Latest / The Modern Hotelier / #327: Designing Unparalleled Hospitality Experiences | with Janice Wilson, Founder of Menizei
Transcript
- The Modern Hotelier #327: Designing Unparalleled Hospitality Experiences | with Janice Wilson, Founder of Menizei === David Millili: Welcome to the Modern Hotelier, the most engaged podcast in hospitality. Don't forget to follow, like, subscribe and let us know in the comments what you think about today's episode. Steve, who do we have on the program? Steve Carran: Yeah, David. Good one today. We have on Janice Wilson, the founder of Menzai and Territory. Thanks for joining us, Janice. How you doing today? Janice Wilson: I'm doing fantastic, and thank you for having me. David Millili: All right, so we're gonna dive in. We're gonna go through a lightning round. We're gonna get to know your background, your career, and then dive into some industry thought leadership topics. Sound good? Janice Wilson: Sounds amazing. David Millili: All right, so when you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up? Janice Wilson: Storm, a Marvel character. David Millili: Okay. Janice Wilson: She's the chick that whipped up those tornadoes. David Millili: Yeah. All right. What's something that you wish you were better at? Janice Wilson: Sleeping. David Millili: () What's a luxury you can't live without? Janice Wilson: A bidet. If you know, you know. David Millili: All right. Give us a person dead or alive that you'd like to take to lunch. Janice Wilson: I'm gonna go with Genghis Khan. David Millili: Okay. All right. And what's something that's on your bucket list? Janice Wilson: Oh, always the next project. David Millili: Okay, great. Steve Carran: Love it. Love it. So now we're gonna dive into your background, a little bit about what makes you tick. So you are a fellow cheesehead. You grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin. How did growing up in Green Bay shape you into who you are today? Janice Wilson: Well, not at all. I was born there, but I don't even know if I spent a year there. My family was on the move. I moved maybe 14 times before going off to undergrad. And so yeah, I don't have really any memories of where I lived. Little glimpses here and there until, you know, elementary school. Yeah. Steve Carran: Sure. So where'd you, like, go to elementary school and kinda where'd you all live, and do you have a favorite? Janice Wilson: Unfortunately, the travels weren't very exotic. It was, all Midwest, so South Dakota, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee. Like not really, you know, travel inspo. Although there are pockets, right, anywhere you go in the world. But I would say the act, right, of moving on a consistent basis and having to adapt to different scenarios, different schools, I went to three different high schools, teaches you something about resilience. Steve Carran: You bet. David Millili: And so what led you to Washington University in St. Louis and then Columbia Law School? Janice Wilson: Yeah, WashU, St. Louis was the last city that my family had moved to before I went off to school. The full scholarship, of course, helped, and to have a phenomenal education. And then Columbia Law, I really picked where I wanted to live. I think I wanted to really get out of the Midwest and broaden those horizons. So going to Columbia Law was more about going to New York City than it was the school itself. Steve Carran: That's fair. So I understand you had a pretty impressive dance career. Can you tell us how you got into that and more about it? Janice Wilson: Yeah. When I went to New York for Columbia, I actually dropped out of law school for a hot second to dance. I had won an American competition. I was the American Lindy Hop champion. And a musician that you may or may not know, Wynton Marsalis, happened to see that competition and asked me to go on a tour. And at that moment, I dropped out of law school and yeah, spent about three or four years dancing. Michael Buble was someone else that I had toured with. So yeah, it was a lot of fun. Steve Carran: What an experience. Very cool. So now we're gonna dive into your career, how you ended up at Menizei and Territori. So you went from law to, and real estate to building Arjuni. Is, did I pronounce that correctly? Janice Wilson: Yeah. Really killing these pronunciations. Steve Carran: Thank you. Thank you. I'm trying. So that was a socially conscious hair company in Cambodia, and you also helped shape the country's emerging e-commerce system. What pulled you there, and what did those early days teach you that you still take with you today? Janice Wilson: Oof. I did go back to law school and finish. That was-- I realized quickly that a dancer's salary was not gonna pay back that law school debt. And my focus was real estate, and contractual law. So that background from going from, you know, my first early days working in the law firm and then working in a boutique real estate development firm, is what sort of transitioned me into real estate development. So yeah, when I went to Cambodia, it was for a vacation. It was a vacation that turned into a 10-year adventure. And yeah, when I was there, I had met some locals that were interested in doing an interesting hotel development, and that was 2008, which, you may remember as not the best time to start an ambitious project. So that promptly went nowhere, but we ended up doing some reuse around Cambodia of spaces that had been impacted by the recession. And so from that work, the World Bank approached me about bringing a new sort of industry to Cambodia. At that time, it was highly reliant on, you know, apparel and clothing. And so yeah, I genuinely went to Google, and I was like, "What are recession-proof industries?" And drugs came up, of course, which was a no-go, and coffee, which I didn't know the first thing about. I'm not a coffee drinker. And vanity was the third. So I embarked on a journey of manufacturing hair and, yeah, it became Cambodia's first e-commerce company. We became the first social enterprise in Southeast Asia. So yeah, we helped women that were extracted from self-trafficking, find sustainable employment. So it was a very challenging environment, but a very rewarding one. And I think in terms of something that I took away that still stays with me, perseverance is definitely one. Creativity I think is another. When you're dealing, you know, Cambodia is known for being one of the more corrupt countries, and so to be able to do business in that sort of environment, and not having significant financial resources, gotta be creative about how you get a business off the ground. Steve Carran: You're back. Wow. David Millili: Okay. So after Cambodia, you made a major pivot into engineering, moving through Amazon Devices, HashiCorp, Smartsheet, and Amazon S3. So what drove that shift, and what did working on S3 teach you about building teams and systems at scale? Janice Wilson: There was a lot in that question. So yeah, I, you know, Arjuni did quite well. We were featured in a number of publications and from there, there was a lot of interest from both China and India and, you know, significantly more financial resources than I had. So I did sell the assets of Arjuni and I really thought, you know, what is next? I think being part of Southeast Asia in that time period between 2008 and 2016, there was this real energy around entrepreneurship. And I would compete on weekends. I would travel to Singapore, to Thailand, what were called startup weekends, where you would have an idea and then you would try to, you know, form a group based on that pitch and try to actually code it up and build a prototype that you would then compete with. And so I was always the idea chick, and I was always frustrated that I wasn't the build it myself chick. And so I figured after, after having sold Arjuni, I thought, well, you know, I would just go to a beach in Bali and teach myself how to code. That was very naive. Luckily, I found a program called Ada Developers Academy, which was a year-long program. It was sort of this crash course for computer science, and through that program, I was able to get my first internship at Amazon and the rest there is history in terms of software engineering. Steve Carran: Very cool. And today you actually lead engineering at Apollo GraphQL, and you also founded Menizei and Territori. Can you share a little bit more about Menizei and Territori as well? Janice Wilson: Yeah. So Menizei, you know, I've always been interested in real estate development. I think if there's one thread through my very checkered life, it's that. And I live a very minimalist lifestyle, I would say. And my husband and I, doing well working at Amazon, we were sitting on a floor with a mattress, and our TV was actually on a cooler. And, you know, my husband was just like, "Are we gonna be sleeping on a mattress on a floor, like, when we're 50, 60? Like, what are we doing here?" And I was like, "Yeah, good point. You know, at some point, maybe we should try adulting here." And so that inspired our first joint venture of, you know, trying to find something that we were both interested in. My husband had not been involved in sort of any business ventures previously. And we both really love camping. And dispersed camping is our favorite, where you can really get off grid. You know, none of the usual amenities are available. It is what you make. And so there were a lot of things that we loved about dispersed camping, but there were things that we missed, right? When you're doing a brutal day hike, you want a shower afterward. So we thought about what would it be like to create our ideal campground where you have that privacy and that isolation, you have that full immersion in nature, but at the same time, you have a bidet. Steve Carran: Yeah. Absolutely. Sign me up. Your minimalist lifestyle sounds like my first apartment in Washington, D.C., I tell you. So, with Menizei, can you tell us a little bit about it? Like how many, different. Do you have tents? Is it cabins? Tell us a little bit more about it. Janice Wilson: Yeah, it's three base camps, and each base camp has, like, a tent, that's, I would call it the equivalent of a one-bedroom. And then each base camp also comes with its own bathhouse, and that bathhouse has, you know, the usual luxuries, the bidet, the aforementioned bidet, the shower, heated floors, and of course, a sauna that's custom-built for two. Steve Carran: Wow. And you're right by a state park, aren't you? Janice Wilson: We are right by Olympic National Park. We are 15 minutes north. Steve Carran: Very nice. Great location. So now we're gonna dive into the thought leadership part of the podcast. So Afar just used the bathroom as the benchmark for the future of hotel luxury. Properties it picked up were at Ned, Nomad, St. Regis, Four Seasons, and also Menizei. Can you tell us, on The Modern Hotelier, what is the modern, what is a modern hotelier, and do you think you qualify as one? Janice Wilson: Yeah, it depends, right? It depends on what your definition is of a modern hotelier. I think it's interesting the direction of some of the more, you know, popular, well-known travel publications in that they're not indexing on category type, but rather on experience. And I think that lends to what a modern hotelier is today. You know, if you are, you know, indexing on rooms or operations, whether or not there's a restaurant, you may be missing the evolution of what a hotelier is. If you're instead indexing on guest transformation and experience, I think that's the new accountability, right? That's the new responsibility of a hotelier is, is you are making the promise of a transformation that is packaged as a stay. David Millili: That's great. So you worked at the forefront of AI infrastructure and managed Amazon's S3's request and control planes, yet you argue that the category trumps data. So why should hoteliers stop leading with data, and how did you design Menizei to escape glamping comp set? Janice Wilson: Yeah, I have to start by saying, right, I'm not a Luddite. I am a software engineer. I have-- I am not anti-data. But I think there's a time and a place, right, for utilizing data. Data is inherently reactive. It captures what is already in existence, and if you really want to create a category of one destination, you need to move beyond what is already present. And so I think by figuring out, you know, what is that unique perception that your destination can solely own, right, in the minds of prospective guests, then you've got that opportunity to create that experience that only you can offer. So that's why I would say category trumps data. When you're thinking along category lines, you're thinking along, you know, what are those moats that either you bring to the project, that your property brings to the project, that the history of the parcel brings to the project, that can't be easily replicated by other destinations? Steve Carran: Sure. So kind of a follow-up on that and diving a little deeper, what do you think category creation can achieve that data can't? And if I'm a hotelier, What's a first move I can make when I come into work tomorrow morning? Janice Wilson: So yeah, I think with regard to data, you know, everyone, especially now, right, in the age of AI, has access to the same sort of comp set, the same sort of amenities, the same sort of, you know, storytelling. And so if you rely only on what's been created, you can't help but have this sort of crisis of sameness where everyone's data sets are the same, and so the projects begin to look and feel the same. And I think if you lean into category design and really hunt for that experience, right, that transformation that only you can offer, when you are, when you release the shackles of data, right, and start to really get into creativity, and again, that analysis, right, of what are the moats that you uniquely have that can't be easily copied, then I think you can get into the territory of offering something that no one else can. If you were a hotelier coming in the next morning, what's something you could do? I think it would be interesting, right? Like pull up a competitor's website and compare it to your own, and see how much of the verbiage is the same. Like on your website, cross out everything, right, that is on your competitor's website. And if there's anything left, right, those are your moats. Those are the things to index on. If there's nothing left, yeah, you might wanna find something that's gonna be a differentiator. Steve Carran: And that's especially important, especially in the world of AI, how people are finding hotels. Those unique attributes are what people are looking for and what travelers are now searching for when they are looking for hotels. So I agree 100%. Well said. David Millili: () So you lead AI work for some of the largest players in travel, and you also run your own property. So what's on their list that a lifestyle operator never has to think about, and where is the white space for a lifestyle operator? Janice Wilson: Yeah. I mean, the issue is always scale, right? And when you're talking about the larger brands, there are just considerations around scale that a lifestyle operator such as myself doesn't have to worry about. And a lot of those have to do with, you know, there's a lot of agentic fails of rogue agents doing things that you did not anticipate them doing. And so if you've got, you know, hundreds of employees, you're really concerned about, you know, what agents are accessing what, you know, what intel, what data. And so, there's a lot of effort around providing this sort of governance layer for the larger hotels. There's a lot of concerns, right, around cost. I mean, I think we all know, the economics currently of AI and the understanding, right, that the cost of these tokens is being heavily subsidized. And when you're at that level of scale and you've got hundreds of employees that are using agents, that are leveraging agents, then the cost per turn, as we like to say, becomes very important in minimizing that cost. I think there's also just, you know, the layers of bureaucracy, right, to get permissions to be able to be agile in this space and to experiment. When you're a big brand, you feel very, it's very urgent, right, to protect that brand. And so you want eyes on all the experiments that are happening and how you're being presented, in the world. And the last thing I would say along those same lines is, is the fact, right, that AI is non-deterministic. And when you're a brand and you need consistency across hundreds of properties, you're sort of fighting against what AI is. You're trying to make the non-deterministic deterministic, and that in itself, right, is a full-time gig. It's a full-time gig for several folks. David Millili: Right. Steve Carran: You bet. Janice Wilson: There are concerns, right? I mean, even as a lifestyle operator, I don't know if you all heard about the bereavement fee that was offered from a, I think it was Canada Air, where someone was talking with a chatbot and asked for a bereavement fare and, you know, they got some ludicrous price of like $3, and the court upheld that, "No, that is... You are gonna honor that price." And so, you know, as lifestyle operators, right, we are of course concerned that if we put a chatbot on our website, that we're not gonna get some-- we're not gonna book out, you know, three or four properties at $2 a night. So there's still that concern of, you know, providing the right guardrails around AI. But the blast radius is smaller and, you know, being lifestyle operators, having that agility, being nimble, we've got more room, and less bureaucracy to just go out and experiment. And You know, when if you go back to the concept of scale, you know, if you're going to a big brand, whatever you implement, they want that to be implemented across hundreds of properties. And so you lose the ability to really customize per property. But as a lifestyle operator, we don't have those sort of shackles, right? Those sort of constraints. I mean, we have, you know, 10, 12, different units, and it becomes very easy to customize per property what that experience looks like. So I think there's a lot of, a lot of advantages. I mean, just being able to optimize, you know, your digital assets for AI is something that a lifestyle operator can do very, very quickly. Whereas, you know, a big brand, it would take time, to optimize all of those digital assets across all of their properties. So there's-- You know, Menizei is still baby and new, but, but if you were to search in Washington State or for Olympic National Park, you know, we're ahead of some very heavy hitters just because of that, that agility. Steve Carran: Absolutely. And along those lines of agility, you're not following the traditional roadmap for technology in a property. You're pretty much dismantling Menizei's SaaS tech stack and rebuilding it around one destination. Can you tell us more about that? And I also am curious, like, what you gain by doing that, and also kind of some of the disadvantages of doing that as well. Janice Wilson: Yeah. I mean, disadvantages are it's hard. Steve Carran: Yeah. Janice Wilson: You know, e- yeah, even with AI, even with my background, you know, that first 80% is fun. It's the creative stage, it's the imagination. You know, being able to reimagine, right, what that digital experience is leading into the physical experience is fun. But then you, you know, when you hit that last 20% and you're having to deal with migrations, you're having to do with, you know, threat analysis, making sure, I mean, you're handling folks' money, and so you wanna make sure that your system is robust, that it's secure. None of that is fun. So even though I think AI makes the conception and the code is there, is generated, right, for that, it's that last 20% that takes a lot of work. And there's the ongoing maintenance, right? I mean, I do think that agents are equipped, right, to monitor your code base and to alert when there are vulnerabilities, but there's ongoing responsibilities in terms of operation maintenance when you do create your own thing. Still think it's worth it. You know, when you're a big brand and you've got-- you need something to work across hundreds of properties, and that's the same sort of mentality, right? That a SaaS vendor has. They want something that's gonna work for the masses, not for the few, otherwise they're not able to scale. You're basically building for the lowest common denominator, and if you're building a category of one stay, more likely than not, you're not gonna be that common denominator. And there's a lot of, you know, hoops and twists and turns and, you know, that you have to conform yourself to, to be able to fit, that common denominator. And then ultimately, I think it ends up, um, diluting, you know, the category of one experience that you are able to offer. So it's a lot of work. You know, I won't sugarcoat that. Even with AI, it's a lot of work. But I think if you really want to reinforce, right, the differentiators that you have as an operator, it's definitely worth exploring. Steve Carran: And it's a one-of-a-kind guest experience too. So you're building something that nobody else has. I think that's awesome. David Millili: And so along those lines, I've been hearing it for years. So the hospitality industry talks endlessly about storytelling. So why do most hotel narratives fail to become compelling guest journeys, and how can intentional friction make a stay more memorable? Janice Wilson: Yeah. Lots there. It is, it has become a bit of a bromide, right, in the industry of like, you've got to tell a story, and then it just kind of stops there. It's like, well, how do you tell a story and what types of stories are the ones that resonate? And I think, you know, a lot of hoteliers focus on telling a story to their guest rather than making the guest a part of that story. And, you know, the stories that resonate the most, right, are the ones that are a transformation, right? There's some sort of rite of passage. And, you know, there's no-- If there's no friction, if there's no sort of hardship and then your heroine or your hero goes on to achieve something, we're not really invested, we're not impressed. And so if you think about going through those rites of passage, right, and you think about each of those sort of, yeah, each of those sort of journey, right, the phases, right, of each of those journeys. There's a little bit of friction at the beginning, right? You're typically separating yourself from something that you've always known. You're typically, there's this phase of liminality, right? Where you're, you're not really sure where you are, and you're not really sure where you're gonna end up. And then when you do get to that final attainment, it's like, wow. I mean, a great example, right, is Luke Skywalker. I mean, you know, is Luke, is he gonna leave the planet, you know, Tatooine? Is he gonna, you know, without his hand being cut off by his father? You know, are we gonna really be invested when he becomes a Jedi? And so that's, that's what you gotta think of, right? And it's different from, you know, transformational friction is very different than transactional friction, right? I'm not talking about make it really hard to book your hotel. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about, you know, with Menizei, you know, we specifically chose not to have a car parked next to the base camps. We wanted folks to go through a forest. There's a technique that Frank Lloyd Wright uses called, compress and release. And so the trails are, like, specifically narrow. You feel uncomfortable. You can't really see around the corner. You don't know what's next. And you're on this dirt trail, and then when you finally arrive to your destination, it's like an exhale, right? You're like, "Oh, okay, this thing is real." You know, I haven't, I haven't-- There wasn't an AI agent that was hallucinating. And so yeah, it's creating these moments of, like, tension, friction, like intentionally introducing those. But, but you can't reduce those without having the payoff in the end. David Millili: Well, that's probably our first "Star Wars" reference. That's pretty cool. Steve Carran: I know. That's great. So I have a question for you. You've like, you've kind of went from entrepreneurship to technology, and now you're-- you've started two new companies. What advice would you have to somebody who's looking to get into owning a hotel or starting their own hotel? Janice Wilson: Yeah. Start with design sooner than you think and specifically category design. I think folks, you know, you're at the point you've already acquired the land, you've already started potentially thinking about unit types, you know, whether or not it's, the sort of, analyzing among like the existing category types in the hospitality space. And if you are thinking in terms of category, you're using that framework even as you're evaluating, land to purchase and even as you're evaluating, you know, what are the unit types that you're gonna go after. So I think that's the... You know, a lot of folks think I've got my land, I've got, you know, I know what my unit type is gonna be, I know number of units, I know how I'm gonna position those units. And then they get to design and at that point, design becomes an amenity and not part of, the conviction of the transformation that you offer your guests. Steve Carran: Well said. Well Janice, we've been asking you questions this whole time. This is where we turn the tables and let you ask David and I a question. Janice Wilson: Just one question? Steve Carran: You can do two if you want. Janice Wilson: So question number one, I mean, you two have been in the evolution of hotel tech, from the development all the way through the sales cycle. So I am curious to hear your opinion. In the age of AI, who do you think, what vendors do you think are most vulnerable, and how do they maintain relevancy in this era? Steve Carran: What a question. What a question. I'll take, I'll start with this one. It's kinda funny when I got into selling PMSs, mobile check-in was a part of a thing, and I had so many hoteliers tell me, "Nobody's ever gonna want mobile check-in." And then COVID happened, and they called back and said, "We need mobile check-in." And now it's a pretty common practice. So seeing the evolution of not only that, but how AI, I think, you know, these antiquated system, more of the legacy systems that aren't gonna incorporate AI, are gonna fall behind. I think there's-- I've talked to three to four startup companies this week that have kind of all-in-one platforms that all focus around AI. I mean, it's the PMS, it's the CRS, it's the RMS, it's housekeeping, it's everything. So there are gonna be more of these systems, I think, that come up and, you know, we, I think we're gonna see quite a few, but I think the ones that do it best are gonna be the ones that stick around. Hoteliers have been asking for all-in-one system for a long time, and one that can scale as well. There are all-in-one systems out there, but ones that can scale for larger properties, things like that, and bigger portfolios. So I think we're gonna, that's gonna be the thing that I'm most excited to see is who's gonna be the winner of the all-in-one system that can be implemented in a hotel and also scale with larger hotels, hotels with 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 rooms that can use an all-in-one system. So I think that's gonna be, that's what I'm watching right now. Janice Wilson: Okay. David Millili: So I'll take a little bit of a different stab. So I, fortunate or unfortunate, I'm the old guy, so I was here when the internet took off, and nobody knew what that was gonna mean. Nobody knew, like hoteliers, I was on property. So to me, this was kinda similar. People were kinda like a wait and see, like, is this AI stuff real? Is it... How are we gonna use it? And now, you know, I just went to a baseball game with a friend, and he's like: "Yeah, I'm writing code with AI and sending it to my engineers to implement." He's not an engineer. So for me, I would say either what Steve said or the fact that AI is gonna enable these integrations that have been so difficult for the industry for all these years, and that's gonna be the game changer. 'Cause the biggest challenge is all-in-one or best of breed. And so I think the legacy companies that are big, if they don't adopt AI in the right way, and not just use it to reduce their cost and their head count, they're the ones I would be nervous about because there's all these up-and-coming guys that are gonna eat their lunch, because they're just, they're agile, they're nimble, they're thinking about things differently. They're not thinking about a check-in, going back to Steve's point, they're not checking about a, thinking about a check-in in 1999. They're thinking about a check-in in 2027, 2028, how that's gonna be different. So I think it's these bigger legacy companies that are gonna have challenges as we move forward. Janice Wilson: Agreed. Okay, I've got a fun one. David Millili: Bonus question. Janice Wilson: So, you know, let's just pretend that Modern Hotelier was going to create their first conference. What would you immediately get rid of? Like, in terms of, like, establishing your own category, what would you do away with, and what would you replace that with? Like, what would be your moat for your conference? Steve Carran: Man, you're gonna make us give away our secret on the podcast here? Man, I tell you, somebody's gonna— David Millili: We'll edit— Steve Carran: Up, and yeah. David, I'm gonna let you take this one first since I went first last time. David Millili: Yeah, for me it's, I think what would be unique about what we would do is it would be a lot more about the networking than the selling. And what I mean by that is there's so many of these events that are big, there's all these booths, it's kind of just rinse and repeat. You feel like you wouldn't know. So it's the same idea as when you go to a branded hotel and you're inside a room, you wouldn't know if you're inside, you're in New York City or you're in Tokyo or you're in Madrid. I think what we would do, however we would do it, and again, very good point by Steve, we can't give away our secrets, but we would do something very, very unique and make it much more about the education and the networking of it. And I would do away with these big, big, booths 'cause it's just everybody trying to, you know, it, it's, a lot of it comes down to ego, like, "Oh, I got this, you know, 40 by 40 booth." And it's like, really? But did you get any ROI? So that would be, for me it would be how do we do something that generates ROI for the people that are attending or exhibiting, either way. So not a lot of detail there. Steve Carran: Yeah. No, I agree with David. Like, one of the reasons we started this podcast is we wanted to really get to know people before we hear about, you know, their industry thoughts, things like that, and I think that would be what the show is about. There was this really cool sales conference. It was focused on sales. It was called Surfin' Sales, and they would, the owner of it would, they'd go to, like, an island, Costa Rica, something like that, like someplace maybe in the Caribbean, and they would do, you know, learning and stuff like that, but it was a small group, and then they'd go surfing afterwards, and people really got to know people. You know, it wasn't just focused on, you know, the education content is great, but that was really all about the people as well and getting to know people. So I agree with David 100%. It would be a lot more about the people, as well, and really incorporating that. Great bonus question, though. Janice Wilson: When that happens, please do invite me. I'll be the first one to sign up. Steve Carran: Deal. We're gonna hold you to that. Holding you to that. So Janice, this has been a ton of fun. Our producer Jon has been listening the whole time, so we're gonna kick it over to him for one final question before we get you outta here. Janice Wilson: Hello, John. Jon Bumhoffer: Hello. I've loved listening to the conversation, and we hear so much about AI and data and the need for all that stuff, and I think your perspective is really interesting talking about how over-relying on that maybe could be a disadvantage at some points. And so, I'm curious, what stays or experiences have you had that kind of inspired you, where you left saying, "That was so unique. That's like a one-of-a-kind thing. I think this is the way to go," kinda leading into category design? Is there anything that kind of sparked your journey down that road? Janice Wilson: There are a few Airbnbs that I think were, you know, the host themselves had a special collection, or I remember this one that had this, this very odd Victorian collection and you stayed, and it was kind of like this haunted Victorian. Just the vibe was a little spooky. And I just remember the experience, right, of being immersed in something was just completely different than my, than my everyday experience, and I never forgot, like, just stepping into that space, like you just felt weird. And maybe that's not great. That's not the transformation that you're going after, but the impact of that, right, of there being an actual transition from your everyday into something that you would never think to create for yourself, I think is a lot of fun. I am genuinely influenced a lot by Frank Lloyd Wright. I think the way that he crafts spaces, I mean, he was very adamant, right, about creating spaces that humans had to live up to. And I think thinking about structures as actually shaping the experiences that humans have is definitely inspirational to me. Jon Bumhoffer: Very cool. Yeah, it's like stepping into a whole new world. I think that's a really, really cool. Janice Wilson: Yeah. Steve Carran: And I gotta say one thing, you said you weren't shaped by Wisconsin, but Frank Lloyd Wright is also a fellow Wisconsinite as well, so I think there's a little tie right there, to be honest with you. Janice Wilson: I'll buy that. I will buy that. David Millili: All right, Steve busted you. All right, well, Steve Carran: I know my Wisconsin trivia. You got, Janice Wilson: always a cheesehead, Steve Carran: it. You got it. David Millili: All right. Well, that does it for another episode of The Modern Hotelier. Janice, this is where you get to let people know how they can get in touch with you, find out more about your companies, your property, so plug away. Janice Wilson: Yeah. I am easily found on LinkedIn and come sign up for, if you wanna check out the experiments that I'm doing, you can find them at wlsn.studio. And if anyone's ever up for a jam session, I'm here for it. David Millili: That's great. Well, that does it for another episode of The Modern Hotelier, the most engaged podcast in hospitality. Whether you're watching or listening, we appreciate you and hope to be with you again soon. Thanks, Janice. Janice Wilson: Thank you. Steve Carran: Thank you.