Come on in.
14:38
We're it's a very inviting group.
14:41
Yeah. So I you know, welcome to the
14:42
identity. You know Idenerati I guess
14:46
though is that's kind of what we, I guess call this sort of
14:49
group of people. But let me know a little bit
14:52
here about what your day-to-day is like.
14:54
We talked to a lot of people, a lot of different backgrounds.
14:57
Some are technical, some are not technical.
14:59
I'm always curious in the product management side because
15:01
they feel like I am, is a product that you put out for
15:05
your organization, whether it is customer facing, whether it's
15:08
enterprise, and if you don't have a good product, people are
15:11
going to find ways around that that might not be good from a
15:13
risk perspective. So I'm curious, take me through
15:16
sort of like what's a a day like in your role or maybe a week?
15:20
Explain what a director of product management does.
15:24
OK, so I lead product managers, if that wasn't obvious.
15:29
So I lead about 12 product managers and so I start from the
15:35
guest training perspective. When you travel, like when
15:37
you're buying air travel, you buy a ticket and then you might
15:42
manage that ticket and then you fly on that ticket.
15:44
So I am accountable for all of the guest experience after you
15:49
book that ticket. So everything from managing
15:51
check in airport, if it's guest facing, I own it.
15:56
So part of that has been the identity piece.
15:59
So we can dive deeper into that. So, but from a day-to-day
16:02
perspective, it can be reviewing people's road maps, it can be
16:06
talking about how we're getting to our 2025 goals, putting
16:10
together revenue forecasts. Then are we behind or ahead in
16:13
those revenue forecasts looking at Net Promoter score to say,
16:18
hey, people are going to the airport, are they enjoying the
16:21
new experience that we've given them or do we need to make some
16:25
changes? And then that's interesting too,
16:27
because you just dig and dig and dig on.
16:30
Is it the technology? Is it the agents?
16:33
Is it the IT did that physical space itself?
16:37
So lots of things to dig in and figure out and figure out how
16:40
you're going to change and evolve that product.
16:42
Sounds like you have your hands in a lot of pies, so to speak,
16:46
and you're having a lot of conversations.
16:48
And it's not just technical stuff, right?
16:49
It is usability. It is understanding, OK, where
16:51
do we want to be and what are we trying to do?
16:53
It's funny, interesting to me that you mentioned the Net
16:56
Promoter score and I'm just curious, it's kind of a follow
16:59
up question to that is where does identity and access
17:02
management fit into that? Are there specific feedback
17:06
items you get to say, I don't like this in the app or I love
17:08
this in the app, or I don't like the way this works on the
17:11
website? Like help me understand the
17:13
identity components of maybe how that might affect a Net Promoter
17:15
score. Yeah, I, I mean, I think that
17:18
the interesting thing about Net Promoter score is because you're
17:20
going from like all the way from booking to like after you fly
17:24
and do you have your bag and those things right.
17:26
When you're, when a company is asking about asking questions to
17:30
get to the Net Promoter Score, they have to decide, you know,
17:32
there's like all these episodes of what they ask and like one of
17:35
them might be like, how was your experience on the website?
17:38
So you don't know if that's how was your login experience?
17:41
How was this? We do have other indicators like
17:45
we use other tools on our website to say where's the
17:48
friction on the website? And we can dig into that tool to
17:51
say it's clear that login, I don't know if anybody else has
17:55
this, but login is a key issue for for guests.
17:59
And it could be that they just, I mean, they haven't used our
18:03
website in a long time. It could be a lot of things.
18:05
So we actually have other places that gives us better data to
18:09
look at from identity perspective than than NPS.
18:13
I mean, it would fit super generically in a wide box at
18:16
this point is the actual answer. And I imagine it's like, OK,
18:19
well, I had a problem at the airport that impacts the entire
18:22
experience, right? And like you said, I think like
18:26
if I have a problem, everything can go great.
18:28
And then you get to where you're going and you know, for whatever
18:30
reason, something happens and maybe a bag doesn't show up or a
18:33
flight is delayed, you know, whatever it might be.
18:35
And then that's the last impression that might affect the
18:37
entire feedback, right? They're not thinking about all
18:40
the things that went right to get to them at that point.
18:42
Yes, absolutely. And we're, we can dig more into
18:45
this too, but we're working on using digital identity in the
18:49
lobby and kind of throughout the actual day of travel experience
18:53
and an identity week. That's what I was, that's what I
18:55
was focused on. And you know, the key pillar to
18:58
that is actually getting through security and with TSA.
19:01
And so you, you only have so much you can do to impact that
19:07
guest experience. So we're giving them the
19:10
opportunity to use digital identity where it's available
19:13
with TSA, but we have very little control over how that
19:18
experience is executed for our guest.
19:21
You can only control or you can control.
19:23
And that's pretty much it, right?
19:24
That's right. So you mentioned that Identity
19:27
Week America talk. Give us a rundown of what that
19:30
talk was about for people who weren't there and kind of just
19:33
give a synopsis of it. Yeah, I think for our industry
19:37
like digital identity is newer and part of it is learning how
19:42
it all fits together and how do you talk about it.
19:45
So one of the things that we had to, I had to unravel is how do
19:50
you explain this to 1st year leaders then how do they explain
19:53
to their leaders and then how do you explain it to guests, right.
19:59
And I did have the opportunity identity week to roll out like
20:02
what is our plan for digital identity and to this group
20:05
digital digital identity might mean?
20:09
Create many things. So we defined it kind of
20:13
narrowly at like if you are a traveller on day of travel, you
20:18
can use a government based ID in a digital format to get through
20:23
your day of travel. And essentially to sum it up,
20:28
it's we want you to be able to use your face or your phone at
20:32
every touch point during day of travel.
20:35
That's that's Alaska's goal. That's pretty cool goal.
20:38
So you mentioned this day of travel for folks who aren't
20:41
initiated into this, what does day of travel mean exactly from
20:45
your perspective? Yeah, So day of travel to me can
20:48
mean everything from like you're on the website, you're in the
20:51
app and you're managing your trip.
20:53
You might be adding a bag, you might be adding food to checking
20:57
in. So telling us you're coming and
20:59
getting a boarding pass. So then you get typically get
21:02
AQR code for that and then you actually travel.
21:06
So you come to the airport, you would use your phone for us, you
21:12
just scan your barcode and if you've checked bags, your bag
21:15
takes just spit out at you. So it's a, you know, less than
21:18
42nd experience there dropping a bag.
21:22
So we also have to ID you when you drop a bag and then getting
21:27
the gas through security and then all the way to on the
21:31
plane. So I support even some of the,
21:34
the pre-order food that's on the plane.
21:37
And then when you get your destination, do you know where
21:39
you're going? Do you know where your bags are?
21:41
Did your bags arrive? Did we tell you your bags
21:43
arrived? And right now that's kind of day
21:46
of travel. I, I definitely can see that
21:49
expanding over time of like how do we help you get to your
21:52
hotel? Or how do we get you logged into
21:54
your Bonfoy account so you can pick your hotel?
21:56
Because you just got to Vegas and you thought you were going
22:01
to stay with friend or something like that.
22:03
So day of travel to me is pretty broad, but it should be like
22:08
this is your travel experience as a guest.
22:11
That's why my title is so long. So Kristen, you know, I think
22:16
when people think about identity outside of this identity world,
22:21
they think of login. And we sometimes when, you know,
22:26
we talked to a lot of identity practitioners and we asked the
22:28
question, what's the difference between I am and digital
22:33
identity? And everybody has a different
22:35
answer to that. But I kind of think of I am as
22:38
kind of like the nuts and bolts. But digital identity to me is
22:42
really what you're talking a lot about, which is how do you take
22:46
that identity and expand it much further?
22:49
Seems like you dip your toe in the water with both.
22:52
I won't ask you to answer that question unless you want to, but
22:56
talk to me a little bit about this digital identity and how
23:01
you know how it goes beyond login for you.
23:04
Yeah, that's a good question. So how I think about this is
23:08
it's it's how do you get through the airport using your face to
23:13
your phone as your digital identity?
23:15
So we can talk about logging in to websites and things like
23:18
that, which we probably shouldn't talk about.
23:20
That's not my background, but it's like, how do you give
23:24
guests the opportunity in the airport to be able to use so
23:28
face? We're currently using the TS as
23:31
touchless identity solution program.
23:34
So you have to sign up through your mileage plan account or
23:37
often to use that day of travel experience.
23:40
You get a special icon on your boarding pass that says you can
23:44
use that line at security. And we're also unlocking that
23:48
experience from your bag drop. So you don't have to pull out
23:51
your ID, you can just use your face.
23:53
We're like, yes, you're validated.
23:55
So what that's doing is it's just putting you in a gallery
23:59
for the day of travel for that airport for that 24 hours, and
24:02
then that gallery gets wiped out for the next day of travelers.
24:07
So that's the TS As touchless identity solution that we're
24:11
that we want to use in multiple places.
24:14
But right now we're just working on rolling that out with them
24:17
and with other airlines. Yeah.
24:20
So I've, I mean, I'm based in Atlanta, GA, so obviously I'm
24:25
not flying Alaska very often, but I with the airline that I
24:29
use, they do have that where you can just walk up and not present
24:34
a boarding pass or an identity or anything and just do facial
24:38
recognition. I've already kind of come to the
24:42
conclusion that they already have my picture.
24:44
They already know who I am. So I'm OK, if you can get me
24:48
through line 10 minutes faster, I'm going to do it.
24:52
But I've got to also think that a lot of people have concerns.
24:57
I mean, are you get you guys hearing feedback around privacy
25:01
concerns, like what are you guys doing?
25:03
How did this work? Etcetera.
25:05
Yeah. I mean, I think initially there
25:07
were a lot of concerns about that.
25:09
We we have a couple different principles for Alaska that we're
25:12
following right now, which is the guests can opt into that
25:15
experience, right. So nobody's forced to use that
25:17
experience. You, you totally, you have to
25:20
physically go and opt into that experience.
25:22
So if you don't want to do that, you absolutely do not have to do
25:26
that. There's always a manual way to
25:28
do that. And then, I mean, we're using
25:32
the TS as program directly. So one of the things that we
25:35
have a principle around is not storing any biometric data or
25:39
information. So like you said, Jim, a lot of
25:43
people already know because you have a passport and you have a
25:46
KTN to be able to opt into that program, which is a requirement
25:50
that the government already has your picture and they're just
25:53
using it to make your day of travel easier.
25:56
And it's actually a benefit to people who go through the
26:01
pre-check program. Yeah.
26:03
I'm sorry. I kind of like focus right on on
26:05
the probably small population of people who are like not wanting
26:10
to do it. But have you mostly gotten
26:12
positive feedback? Is like the 8020 rule in effect
26:15
where most people are loving this?
26:18
Yeah. I mean, honestly, the people, we
26:21
haven't had anybody have negative feedback for us on it
26:26
because again, they don't have to use this program.
26:29
So I think for the people who want to use it, they use it.
26:32
It's not our program. We just want to unlock it for
26:36
our guests. I think there's also working
26:39
with the other airlines to make sure that guests can understand
26:43
a single process. So if you go to Atlanta, if
26:46
you're in Atlanta, you have a very deep line because that was
26:49
one of the first locations. And if you go to DCA, you have a
26:53
similar process there. So one of the things we're doing
26:55
is working across airlines to say, here's the here's what
26:59
digital identity looks like for day of travel working with the
27:03
airlines, TSA and the physical airports.
27:06
So we're not using like the, we're not using the term digital
27:10
identity here or virtual over here or TIS here.
27:15
We want to make sure that if we all use a common language for
27:19
for guests who fly, they're not trying to learn the new program
27:24
based on which airport they're at.
27:25
Does that make sense? Yeah, it totally makes sense.
27:28
You know, the out. I think it's really exciting
27:31
what you do. Like you get to kind of paint
27:33
the vision and talk about like, OK, this, these are the things
27:36
that if we can do them, make this guest experience awesome.
27:41
Now your technologists have to actually take your vision and
27:46
make it happen. So maybe they have the harder
27:49
job, but I'm, I'm kind of wondering like, how does that
27:51
partnership work where you're bringing them all these great
27:55
ideas and they've had to actually make them happen?
27:59
Yeah, that reminds me of the first time I started.
28:03
I had a couple colleagues who who gave me like an initial deck
28:05
that's like, here's digital identity and I went through it.
28:07
I'm like, I, this doesn't, I had to kind of like reformat it for
28:11
my own brain to make it work. And then I had to reformat it
28:15
to, to get to leaders so that leaders could generally
28:17
understand it. And so I going through that
28:21
deck, I had the opportunity to really like lay out how to talk
28:27
about it and what that looked like.
28:29
You know, the technologies have to take your vision and make it
28:32
happen. So, you know, in some ways I'm
28:36
like, OK, they've, they've got the hard job, right?
28:39
They, you got this vision of like you want to create the
28:42
awesome travel experience and it means doing this, this and this.
28:46
And they've got to figure out how to make that happen.
28:50
So how do you make that collaboration happen?
28:53
How do you avoid, you know, them not being able to build or that
28:59
you get yourself into a tricky situation where they feel
29:03
pressured to make something work, but they maybe know it's
29:06
not the right thing to do or what?
29:08
What does that collaboration look like?
29:11
Yeah. So the first time that I was
29:14
going through the original deck that somebody put together and I
29:17
was parsing that out, I started putting together what we call
29:21
marker texture slides, right? So I wouldn't like, we're going
29:25
to have 4 galleries. We're going to have a gallery
29:27
from this provider and a gallery from GSA and a gallery.
29:29
I still have that side. It makes me laugh.
29:31
So part of it is what could we do versus what should we do?
29:35
What can guests understand? And then I think engineering's
29:39
pretty much been on board once they understand.
29:43
I don't, I, I, I guess it's not strange to hear engineering on
29:46
board because I think they're generally want to put stuff in,
29:51
but I imagine you have to rein them in sometimes too, right.
29:54
Well, I would say that like we're actually just starting to
29:56
do some of the builds since the first integration was with TSA,
30:01
that happened pretty quickly, but we are doing more and more
30:05
of it. And so I do think that the the
30:07
part from an engineering perspective is, and then why I
30:11
think this space is so exciting is because the airline industry
30:14
has a lot of like normal things that have been happening for 60
30:17
years, right? And so when you get to dig in
30:19
and be like, here is a brand new space, I get to go talk about it
30:24
at conferences. They get to be some of the first
30:27
people to put the technology together to unlock it for
30:29
guests. Like that's what engineers love
30:33
doing, I think, right? It's like problem solving a real
30:36
problem. And part of it goes to like,
30:39
well, we already have IDs, what problem are we trying to solve?
30:42
But I think the other piece is getting guests through spaces
30:48
efficiently. Having agents check IDs or
30:51
having TSA check IDs is great, but already knowing who you are
30:56
is way faster it so it speeds up the line, especially if you have
31:00
a dedicated line like Jimmy you're talking about.
31:02
In Atlanta, we have new automated bag drops and so using
31:09
one to end technology for ID verification there greatly
31:13
speeds things up and then also future use at the gate.
31:16
So engineers are super excited to work on this because I mean,
31:21
it's great to work on making the check in process better, but the
31:24
check in process hasn't changed that much.
31:27
And it's really great to be in a newish space, especially newer
31:32
for airlines and being able to unlock that for guests.
31:35
I feel like there's a lot of pressure when you're working on
31:38
the customer side of IAM because you're you're dealing with
31:41
everybody and if you make a mistake, you're going to hear
31:44
about it, right? Whether it's I don't like the
31:47
way that color looks on that page all the way to, you know,
31:51
an actual outage, right, or downtime or things like that.
31:54
There's got to be a lot of pressure that that's, it's not a
31:56
pressure that you typically see on the enterprise side for most
31:59
organizations where OK, yeah, we screwed up.
32:02
But there are employees and they kind of have to do what we want
32:05
anyway. Customers are fickle and they
32:08
will go and shift mindset quite a bit is that would you say that
32:13
that's a fair representation And just specifically from the
32:16
identity side of saying yes, customer does have a lot of that
32:20
sort of that customer facing experience is such an important
32:24
part for customer. IM compared maybe to the
32:26
enterprise side. Yeah, I definitely think that
32:29
that experience is it's super important to get right for
32:33
guests and we spend a lot of time working.
32:35
We have a a whole group dedicated to guest experience.
32:39
So we work directly with them on are, are these tellers going to
32:42
work? How's this experience?
32:43
Do we need signage? You know, you can't have a sign
32:47
in an airport that takes longer than 5 seconds to read or no one
32:51
will read it. We do have like digital signage
32:56
now in Seattle and Portland and it can be dynamic and do all
33:00
sorts of things. So I think that that also helps
33:03
with guest experience. But back to identity, you know
33:05
for day of travel writing how we have the TSA program, which is
33:10
very it's pretty prescriptive like you put icon on boarding
33:14
pass or you pass get you in line.
33:18
I am interested. So it's interesting because we
33:21
basically are using others programs to get us through this
33:27
first phase of day of travel. Digital identity.
33:31
Some go, I talked about face a lot, but phone based mobile
33:36
driver's license, Google ID pass I Washington state does not have
33:40
legislation yet for mobile IDs. So I've been, I am an Android
33:45
person. It's very controversial, but I
33:48
now I can put my, I can put my own passport in my, my wallet
33:54
with ID pass that's verified using my chip.
33:58
And so now when I go to security, this is gonna get this
34:02
is gonna get security nerdy, but hopefully that's OK.
34:04
The cat twos, which are the credentialing machines at
34:07
security kind of tap to Idi. Don't know if everybody calls it
34:11
that, but that's just the easiest way to explain it.
34:14
So I can tap to ID. I'm using my, my Google ID pass.
34:20
Or if you like California, I think up to 13 states right now
34:26
have that available. So either it's teaching guests
34:31
about you have these options. That's that's what we have right
34:34
now. And so it's kind of that I'm in
34:36
control kind of this gap between getting people like I need to
34:40
get people to understand it and how to do it during day of
34:44
travel. But I don't totally own what
34:46
that experience looks like from a face and phone perspective.
34:50
I think as they get more and more like how do we connect your
34:54
digital identity that I've been talking about with Racer phone,
34:57
with your IAM strategy for web and app, I think that's going to
35:02
be like the more interesting challenging spot.
35:06
Kristen, I'm, I'm kind of wondering how trends that are
35:10
happening in the industry, maybe implement some of the things
35:15
that you want to take care of. So I'm not sure how familiar you
35:18
are with passkeys, but passkeys is a way to basically do cross
35:23
device within the same platform, cross device sign on.
35:28
I'm also thinking of things like, you know, Face ID or
35:32
thumbprint within the device to avoid having to sign on.
35:36
Are those things that you see those then you're like, hey, why
35:40
don't we bring that to Alessa Airline?
35:43
Or is it most of that you're starting from some other place
35:46
to get the idea and then you see what technology is available?
35:51
Yeah. I think that with day of travel,
35:54
we're focused on what exists and then and then looking at how do
35:59
we put that under a larger identity umbrella and what do we
36:01
want to do? So looking at what, what are the
36:03
trends and what's out there. And then how would do we want to
36:06
move forward and have a bigger identity program for at airports
36:11
outside of face and phone that are again like mostly other
36:14
people's programs. We can accept, you know, we'd
36:17
have to do the technology to accept a mobile driver's license
36:20
at something like the automatic bag drops.
36:23
But I think as we widen that identity net or maybe cast it
36:27
over all the things, I think that that's an opportunity
36:31
there. I think the other thing that's
36:33
more in day of travel space is like electronic visas,
36:39
electronic document verification, how to basically
36:44
like how do we get you all of your documentation
36:47
electronically and know that you have that from an authentication
36:52
perspective, authenticated documents so that you have a
36:56
really seamless day of travel. So if you're, you know, going
37:00
around the world in the air, right, how do you have all those
37:03
things just on your phone? And the technology from airports
37:07
and airlines and governing bodies can use that to make that
37:11
a really seamless day of travel. I'm just going to put a vote in
37:15
now for feature enhancement, which is kill the password.
37:19
Passwords stink, right? I think we can all agree with
37:22
that. And there's nothing more
37:24
irritating than day of travel. You're at one of these steps and
37:29
the app logs you out and that's, you know, so anything that can
37:36
kill the password I'm all for, and I think a lot of people
37:39
would be all for. I don't want to interject,
37:42
Kristen, but I think Jim and I experienced very similar issues
37:46
with a particular airline that we happen to fly.
37:49
This is this is a plea to everyone in this space.
37:53
Adopt pass keys, adopt web auth N Fido has done a lot of good
37:56
work on that. So I will just say I, I hear
38:00
you, Jim and I echo that 100%. There's nothing that I hate more
38:04
than being in line to scan my boarding pass to actually get on
38:07
the plane and it has logged me out.
38:10
What are you doing? Yeah, I mean, I just say that's
38:15
also why we want to be able to use your face to board, right,
38:20
So you can just walk on. And when we have that with
38:22
international fights. But when, when is the change
38:26
management around using digital identity for day of travel?
38:31
When are guests at and airports going to be ready for that
38:34
change? I think it it isn't that we
38:36
can't do it technically already we can.
38:38
But I don't think people people are like, why would you need my
38:41
face, right? Or I don't, you know, people are
38:44
still like, do you need my ID to board the plane?
38:46
You're like, no, you've you've been authenticated at least a
38:49
few times. Yeah.
38:51
The Real ID apocalypse is coming soon.
38:53
I think for a lot of airports where people are showing up
38:56
without the Real ID and, and in the US, for people who are
38:58
listening around the world, there's been sort of an update
39:01
into the way that your driver's license in different states have
39:05
been more secured. And not everybody has this
39:07
version yet. It requires them typically going
39:09
to a DMV department of motor vehicles office to get that, you
39:14
know, taken care of and, you know, prove identity and things
39:16
like that. But behaviors are really hard to
39:19
change in the real world. And I think these are, you know,
39:22
almost decade long transitions. If you think about, you know,
39:26
when did Face ID 1st come out from Apple?
39:28
And I, I give them a lot of credit for really doing a good
39:31
job of marketing it and making it very simple to use makes it
39:35
really usable for more people right now, you know, grandma and
39:40
grandpa are using Face ID and Touch ID and they have they're
39:43
using biometrics. You know, if you had thought
39:45
about that 20 years ago, it's like, oh, that's way too
39:47
complicated, right? Or now we're doing text messages
39:50
with, you know, one time passwords are easy.
39:52
So all this stuff is very cyclical and I'm curious to hear
39:56
what, what is the risk decision look like for you, Kristen, you
40:01
talk about day of travel, right? And things have to go right on
40:05
day of travel or there are going to be problems.
40:08
Either I can't log into my app and I can't get past USA, or the
40:14
stupid app logged me out as I was trying to show my ticket to
40:17
get on the board and I'm holding up a line behind me holding a
40:19
boarding process. I do imagine that there's
40:22
probably a risk decision that gets made somewhere to say we're
40:26
probably less risk adverse on day of travel because that needs
40:31
to execute Florida State without a hitch 100% of the time.
40:35
But there may be an opportunity before that or after that to
40:38
maybe play with some things that maybe are a little more, you
40:43
know, risk tolerance or, you know, risk appropriate to kind
40:46
of do things. And I'm curious if that makes
40:48
sense and how you approach managing, you know, digital
40:51
identity across across both of those areas.
40:55
Yeah, I mean, if we have all of day of travel, how I would
40:58
segment that so that we we can be riskier in some areas is by
41:02
who's travelling or the type of traveller, right.
41:05
You may have a family that's like super tech savvy.
41:08
You may have individuals that travel, they like they commute
41:12
to from Seattle, they might commute to San Jose, right?
41:15
And so we can be riskier with that type of traveller.
41:18
And I don't mean riskier, I just mean like give them other
41:20
opportunities that other travellers would not want to
41:25
take, right? And so I think we support that
41:27
from the opt in perspective of opting into using your face
41:30
during day of travel. Like Jim, you were talking about
41:34
using an Atlanta, right? So people travel so frequently
41:38
up and down the East Coast as well that you want to have that
41:41
lane so that you know that you don't have to stand and go
41:44
around and around and around in Atlanta and that pre-check lane
41:47
and you can just go to the TSA touchless identity lane.
41:52
So we want to make sure that people have more and more
41:54
opportunities to do that at more and more airports because
41:57
there's only 10 right now. And we, we can talk more about
42:00
that. But I do think that we, we think
42:03
about risk and I, I'd say, Jeff, that's how I break it down is
42:06
how can we start with something? I mean, it's like not everybody
42:10
got the iPhone when it first came out, right?
42:12
Or I, I didn't understand why you would need an iPad at the
42:14
time right now. I I definitely understand that
42:17
that's dating myself a little bit.
42:19
There's all of the new group who wants to try something new.
42:22
And then you have that change curve and that just goes
42:24
directly into product management from like a maturity perspective
42:27
and how do you get the most people make the most money?
42:30
But first you have to have that, that, that early adopter to use
42:36
some of that. Do you think there's an
42:38
opportunity for like an early adopter program when it comes to
42:41
things like this, where you can encourage people who are, you
42:44
know, I'll say nerds like me who are trying to be on the cutting
42:46
edge of things and are willing to try new things at the expense
42:49
of, yeah, some things might not work as expected.
42:51
Do you think that's something that you could take advantage of
42:54
as being maybe not, you know, for Alaska Airlines, Right.
42:57
But maybe if I'm a product manager, can I tap into that
42:59
mindset to help me troubleshoot or validate that the ideas that
43:04
I have from an identity perspective work?
43:06
Yeah, I absolutely think that's your.
43:08
I think that there's a couple different things.
43:10
Like we have an internal experimentation team.
43:13
We have, you know, we've had workshops on design thinking,
43:19
but I think that it could be tapping into other communities
43:21
to say, how do you think about this differently?
43:23
Like one of the things with product management is I'm sure
43:29
I'm not the only one that says this.
43:30
I'm like, we don't have to be the first to just to make up a
43:34
feat. Like we don't have to be the
43:35
first first to launch X feature. We just have to be really good
43:38
at copying other industries because the airlines have an
43:42
opportunity, we have an opportunity to leapfrog.
43:44
I don't know if we're we're there, but I think that we are
43:47
making really good strides in technology.
43:50
So how do we look at other industries to say how are they
43:54
doing groups? How do you do the group order on
43:56
maybe a sandwich shop that is a national chain?
44:00
How would that work for groups booking on on airlines?
44:07
So I think that absolutely go back to your question, tapping
44:09
into other industries to say, let's talk about how this would
44:13
work. How would you think about this?
44:15
It is an absolutely great idea. Sounds like I'm going to go to
44:18
some more conferences is what I'm hearing.
44:20
Well, you know, you're part of the identity crew now, so you
44:23
have to be there and then share some of these these stories and
44:25
ideas. I think that's how we all
44:26
learned. I want to pivot the conversation
44:28
to what I call the AI at the center part of our podcast.
44:32
It feels like AI is everywhere. And I'm curious, where do you
44:36
see AI impacting how product management is done, especially
44:42
in the identity space? Have you given any thought about
44:43
how that might impact the way things get done or how you go
44:47
about implementing new features or things like that?
44:51
Yeah, I mean, I think that like one of the Super awesome things
44:54
that Alaska did, it wasn't necessary to my team was.
44:58
And this goes back to what I said earlier, like, how do you
45:00
just take an idea from different industry?
45:02
So we have an AI feature on our website where you just type in
45:05
like, I want to go to a beach, I want to use my miles and I want
45:08
to go in July, right? And it just brings you back all
45:11
of like, here are your options, right?
45:13
Then you get Vegas and you're like, well, why would I have
45:15
Vegas? That's not a beach.
45:17
And there's like a little description under that's like
45:20
there are many beach like pools in Las Vegas, right?
45:23
So I mean, even going from like, why do you make me like standard
45:28
airline websites? Why do you make me put in every
45:31
single piece of information when I just want you to tell me like
45:34
I only have this idea over here. So when I'm always like, when
45:38
are we going to move from like here's your Google box at the
45:41
top of your website instead of like, I'm going On this date and
45:45
I'm leaving this date and I want to have these vials and I want
45:47
to do this and I want to do this and I want to do this.
45:49
So that's exciting AI stuff we've already done.
45:52
But from an identity perspective and a product management
45:55
perspective, I think that we are using some tools to be more
45:59
productive from a product management perspective.
46:02
Like even if you have a 30% start on something, putting
46:06
together a road map or putting together like here's a, a deck
46:10
on initial starting on digital identity and then ideating from
46:15
there, at least it gets you a, a start there that you don't have
46:17
to start at the very beginning. Are there any future trends that
46:22
you've been looking at? And it's like, OK, you know,
46:25
from an identity perspective, it's like, oh, this might be
46:27
something we want to unpack. We we talked about like pass
46:29
keys and password list kind of goes along with that.
46:33
Are there things like that that you see coming in the identity
46:36
space? You're like, OK, we've got a,
46:39
we've got to be prepared for that.
46:41
I not, not that I can think of offhand.
46:44
I'm sure that there are things I I should, but since my area's
46:47
super broad, you know, it's like I want product manager focused
46:51
on digital identity. I do think that it's going to
46:55
take a while just to get guests understanding what digital
47:01
identity is and how do you use your face or phone and why would
47:04
you use your face or phone? So I think that the change curve
47:07
is going to be long from a digital identity perspective.
47:11
But again, it does help to have other airlines and the TSA
47:15
airports all working together in the same goal because it does
47:19
provide better throughput, more efficiencies, better security
47:24
for our guests and the other travellers on day of travel.
47:28
Yeah, I'm, I, I can't remember the last time I printed out a
47:31
ticket. I, I think it was because of an
47:34
error in an app, but I had to go do it.
47:38
It's very rare that I and I fly, you know, 100 flights a year.
47:42
So I'm constantly in the airports and so please, please,
47:45
please work with your partners out there.
47:47
It's like make that easier, right?
47:49
I'm, I'm a fan for anything. If you tester, hit me up.
47:52
I'm always happy to do that stuff.
47:53
I want to know what your vision is for how this is going to work
47:58
in the future, right, from a digital identity perspective,
48:00
because I have ideas and let me kind of maybe plant some seeds
48:03
and feel free to take this if you'd like, but I have my phone
48:07
with me or I have some sort of device.
48:09
I go into the airport. You mentioned that the, I think
48:13
it was, it's almost like the tap to pay, but it's like tap to
48:15
authenticate, right? Yeah.
48:16
I think most people are familiar with the QR code, but that's
48:19
still a little bit of a clunky experience because what happens
48:21
when you turn your phone over, the screen goes off sometimes
48:23
and they're like, oh, I got to do that again.
48:25
And I think like a tap to authenticate or tap to board
48:29
would be interesting. I think just having my phone on
48:32
me as I go through, you know, a, a checkpoint or something where
48:36
I don't have to do those sorts of things might be interesting.
48:39
Maybe it's boarding after I've gone through security boarding,
48:41
you know, something that might be, maybe it's tracking bags.
48:43
If I've checked them, there's some way to show me exactly
48:47
where the bags are. And do I have, is my bag going
48:50
to be first or is it going to be last?
48:52
You know, how much time do I have to get a drink or go to the
48:54
bathroom, whatever it may be? I think of these things of like
48:56
the experience of how this might work.
49:00
And I'm curious what your vision of the day of travel looks like
49:03
in the future. Yeah, I think those are great
49:06
ideas. So thank you.
49:08
I've mentally written those down.
49:10
So I I'd go back to face your phone.
49:13
Right. So face being TSA gallery.
49:15
And I think as we move forward, do we have other galleries?
49:18
So people are members of programs that get them through
49:21
security faster. There might be other digital
49:24
identity providers that we want to use in future that are
49:27
gallery based. So one to end face verification
49:30
airport during day of travel. So just expanding that from TSA,
49:34
we've talked about that. Could you actually use your
49:36
mobile driver's license while you check in to say then this is
49:40
just an idea. We're we're floating around to
49:42
say use my authenticated credential from my DMV for day
49:50
of travel. And so then you're that
49:52
credential or that picture and information would go into a
49:55
different gallery or thin gallery and then yeah, chap to
50:00
Idi think it's just the easiest way to put it because people
50:02
already know chap to pay and it's exactly the same thing,
50:05
right. So how do you how could you use
50:08
your phone everywhere to say this is either?
50:11
So for me it's taking, it's not only there are times in the
50:16
airport where you have to actually show your ID and
50:20
there's other times we just need to know who you are.
50:23
So I wanna get to a spot where you don't need AQR code for your
50:27
boarding pass. We will still have them for
50:30
people who enjoy QR codes, but how do we build that in so you
50:35
can just tap everywhere you need?
50:36
We just need to know who you are.
50:38
Sometimes we need to know exactly who you are and to make
50:42
sure that you're the same person.
50:43
And other times we just need to be able to identify you, to say
50:46
this is your passenger record and to let you on the plane or
50:49
to let you in the lounge and things like that.
50:52
So I really want to either be able to tap to ID or use your
50:55
face for every touch point during day of travel.
50:58
I would, I would add, OK, I, I think the biggest, the other
51:02
thing is how do we, and I already mentioned this, that is
51:05
how do we use electronic verification for visas and other
51:10
things. Again, if you have a, a long
51:13
list of places you're traveling to, to make sure you have every
51:16
single document that you need and make that an easier
51:19
experience. 1, you know that you have the right documents.
51:23
So they've BeenVerified 'cause sometimes you're like, this is
51:25
what the website says, but it's really unclear.
51:27
I don't even know if I can get into Canada with the birth
51:29
certificate, right? Because the website to me was
51:33
not very clear. So give the guests more
51:35
assurance and make it seamless. Well, I think that highlights
51:40
how important it is to work with, you know, the partners in
51:43
the air travel space, right? You mentioned TSA, different
51:45
governments. I mean, Jim and I are going to
51:47
Berlin here in a few weeks. I'm hoping someone will tell me
51:51
what I need to do. I'm going to bring my passport
51:54
and then fill out whatever forms I need to do.
51:56
So I'm kind of relying on the airline to help me through that
51:59
process and sort of shepherd me through it.
52:01
I'm curious, that vision that you just described, how far away
52:06
do you think that is? And I don't, I'm not going to
52:08
hold you and say, hey, Christian from Alaska Airlines said it's
52:11
going to be in place next year. You know, but tell me, are we
52:14
two years away, five years away, 10 years away from that vision?
52:18
I'd say the constraint is not the technology.
52:21
The constraint is the change management curve.
52:23
So how quickly do you roll something out and then have
52:27
people not use it? So how do you pace the roll out
52:30
of technology with the change curve?
52:33
So those things are close enough together that you can get buy in
52:37
from your leaders to spend that money even though you don't have
52:41
a clear ROI or the ROI is a little bit mismatch.
52:46
So I think that that's what it comes down to.
52:48
So I would say that my answer is by, you know, before the end of
52:53
2027, I'd say, OK, so a lot sooner.
52:56
I was thinking, I was thinking maybe it might take longer, but
52:58
I think that's great. I'll take it as soon as we can
53:00
get it. You've been really generous with
53:02
time. So I want to make sure I, you
53:03
know, get you out of here and and I can get on with your day
53:06
and, and keep fixing identity things.
53:09
But I was getting to know you a little bit before we hit record
53:12
and I was like, all right, you know, we ended the show on a
53:13
lighter note and we're always looking for things, interesting
53:16
things to talk about. And you brought up something
53:18
that I don't think we've ever had a guest on, at least not
53:21
that has talked about it, that you mentioned that you have an
53:24
improv comedy background, which I'm a huge fan of comedy.
53:29
I lived in Chicago for 40 years and made many, many trips to
53:33
Second City, which is sort of a, a Mecca for a lot of improv
53:36
comedians. And there's been a lot of people
53:37
come out of that. I'm curious, I want to go back
53:40
to your improv comedy days. Can you give me like, a
53:43
memorable time, maybe like a scene that you were doing either
53:47
completely died because everybody loves a good bombing
53:50
story when it comes to like, oh, that joke fell flat or went like
53:54
way better than you thought it would for any type of reason.
53:56
I'm curious to hear like a a story from your improv comedy
53:59
days. Yeah.
54:01
Thank you for asking. That's so in my 20s, you know,
54:04
just a few years ago, I was a part of a troupe called
54:07
Lipstick. And we were actually working on,
54:13
we typically did short format, but we were working on long
54:15
format. And typically what you do is
54:18
you, you decide what format you want to do.
54:21
And we decided we were going to like, sometimes it'll be a
54:23
sitcom or maybe you're doing film noir.
54:26
We decided to do Charlie's Angels.
54:30
So lipstick was an all female troop, but we had a, our, our
54:35
coach was a guy from our local infrared troop and he was
54:39
fantastic. So we were doing like a
54:43
competition and we were, and we were doing our Charlie's Angels.
54:47
And I, I would say that that was like one of the best.
54:49
I know people have a bombing story, but you try to forget
54:52
those as quickly as possible, especially a couple years
54:54
afterwards. But it was just so amazing to
54:58
like go through the cadence of everything that happens in a
55:01
long form show and and like nail it and be funny and be
55:06
interesting and develop a story. And, you know, you're just like,
55:09
it's when you roll on stage or you get out of a meeting and
55:12
you're like nailed it. And so that was that was one of
55:17
my my best memories. On the improv side, you get kind
55:20
of like a performance high, right?
55:21
When it's kind of like, OK, that went really well.
55:24
And you know, we do that on the podcast too.
55:25
We have a good show. It's like, yeah, that went
55:27
really well. Or if we're doing, you know,
55:28
public speaking, I'm sure that, you know, I've heard that before
55:30
as well. This, this Charlie's Angels
55:33
thing. Was it a stage show?
55:36
Was it like somebody was doing like home video, like take me
55:39
behind the scenes? Like what were some of the, the
55:42
things that were really kind of stuck out, stood out from that
55:44
day? Yeah.
55:45
So we, you know, we practice because you're kind of get the
55:48
format down and you'd switch roles.
55:50
So sometimes you'd be an Angel, and other times you'd be other
55:52
characters or you'd be the main guy.
55:56
I forgot. I think so.
55:59
Charlie. It was Charlie.
56:00
The voice of the speaker, right? Yes.
56:03
But who was the other guy? And Charlie's angels?
56:07
Yeah, there was another guy. OK.
56:09
Oh, I don't know. We actually did it at a local.
56:13
There was a competition at a local Jet.
56:16
Jet City Improv is one of our bigger establishments here from
56:20
an improv perspective. And they were doing like Sunday
56:23
nights where they would invite troops in and we would like
56:25
compete against each other. So we would do that show.
56:29
And I think we did it for a, we did it every Sunday for a month
56:32
in through the competition kind of thing.
56:35
And so it was definitely on stage in front of an audience of
56:38
friends and and other people who actually paid to come, come
56:41
watch. So go soon.
56:43
I know someone out there is yelling, maybe it's even Jim.
56:45
That's Bosley. Is the other character Bosley
56:48
trying to think of? Is that right?
56:49
Jim Bosley? I have no idea, but it sounds
56:53
right. Jim, do you think we could do
56:55
improv comedy? I mean you could argue this show
56:57
is 100% improv. Comedy.
57:00
It pretty much is yeah. It's pretty much the laughing
57:02
stock. No, you know, the, the closest
57:07
experience I have to all this was, well, there are two things.
57:11
One, when I was like under 13, we should do like a, we would
57:18
have like a tape recorder and we had like a little microphone
57:22
that wouldn't tape recorder. And we would do like a, a
57:25
variety show and then we'd play it back and laugh and stuff like
57:30
that. And then I've always been
57:34
somebody who likes to do crank calls.
57:36
I mean, not as an adult, OK, As a kid.
57:40
Yeah, I went to cover that up. Jim, you just did one yesterday,
57:42
I'm sure. Well, nobody answers their phone
57:45
anymore, So unless you know the number coming through and then
57:49
it's not quite the crank call anymore, right?
57:52
But we would call people and just record it.
57:56
And I mean, all the way through college do crank calls.
58:00
The best crank call that we ever did was we call was it living in
58:04
the dorms? And we called one of the guys
58:07
from the dorm and there was a pizza place right nearby that's
58:11
called the Sugar Bowl. And what they would do is they
58:14
would come to the lobby of the dorm and they would call you
58:17
from the downstairs phone and say Sugar Bowl in the lobby and
58:20
then hang up. So we called this guy Sugar Bowl
58:25
in the lobby, hang up. I got it.
58:27
And you can hear what I'm saying.
58:29
There's a guy named Mark. He's like, I didn't order Sugar
58:31
Bowl. And so like, waited about two
58:34
minutes, call back Sugar Bowl in the lobby, hang up.
58:40
You can hear him saying, I I didn't order a Sugar Bowl,
58:42
right? So then a couple minutes later,
58:45
go down to his his bedroom and just pound on the door.
58:49
And he opened the door and he looked so scared.
58:52
And there's a big laugh. So sound like a bully man.
58:57
No, we're, I mean, we would play gags on each other.
59:00
I was on the receiving end as much as I was on the giving end.
59:04
I don't know. So I, I I've always been more of
59:07
an introvert and I'm always curious as to is this something
59:10
that like you guys are sound like you're a little more
59:13
extrovert and especially at the younger ages maybe.
59:16
But were you always like that or is it like a learned skill?
59:19
Because I know there's a lot of introverts like me who are like,
59:21
I really don't like talking in front of people.
59:23
I do it because I kind of forced myself to do it.
59:25
But how did you, how did you get over that sort of that anxiety
59:29
or that fear? I'm Kristen.
59:31
What's your thought? I don't have that, so I'm happy
59:35
to stand up and talk in front of anybody.
59:37
Obviously, Identity Week, I had to know what I was talking
59:40
about. But I mean, from a pretty young
59:42
age, people are like, she's loud, she's got a face that does
59:46
a lot of things. We should put her on stage.
59:47
So I did like high school theatre.
59:51
I did some theatre after high school, and then I just needed
59:54
something. And so I found improv.
59:57
But one of the places I worked for a long time, they had a
1:00:01
postmaster's class. And so the Toastmaster people
1:00:05
were like, hey Kristen, we know you have an improv background.
1:00:07
You want to come do improv with the Toastmaster.
1:00:09
So Jeff, that's exactly what you're talking about.
1:00:12
So he would come during lunch and we would do games and we did
1:00:16
it for like 5 or 6 different sessions.
1:00:19
And by the end the the Toastmaster group was like, they
1:00:22
just would write the games on the board and would orchestrate
1:00:25
everything. And that's like go to
1:00:27
progression from like, you know, one of the warm up activities
1:00:31
with improv is in wordball, which is like, I'm just thinking
1:00:36
of a word and throwing it to you, right, like ball.
1:00:40
And people will stand there like, what's the word?
1:00:42
What's the word? I mean, what's the right word?
1:00:44
You're like, all you need to do is say another word.
1:00:48
So going from not being able to do that to like running all of
1:00:52
the improv games for Toastmasters, it was that was
1:00:55
amazing to see. So I got to see a lot of growth
1:00:58
and have improv really bring along that group.
1:01:02
So you're what I would call a natural, right you and been able
1:01:06
to do that. For me, it's been more of a
1:01:08
learned behavior, I guess. I mean, we do this podcast and
1:01:12
we talk to what millions of listeners every day, right?
1:01:14
I think that's where we're up to galactic level listenership and
1:01:18
I get on stage now. We do things like, you know, we
1:01:20
did Phyto Feud Gym where we were on stage.
1:01:22
That was a lot of fun. I think it's been something that
1:01:25
I've consciously tried to work on over the last probably five
1:01:28
years, maybe six years is this kind of get on there.
1:01:31
But I still find it extremely draining sometimes to be like,
1:01:34
OK, I could take a deep breath and be done.
1:01:38
I know there's a lot of people out there like that as well who
1:01:41
are kind of forcing themselves out of their comfort zone to do
1:01:43
that. So I'm always envious when I
1:01:44
hear like, oh, Kristen, she's a natural.
1:01:46
Yeah, just throw up there. She'll be fine.
1:01:50
All right, well, enough of the mutual admiration Society, let's
1:01:55
call it. Why don't we go ahead and wrap
1:01:56
it up for this week? Kristen, thank you so much for
1:01:59
your time. I really appreciate you taking
1:02:00
the taking out, you know, part of your busy day to talk with
1:02:03
us. I'm going to have a LinkedIn
1:02:05
profile connection for you in our show notes for people to
1:02:07
reach out to in case they have questions or comments or just
1:02:10
want to talk improv ideas maybe. So I'll have that in our show
1:02:14
notes. We'll also have all of our
1:02:15
discount codes in the show notes as well as they're always on our
1:02:19
homepage, idacpodcast.com. Just scroll right on down there
1:02:22
and you'll see everything we got active for the time.
1:02:25
Like and subscribe. Hit us up on the YouTube
1:02:27
channel, like and subscribe there.
1:02:28
Tell your friends, tell your enemies doesn't matter as long
1:02:30
as they like and subscribe. I don't care who they are.
1:02:33
And so with that, we'll go ahead and leave it for this week.
1:02:35
Thanks everyone for watching and or listening and we'll talk with
1:02:38
y'all in the next one. You've been listening to
1:02:43
Identity at the Center. We hope you've enjoyed the show.
1:02:47
Make sure to like, rate and review, and we'll be back soon.
1:02:51
But in the meantime, hit the website at
1:02:53
identity@thecenter.com. See you next time on Identity at
1:03:00
the Center.