The year was 2017. I wasn't new to Python, but I had mostly used it with Pandas and Jupyter Notebooks to do data analysis for sales figures. One of the coding clubs I was a member of back then had an open house at the Citizens Bank offices in Providence, RI.  The presenter had demonstrated what was a new technology at the time, Amazon's new Alexa application.  I immediately saw a possible use for it and became very excited.

I was the Director of Event Technology at a hotel. My responsibilities essentially covered any and all technical issues a guest could experience while using the hotel's many meeting spaces. I was also the only full time person in the department, leaving me the full duties of responding to each issue.  If a client had any issues, and there were always issues to be had, it was a lengthy process to request help.  They would have to find a hotel phone. They would then have to explain the issue to the hotel operator. The hotel operator would have to call me. I would then have to go to the meeting room with what I was hoping was reliable information describing the problem. If not, I would have to return to my office to gather the needed tools to fix the issue. Many times the guests would not call the hotel operator, but would choose to call the concierge desk, a member of the waitstaff, a banquet captain  or the maintenance crew. There was no telling how that information would get passed or how quickly.  A single request from a guest may trigger several people re-describing, re-reporting and creating even more confusion. It could take up to 20 minutes to resolve issues that continuously disrupted the meeting. This may not sound like a lot of time, but the meetings were regularly high level executive meetings where time was directly tied to money. 

  I knew if I could write an Alexa App that not only responded to client requests, but alerted my department (me and any help I was lucky to get that day) I could reduce the response time dramatically. It was also the first project that I found to be fascinating in its potential.  It would require learning the protocol Alexa used, the AWS tools required to communicate and also how to code the alerts so they could be received via email or text. It took me a while to do but I was able to get a prototype up and running.  Here is the Youtube video of that demo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_azbDZvS30

The first and obvious issue is the common question about privacy. It was clear that having the device in the meeting room would not always be welcomed. My solution to that was to place them in common areas, hallways and public spots and as I met with each client in the morning I would show them the Alexa app.  This also allowed guests to ask the App for directions to the meeting rooms.

Ultimately, my company decided that the privacy issue was too great and it was never put in use. However, I don't consider that a failure by any stretch! The deep joy of researching and developing it was amazing! I learned an enormous amount about the technology. It provided invaluable insights into prototyping, implementation and the discovery process. The most rewarding part was that great journey of  going from just an idea/vision of the technology and bringing it into existence just as I had imagined it. It was a journey full of tribulations and self-doubt, but it also contained high points and gave me a wisdom I could not have gathered from any other source. Below is a link to the Github repo. The code is ugly and smells of noob, but I get a certain nostalgia for it. It’s like an old photo full of bad hair cuts and poor fashion choices but taken in a time of real joy.

https://github.com/TenaciousBirdofPrey/Alexa_request-hotel-assistance