Session Transcript:

How can people be more heroic?

And that's as simple as, how can they stand up in a meeting and say something that's for the first time in their lives.

How can they go to the CEO and say, We'd like the last presentation, We're going to make a multi-year journey on Enterprise architecture to transfer from where we currently are, which is kind of a mess to where we want to be, which is data driven on the cloud, having taken care of all those capabilities.

That's a big step to walk up to your CEO or CIO and say, I need a lot of money, and I need a lot of time, and I need some tools, right?

That's a big thing you get up and do that, could be career making break. So that's kind of been a hero. So it's all about in that dimension about being heroes. So now I wanna, I wanna back up a little bit and give you a real more visceral example, at least what I think is a more visceral example and a shorter term example of what it looks like.

When a human being can actually find themselves in a mess with other human beings, finding themselves in a mess, all of the human beings evolved what it took, one, all human beings in this situation want to do the right thing.

They have to have the technology to support them to be able to do that.

So I'm going to take you through a little bit of a journey, so that journey starts.

I needed to make a transition, and this isn't really all about my transition, but it made. it will make the point. I needed to make a transition from the Navy through business school, into the business world. I wanted to go be an executive in the business world.

Think I would have tied my tie tighter than this guy did.

But anyway, I wanted to be an executive in the business world, but there was one huge problem in order for me to graduate to get out of business school. I went to school in the UK in order for me to get out of business school.

I had to write these long term answers to these questions, so it didn't matter whether I knew anything or not.

I still had to write these long term answers and I'm left-handed.

So what that means, if you left handed person, you know what that means. It means when you write, you get ink all over the side of your hand and you blur it all across the page.

So, even in the, in the remote case that I had something brilliant to say, it would have looked like a child wrote it because my handwriting was was going to be sloppy and incl over the page.

And my mother who at the time did not have a lot of financial resources to be able to do this.

She bought me a fountain pen, and the reason she bought me a fountain pen, as I told her I was worried about taking these exams.

A fountain pen has water based pink, and that water based ink absorbs fast enough and a little detail for you but low tech, in this case, right?

That water basic absorbs into the paper the exam books fast enough that I can actually write not cover my hand in ink and smeared all over the page.

I promise. There's a reason.

I brought up this story.

I then took this pen to an antique dealer in downtown London in a place called Graze Market Grays Antique market, which is still there.

And this 85 year old man engraved my name on that little gold stamp. And remember, this is at a time in my life where I barely had enough money for, you know, anything nicer than the fast food meal. I was paying for school.

Anyway, he had engrave my name on this pin.

Then he died, so a few years later, this guy is no longer alive.

So this pen is important to me, right?

Anyway, roll forward many years, so, I was much younger man at that point, roll forward, many years.

Go by, and my wife and I now live in Denver, Colorado.

So, we took one weekend, we decided we'd go seek out hot Springs because my wife is Japanese, she loves hot springs sort of life.

There happens to be a town in the mountains in Colorado called Pagosa Springs and this is the Pagosa Springs, it's been there for quite a few years.

It has about 20 different tubs they're really nice rooms and OK, rooms. We stayed in OK. Right, which was nice but you know different tier of money. Well, here's their promotional picture, right so beautiful, absolutely beautiful place.

So my wife and I had a couple of great days in this in this resort.

You get up in the morning, and the sun is coming up and you're sitting in. The hot water is fantastic. Really a beautiful thing.

And, yeah, like I said, we didn't stay in the fancy rooms, but you're not in the room all the time. Anyway, you're in the hot spring.

Well, then, we get in the car to leave. We're gonna go out of the building.

And something really horrible happens.

We load all the stuff in the back of our car, or we're going to drive back to Denver that six hours to drive back to Denver.

And you see that bed in the picture.

Well, that's not what the bad looked like when I left the room.

Apparently, I left my backpack on the bed in the room.

And I didn't know that until six hours later when I drove back to Denver and that's, I don't know, 250 miles or something back to Denver.

And I thought, ah, geez, I get out of the car. I'm first, of course, I'm running around saying, where's the backpack? Where's the backpack?

And it's gone, right? And then I realized I somehow left it on the bed in the room.

Well, OK, you've left things in a hotel, both, before, probably, hopefully, nothing like this bag, but you've left fixed and helped him. So, I immediately call the manager, the hotel, and this was sliding into a weekend.

So I immediately called the manager in the hotel, and I said, I actually got the front desk, and I said, I've left a bag in the room.

Could you please pull it aside and I'll figure out whether, you know, you can FedEx it to me or ship it, or I'll throw out, whatever, anyway.

And so they said, OK, well, we'll go check, House, Cat Housekeeping is close for the day, so we'll go check housekeeping.

And, uh, then they called me back.

And they said, we don't have it back left in your room.

So oh no, not sure, it's on the bit.

And then I started to question myself, and my church on the bed.

or did I leave it somewhere? Oh, I'm sure, Legend on the day, we didn't know anything.

You go through that process, it's on the bed, it's gone.

But she says, we'll call, it will let you know and housekeeping comes back to work tomorrow morning because someone probably just put it off on a shelf someplace and didn't give it just OK.

So my heart, you know, kinda calms down again this back somebody explain why I'm worried about this bet.

And this bag is my Mac book.

The Mac book has the manuscript to this book on the Mac book, and all my most recent changes that have not been synchronized with the cloud, it has my iPad. It has a camera component, a whole bunch of stuff in this bag.

I added up the value of this backpack, it was insane, and I was obviously really concerned about that.

So she's going to call me back when the housekeeping staff comes in.

Housekeeping stuff comes back in.

And they say, we don't have your back.

And we've spoken to all of the housekeeping people in the hotel.

And I said, well, if someone uses a key card, you get into the room, can you tell who's Keycard that is?

And they said, well, yeah, maybe.

So they checked.

And this is kind of how a manager felt.

He's listening to me on top.

The bottom, these feel in, this isn't a picture manager, he's feeling like, I don't know what to do. The housekeeping staff don't know, Don't. There's no idea what your baggage, et cetera.

And of course, I'm 300 miles or 250 miles away, really worried about it.

So at this point, I realized, OK, they've done everything they can.

They've asked all the right people, I'm going to have to file a police report to call the insurance company.

No, no church isn't going to replace a manuscript of a book you're writing. That's a nightmare.

Anyway, so I did that. I call the police. I said, Well I've been I've talked to the police and file a police report.

And this is where the story gets interesting.

Turns out the history of this particular hotel was started by a man who was a formula one racer.

And apparently he wasn't as good a formula one racer as he was a drug dealer.

So that guy was a mediocre formula. one race here. And this is right near New Mexico, by the way, on the border of New Mexico, where Breaking Bad, if you haven't seen that show was filmed, which is all about drug dealers. So turns out, long ago, the original, the origin of this hotel, was that this drug dealer, and started this hotel.

And the, that guy had sort of set a theme that they didn't want to talk to the police. Well, that was the earlier part of the hotel. The hotel has changed, the management has changed that people have changed, but that's the history, and I'm hearing this history.

The policeman says to me, look, I'll stop by but I don't have really high hopes here. Right. Because he had been a policeman for a long time, and he's now retired. And he was part-time.

So now my heart goes down again. Right. I think, oh, gee, so this is what, I'm, what have I gotten myself into.

So I don't hear this couple of days, go by, or anything, and the police is going to speak to, only work once, works one day a week.

So he says, well, I'm going to be off for the next four weeks or something.

My back, of course, was the computer is involved in this, so I decide the right thing to do would be to whenever the electronic stuff is gone, I'm sure that's going to be sent off to a **** shop.

But maybe maybe I can get back my fountain pen, which is in the bag, right? The fountain pen that got me through graduate school that was engraved by a man. There's no longer alive in a market that's been there since the 17 hundreds.

And I am not going to go out and replace that I couldn't write. So I called, went to the phone book, and I called all of the antique stores in town. But it turns out I didn't have to go that far, actually.

The third antique store, I called, said, yeah. No.

My husband's a policeman, and he's sitting right here.

It turns out the woman in the antique store was married to the same policeman, who was no longer working that day, because he was a part-time, So anyway, he's working to get to the hotel, and time is ticking. Right? stuff is going back.

So then I find out that the Pog local pawnshop, had somebody come in, and tried, because I call the **** shop, or the antique store, said the ... **** shop had called them.

So here's a human trying to be hero.

The **** shop owner says, this isn't right. This guy is selling stuff that is clearly not yes. So, he calls all the antique stores, not exactly a high-tech solution. But it calls all the antique stores to warn them.

So I call the Pawnshop and it turns out, mister Shifty tries to sell stuff all the time in ponds stores, and obviously is not to, above board.

He came in with his girlfriend and tried to sell this TV and pass it off as a $5000 brand-new, whatever TV, the manager of the Bond Shop said, that is not a new 5000 GP, and they threw him out, but he was trying to sell electronics too.

Sounds good.

So, I go on Facebook, and I find the name of, the, They gave me the name of the person.

So, I got the name of the person who tried to sell the items, and it found out where she went to high school.

She went to high school, not far from there.

Then, I found out, she got a shady background.

So I call it the hotel, and I said, Hey, I think I gotta lead for you.

Does this person work at your hotel?

And the person who answered the phone, Again, lacking quick technology said, there's so many people who work it in, the housekeeping staff is going to take me a lot of time to figure it out.

Brian, they were really trying hard. The front desk, people were really trying to help me, but the technology wasn't there to be able to do it.

So the time is ticking by and now I think I have a suspect, but I got nothing.

She calls me back the next morning and says that person doesn't work for the hotel.

So now I'm, I'm kind of writing this off. I'm going to the Apple store. I'm going to have to buy myself a new computer. Don't know what I'm going to do about my book.

Anyway, So, time goes by that I'm sitting on the only couch in the house.

And I hear Ping.

I'm like, what the **** is that?

Well, I don't know if you've used this, but thank Tim Cook, the men and women at Apple who built that feature called Find My Phone.

So, on the screen, my computer pops up.

Your Mac book.

Isn't the parking lot of the Grossest Springs in hotel, this is like four days into this nightmare, right? I'm jumping up and down. I'm like, This is so exciting. That technology is now told me where my MacBook Pro sitting and narratives, that's actually the picture from my phone. So, I'm thrilled, I think, Great, I'll call the hotel. I'll tell the hotel what to do. Now, which I think, Sunday, I remember this correctly.

So Sunday comes, and I call the hotel.

Well, guess what normal manager I've been talking to who's not working on Sundays.

So I got churn gets on the phone.

This is not Sharon's picture, but Sharon is the Spall Manager.

Sharon, he's very good at making you feel relaxed and comfortable, and feel good in the spot, because that's what you pay someone to do in the spot.

So in the nicest possible voice, she says to me, Well, we've looked in the parking lot.

And we don't see a math book.

Well, I don't think she meant it that way. Of course, you don't see the back door in the parking lot, right? It's in somebody's car.

But she wants to be a hero. And can't be what she's going to do. Go out and make everybody open the trunk of the car in the parking lot of the hotel, no. It doesn't work like that. So now she's frustrated. She's really trying to help me.

And, and unfortunately, that, that's all we could do.

So I'm sitting there and I feel my heart has gone up. And then it's gone back down, right?

And then guess what happens?

My, my MacBook starts to move, and I'm watching it on the screen.

My Mac, it's bizarre, but you can actually do this.

The Mac book is moving across the state of Colorado and it ends up in Durango, Colorado.

I mean, I can't believe this is actually happening, So now it's Sunday night, It's like 10 o'clock on Sunday night.

And I think I might this thing is going to lose its battery at some point, but it's not being recharged.

Well I go through the phone book. And it turns out Terrain does not exactly a big town.

But I find a federal marschall in the town of Durango, Colorado, and he answers the phone never met the guy before in my life. He answers the phone, and he says, Well, OK, give me this story, and I give them the whole story, and I'm probably talking too fast, and too excited, and He says, well.

I gotta tell you, these things don't tend to end up so well.

So Don't tell me what you got in Durango, Colorado, and I said well, it just so happens. I have a picture of the house where my MacBook yes, which is what this picture is, right? Not think I change the street, so you can track this person down and it's on one side of a duplex.

My MacBook is sitting at one side of a duplex, And so I tell him that I say, Here's the address, Here's the place.

Now, here's the problem.

Just because some weird dude in Denver says you should go knock on the door and recover stolen property, doesn't mean a federal marshal has the right to do that.

They can't just go do that, right? They don't have a search warrant. You haven't seen a judge, right?

So the technology helt Here's another place where the hero comes in place.

Federal Marshals are trained, of course, to deal with violent crime to deal with non violent crime.

But the most important thing they're trained to deal with it's people.

So this federal marshaled goes to the door and I think 10 0 PM I called him at like 945 and he gets, I got there by 10 0 PM and he knocks on the door and I get a phone call about 19 minutes after I had spoken to him originally.

And he says, mister Hodge, it switches always I'm still very old when they do that. But, anyway, mister Gotchas. Can you tell me what's in your blue bag?

And I said, Yes. Deputy, I have a listen to that on a computer and a little tripod.

And then I have this little blue bag, and inside it, there's a fountain pen, and he says, mister Hodges, I have your bag.

I almost dropped the phone. I couldn't I'm those jumping up and down a little child.

And then I watched the bag move from this the House from the perpetrator in Durango?

to the security place at the federal Marshal's office, and I can watch it move and guess what?

The next morning all the batteries in my electronics have died.

So what did I do, drove back to Durango, Colorado, with my wife, and when I got down there, the first thing I had to say was, how exactly did you do this to this officer?

And this is where I met the hero, and that hero's name is deputy moreland, That's his picture.

Deputy Morland walked up with is uniform on and his side arm, of course on the side of his, in his holster.

He wasn't touching your side arm, of course, and he knocked on the door and the first person said, I don't want to wagner.

And Deputy Morland very delicately said, Does anybody who lives here happen to work and put those springs?

And one person in the back of the room said, Uh, I do.

It turns out, that was a newly hired, housekeeping staff person who worked at that hotel.

And in the middle of code, that it was very, very difficult for these hotels to get staff to work there.

So, they were desperately trying to get the best stuff they could, of course. But maybe, in this case, they didn't know.

This person takes deputy moreland out to the car, in the car, is my bag, It's got all my stuff in it.

Deputy moral enhance me, the bag back, Deputy Moreland is my rockstar Kiro, that's me standing next to the Jeopardy Borland, and I think you can see his gun on the side.

So my wife and I are going in-depth of Orleans office. We get the bag back. I'm jumping up and down. I'm like, this is what intelligent automation is supposed to look like.

Technology that enables human beings to do wonderful human things. Deputy Morland says to me, I can't tell you, I ever remember a case where we got property back like this, and that's because of Apple.

That's because of find my stuff, right? Find my phone. So if you don't have that turned on on your phone, turn it on now.

So we drive back, wife, and I decided, well, what should we do? Well, Todd, who is the manager of the hotel, Todd is working his **** off to try to find this thing. He doesn't want this to happen to his hotel, to me, to their reputation. He's done. Everything you can but he's exhausted is non intelligent automation, technology based solutions. So I showed back up without tell and this is Todd. Todd on Meet in the lobby of the Hotel, same day as I got the bag back.

The first thing Todd says to me is, we've taken care of that person's no longer here.

So the only person who is not trying to be a hero in this story, this is the person who stole my bag.

So I'm standing in the lobby with Todd.

Look around, and I said, Tots, this is a really beautiful hotel.

We stayed in the, in the other side, the less expensive side.

This side, I'm standing, Wow, this looks like it's got a lot of history to it.

And Todd says, Would you like to come back and stay in one of the Suites?

Now that is a manager being a hero. He knew that was. It wasn't his fault, but he knew that was a problem for the hotel.

Am I loyal to this hotel? You're **** right. I went back to Picasa Springs, and that is the sweet. I'll be staying in and it's in about two weeks. I'm going back.

So the point of this story, the whole point of this story is crazy, convoluted tale.

Hotels built by drug runners and Formula one racers is that in daily life every one of us has the opportunity if we seek it and we get that call to adventure, to go out and be a hero.

And what does a hero actually do?

They realize more of their potential than the average person achieves and some aspirational goal, and they transcend and conquer their lesser selves.

Deputy Moreland knew exactly how to use the right finesse and skills without a search for it to get my stuff back.

Why? Not because he had a gun.

Probably because he understood people in psychology. Todd worked every angle at the hotel to try to make this happen. The spa manager didn't you should go to make me feel good. on a Sunday. The retired policeman tried to help me find it in the town.

The people at the **** shop tried to find, Hey, we know that's not good. We don't want our town and have that reputation. And the antique dealer sent me off to go to the **** shop.

So this story is all about people doing heroic things, and enabled in that last piece with intelligent automation and technology to help humans be heroes.

So, that's the whole point of noble automation. Now, how do we use those tools and techniques to help bring out the best of who we are in human beings?

And none of that happens without a solid enterprise architecture foundation.

And so, I tell that story because sometimes we can get lost in the abstract enterprise. Our enterprise architecture is critical just like all the skills were for the people to be heroic.

Anyway, that's the end of a bit of an impromptu story. I hope you got something out of that if nothing else.

It's a crazy story about Hot Springs and I will tell you that hotel in figure Springs, which I'm going back to, is beautiful, well, worth going to fantastic experience, 22 different types, all different temperatures, not crazy, expensive, gonna be nice and sweet.

Plumbing! Call me, I'll let you know how that worked out.

Anyway, we're going to have another talk, that's going to start, at the top of the hour.

We're at, about the time, We are, what, about 24, 124 Eastern now, at 12 o'clock Eastern.

We will have a second for our last talk, for the day.

And that, that will start.

Again, it will start at 12. I just said that.

And Lee Bulger will be back and you probably won't tell us what you did it.

That sea level meeting, when he was away from the B To Bali, is going to take us through, learn how enterprise architecture leadership, delivers value based strategic innovation. And that is the word of the day.

How does this enterprise architecture drive innovation, because if you, you have a choice, compete, or innovate. So, please join us back top of the hour, 12 o'clock Eastern Time, for Lee Bognor, to take us through that subject.

You take care.