Defining Hospitality

[00:00:00]
Dan Ryan: Welcome everyone. Today's guest holds state licenses and architecture and interior. He's very keen at visualizing spaces in three dimensions. He has a keen eye for design. He is vice president of architecture and design at Hilton worldwide. Ladies and gentlemen, Vito Loda. Welcome Vito,
Vito Lotta: please be here,
Dan.
Thank you for having me.
Dan Ryan: You're very welcome. And just so everyone knows, um, if you're listening well, you are listening. Um, this is, we've been doing this podcast about a year
and this is the congratulations.
Thank you. It's a real [00:01:00] great milestone. Um, and it's such a passion project. I love it so much, but this is the first one that I've done actually in person, everything else has been remote.
And I think the reason why I'm sharing that with everyone right now is, um, one of the things, well, there's a lot of things I really like about UV do, but one of them is on, in many of our conversations. It's all about getting uncomfortable to grow. Right, right. And. I think that as this show and podcast evolves and as we keep growing, I think it's UN it's important to get uncomfortable, to come into a sound stage and try this because I would love to do this on the road and not remote.
And I think there's a, there's a really cool energy that I'm feeling right now between us as we're having this conversation. So I want to just thank you from the beginning to say thank you for helping me get uncomfortable to try this out here in Virginia. And it's, [00:02:00] it's just great to see you. So thank.
Vito Lotta: Well, Dan, thank you for helping me become uncomfortable because as I told you, I'm never uncomfortable on stage in large in front of, you know, a thousand people speaking, but I get nervous on camera. I get nervous doing zooms. It just, it seems awkward to me. I like being live. And so when you said do it, I was like, no, I don't wanna.
But I trust you, you know? And so I, I wanted to, uh, to do this with you, Eva. So that's when I said, why don't we just do this live in
person? So it's
just us,
Dan Ryan: us, I just friends. Well, I I'm just grateful because again, as we continue to grow, cuz we're
always growing and whatever has gotten any of us
to where we
are currently, it's not gonna serve us as we go
forward. Right. So it's always
important
to get uncomfortable, try new things and
continue to evolve.
I, I really truly do that. So
again,
thank you. You're welcome.
Um,
so
I
think that idea of growth and evolving [00:03:00] and evolution is
I think it's gonna be an interesting topic for our
conversation because, um, I know in our earlier conversations, just hearing
about
how, who
you are,
how you are,
like
how you
got bitten
by the
design
bug, and then your experience of your early experiences of hospitality, I'm hoping, well, I know we're gonna do it, so I'm not hoping
anything, but just like telling that story of your origin of
how
did
you
become so fascinated
with 3d spaces mm-hmm and then once like
hearing that and, and then also design and creation.
Um,
I think you
have a really awesome first experience or experiences of
hospitality that I don't know if a lot of people know, so where wherever you wanna
start,
give it a give it a
Vito Lotta: Sure. Well, um, so first exposure into design in the creative [00:04:00] side. So, um, you know, as a child, you know, my father started teaching me how to draw mm-hmm , you know, and I would watch him sketch and draw and he was show me these different techniques and he would break it down into fundamentals and.
I was an avid cartoon fan. So I was watching bug's bunny and Wiley coyote. And you see Wiley coyote would get a drafting board out and he would draw and design something and then he would go build it. And of course it would fail and then he would go back and redraw it, redesign it, build it, and he would fail and do this over and over again.
Dan Ryan: again.
Would it fail
or did the road runner just
outsmart him every
time?
Vito Lotta: Both .
So
interestingly, my, I was, as, as a child, I would go into my father's dent and I, there was a drafting board and I was like, oh my
gosh, I
didn't know what was called a drafting board, but, but
Dan Ryan: Well, and for all of you younger listeners out there, a drafting board is something, you know, you have, uh,
A
a.
straight edge and you have all these other attachments, but you [00:05:00] actually use a pencil or pen. Right. Which many of the younger people might
not know
what
that is. So yeah, as don't,
you're dating
Vito Lotta: literally was what Wiley coyote had. Yeah. And it was like, wow, what is that? And it's like, well, you do these drawings.
It's like, why do you do these drawings? Like, well, I didn't know that my father was an inventor and he held patents. And so that's when I started learning. I was like, oh, he invented all these different things. And he had these patents. And so then he started to show me how to draw. And so what I would do is then imagine
stuff,
draw
it, build it,
see if it
would work.
And then if it didn't work, then redesign it, rebuild it. Mm-hmm,
a lot of things that I ended
up.
Designing and
building as I was getting older, wrote a bit mischievous,
Um, there.
Dan Ryan: okay,
so we, now we, need, we need to go there. So I'm curious about two
things, then, number one, your, you said your dad had many patents. What was one of the coolest ones that he had, uh, or one that he was most proud of?
And one of the one that
you were most proud of?
Vito Lotta: the,
one of the ones that I thought was odd now, [00:06:00] again,
you know, my parents were much older than me and their parents were much older them, so there's quite a generational stretch. So,
um, technology was more analog back then.
It wasn't really digital. So, um, he created a bowling ball drill press
where
he would design the, the grip for the bowling ball to get it just
the way that
the athlete or client wanted it. And then he would have one machine that would follow that shape
of the bowling ball. And then the other side would drill it.
to match it
Dan Ryan: Really, so almost like a, like a 3d jig or something
like
that. Yeah.
Huh. And it was just molded specifically for the
person's
Vito Lotta: hand. Yeah, he would, he
would customize the shape of the, of the ball in the grips and to what worked best for them. And then it would, it would follow that shape and
drill it.
Okay. He, um,
he had, uh, people have seen the old thing where you would [00:07:00] have a, a line that would go across, um, um, a bathtub to hang things on mm-hmm and people have seen the old spool on the wall. He would have something that was discrete and set into the wall flush.
He had a, a seat that would come out of the walls.
It was flushing the wall. So he could fold it out of the wall and sit down to take
a,
a
shower.
Dan Ryan: And was this his vocation or was it something
He did
on the
Vito Lotta: was, he had a lot of
irons in the fire going on. He had a lot of things going on. He was, you know, self-employed but that was sort of his. Side passion was doing the creative invention
and, uh, that, but that wasn't
his sort of day
job.
Dan Ryan: job. Wow.
Vito Lotta: his
day job?
Dan Ryan: day job? He was
a
plumber. Oh,
cool. But always
tinkering and
Vito Lotta: always tinkering
and creating.
Yeah.
Dan Ryan: Okay. So those are super awesome. And then
if you think
about
your mischievous ones, what were
some like, what are
Vito Lotta: well, you know, I started initially as, you know, wanna [00:08:00] catch the bunny rabbit in the backyard and keep it as pet.
Right. So there was different ways of creating these box traps that were getting more and more
sophisticated. And so
Dan Ryan: literally you were Wiley
Vito Lotta: I would make.
Yeah,
Dan Ryan: that that's
totally
from the cartoon.
Vito Lotta: so I, I, you know, I invented this thing where you would try and get them into the box and how was it gonna trigger it?
So then I had this little touch pad and wanna make it super sensitive. So it was part of a,
a mouse trap that would pull a string,
which cuz it didn't have
enough force to
have.
Door close that would trip wire that would trip wire, a rat trap, which would be stronger, which would then pull a pin, that'd have a door drop.
And so it was like this would affect that, which would affect that, which, and would keep on going.
So when I got older
and there was, we lived in an area on the sort of edge of town and there was this forest and there was a bunch
of
these
older kids kind of bullies there. And, you know, they were like, you know, [00:09:00] like stay out of our turf,
please tell me you
made a trap for them. So as, as one of the only kids in my neighborhood was my age, I'm like, we're gonna take this over.
with some gorilla warfare.

Wow. So
started creating some little mischievous things that they would hit a trip wire, which would cause this happen to that happen. And
little fireworks would go off and little things would happen,
.So
Dan Ryan: So that's all, that's the stuff that we would do. Before we had devices, like we would just figure stuff out and
just, yeah.
Make things. And,
uh,
Vito Lotta: but my conscious was always like, I wanted to be something that is absolutely safe. I didn't want anybody to get hurt. I just wanted to make it like this air is persona
Andrada you you're, you're not allowed here.
Dan Ryan: here. Totally. Yeah. Oh, wow. And then with your inventions that you would do,
or that you would create,
would you
draw them out
Vito Lotta: I
would draw them out cause I was trying to literally engineer what it would be. And then that would go to the [00:10:00] direction of, I would make these, um, these gifts for friends and family, where you would go to open it in
something
unexpected would happen.
So for example, you know, you could tear open a present, or you can do the thing where you wrap the top separately from the bottom, you undo the bow, you lift up the lid and then what happens. So the whole thing would open up and you would've glitter bombs
go
off
and
Dan Ryan: a gender.
reveal party
Vito Lotta: Yeah. So it was glitter bombs and confetti and stuff. I
go
shooting into the air And
so people would
start
getting cautious.
Mm. So then there was one time I like,
okay, I've got this little CD
when CDs
cases
first came out.
Mm-hmm so what could he
possibly put in a CD
case? So I had
I had designed the CD
case where, um, when you
to the label
or
to, I mean, tore
the, the
gift wrap off of it, two layers would come in contact with each other would
make this little tiny lady finger [00:11:00] firecracker go off
and it would
surprise them. But again, I'm like, I wanna make sure nobody is hurt
Dan Ryan: but you wanted to freak
'
em out. Yeah.
always
be,
always be challenging there.
Just
the
sanctity and the
Vito Lotta: Yeah. So it was, it was always trying to
Dan Ryan: was always
Vito Lotta: look at things in
Dan Ryan: things in a
different
Vito Lotta: and, and sort of like.
you know,
Dan Ryan: you know,
challenge people. And do you have
Vito Lotta: old drawings?
Dan Ryan: drawings?
Vito Lotta: Uh, I
Dan Ryan: Uh, I think I
do.
Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh, that would be, uh, I'd love to see them at some point. Um,
but
I do miss those times of just
boredom and
boredom for me would always
lead to
creating things. And I just remember
being home
alone a
lot.
and
I don't know,
I
I, don't think I ever complained about
being bored. I'd always
go out in the
woods or
figure something to
do.
I look at my kids now and it's like, they're like, I'm bored, I'm bored. I'm so
bored.
Vito Lotta: good.
It's a great
place. Yeah. Boredom is a great place to drill down into your [00:12:00]
Dan Ryan: into your
Vito Lotta: but it's
hard to do that. if you're, if your mind is
Dan Ryan: your mind is
constantly
Vito Lotta: new
content coming in mm-hmm
Dan Ryan: mm-hmm
and I
Vito Lotta: of that myself. You know,
Dan Ryan: You know,
Vito Lotta: I can
be sitting down
with my wife and she's listening to a podcast. And at the same time I'm going through YouTube
videos,
hitting click
Dan Ryan: click bait of
what's
interesting to me, Mm-hmm
right,
because you're,
it's almost, it's a, I, I find sometimes that that
stuff can be soothing in a way, a way to
turn off and just
focus on other
things.
Right.
Mm-hmm um, but I do appreciate the boredom and I try to get, keep my kids or get, not keep them bored, but I, I need them to have moments of boredom because I think that's where really exciting
stuff comes out of
yeah. You know, or
get lost in the
passion
of
cooking,
Vito Lotta: cooking, or
just reading. Yeah.
Dan Ryan: reading. Yeah. Like,
eh,
not a bunch of a reader. No Oh, I love reading . Oh, right. Okay. Um,
Okay.
So
I'm, I'm seeing that like the, the percolation of your, [00:13:00] your,
creative
origins, right? so,
okay. Tinkering, crafting, drafting, creating
mm-hmm
um,
in three dimensional
spaces. Mm-hmm
now
most people.
When they
have
that, they go on into architecture,
design mm-hmm ,
,um, graphic design, any, you
know, any kind of
creative
space.
Yeah. I
I, think what's really interesting, you know, you have, I have all these conversations or you're at a dinner party or a cocktail party and someone's an architect or someone's a
designer or someone
is a graphic stanza. Yeah. Well, he's, he's, he's, an
entrepreneur. He
created
Vandalay
industries, right? Yeah, of course. Um,
but,
and those are
all really cool
vocations. right.
But I always find when I'm around people like you or colleagues of yours, or just other
friends of mine who were
building,
designing,
creating hotels [00:14:00] at a cocktail party,
everyone's like, wow, that's amazing.
Like,
I didn't even know
people did that. They just think that these
things
appear mm-hmm but like the
specialization I think is, it's just, it's fascinating to me. Um, but it's also fascinating just. A lot of people cuz they just don't know that that
happens. So
I see
the,
the, origin of your, your creative birth,
so to speak. Um, but if you think about
hospitality, how did
you, how did
you kind of
weave those two together?
Um, or
or
where did you get your
first experience of hospitality?
Vito Lotta: Um, so
Dan Ryan: so
Vito Lotta: I mentioned my dad had a lot of irons in the fire. Mm-hmm a lot of things going on. Well, my father's father mm-hmm so my, my father, first of all, is old kind of old enough to be my grandfather and his father was old enough to be his grandfather cuz he was fairly young in a chain of eight kids. [00:15:00] Oh wow.
And um, so this is a long arc story. So it turned out that um, at the end of prohibition,
my grandfather built a ballroom where.
Freeport Illinois. Okay. So it's outside of Chicago. It's way be
way beyond the
suburbs. Mm-hmm . And, um, so that stayed in business from the end of prohibition to the end of my high school years.
Now my father.
met my mom, my mom taught dance
for Arthur Murray.
Oh wow.
And so they were a perfect match. And
as a kid, I was like, when do I get to go to the ballroom? So in high school, I start to work at the ballroom. I did checking coats. And then when I, then I would park cars and I would even
help
help
out
behind the
bar.
And as my mom was training my
sister and myself to be very good ballroom dancers, she would say, okay, your job is to go [00:16:00] dance with
guests.
And so as a high school kid, you're going up to the table and go,
you know, hello. Mr. Anderson a
you're not dancing.
Maybe I could bring Ms. Anderson out on the floor.
And he's like, yeah, yeah, she wants to dance. Take her out on the floor. So I go on the floor and dance and I realize a lot of our guests weren't
very good dancers
and you are a very good dancer. I was raised doing
that. So I just thought
everybody was.
And, uh,
so when I went and complained to my mom, it's like, I don't wanna dance with these people.
They're very awkward. they're, clumsy,
they're stepping on my toes and she
says,
well,
your job is
to dance with them.
And she goes, you have to keep in mind. And that's when I first heard the word hospitality, she goes, we're in the business, of hospitality, she goes, you're supposed
to
use
your gift of dance
to make
our customers, our guests feel as elegant and graceful as they aspire to be [00:17:00] not as awkward and clumsy as they really are.
So it
took. You know, it gave me a new perspective on it. So then I was motivated. I was like, oh, I wanna find the most
awkward
person out there and make them feel wonderful about themselves because I can adjust and shift to their natural
movements.
And so then we together looked
graceful dance together, and then when they felt great, I'd bring him back to the table and say, Mr.
Anderson,
Mrs. Anderson is ready to dance with you now.
Dan Ryan: Oh, wow. That's great. So warmed
up.
That's
so so I love
all the stories of,
of
the
ballroom in the
dance
hall. Mm-hmm
um,
But in particular, what I find fascinating. And I think, cuz it, it resonates with me
as
far
as
challenging
yourself.
Right? And again, it's how we started talking about getting uncomfortable to grow. You would make a
B line [00:18:00]
for
the
dancers who were
not the
most
skilled
and the
challenge there
was to make them
feel comfortable,
to
get them uncomfortable,
to make them feel comfortable
so that they would learn
right
now.
Like,
did you do it a
hundred times? A
thousand times? Like,
Vito Lotta: I mean, it
was hundreds. I mean
the sequence
was, you
know,
People are coming in. You're checking coach, you're parking
cars, you're
getting everybody settle. And then there's this
point where it's like,
everybody's
here.
Mm-hmm.
Um,
my
sister and I would
go out and
dance together and
the floor
would just
clear. So we would
just put on
this
great
demonstration
Dan Ryan: and was
it
swing
Vito Lotta: swing,
you
know,
JBU
Foxtrot
walls kind
of thing.
And then
when
you would just kinda walk
along the
tables,
literally,
then you
would
have
the,
the [00:19:00]
patrons would kind of
raise their
hand
that
they
wanted to dance. and you would see who
danced. And
so if two people raise their hand, you would
pick
the one that you've already seen before is
not a
skilled,
more
clumsy, cuz it was, it was more of
that
sense of a
gift that you could give, if
you could
help
them feel
elegant out on
the floor.
Dan Ryan: Okay.
So
in
some, some
way,
Okay.
You're
going up to
them. They're
uncomfortable. But you're making them comfortable. You're also
uncomfortable taking that first
step.
Right, right. Now I'm trying to figure out a way to get this back into
your
evolution
as a designer and
architect.
Right?
So
if you
think
about
you
would
tinker and create
these kind of cool contraptions, you'd
draw them.
You'd make them
that
you found that
to be a comfortable
creative
place for
you.
Right?
Vito Lotta: I was good at it. [00:20:00] Yeah.
Dan Ryan: so
what I'm
trying to do
is find this place where you're
uncomfortable taking that
first
step. They're uncomfortable.
You
get
out there on the floor, you get them better. You're better. You're more confident.
Um,
and
growth
happens.
Right?
So now you go back to your creative origin, right?
Where you're tinkering, drawing,
creating,
because
that's where you felt
safe.
Vito Lotta: It
was comfortable. I
was
good at it.
Dan Ryan: You were good at it.
Vito Lotta: getting
better and
better at
it.
Dan Ryan: Okay.
And
like
what
drove you to there, to that place where you were always tinkering and alone
with
yourself creating these really cool contraptions?
Vito Lotta: Well it's,
it was a,
you
know, a
self,
it was a
cycle of
self feeding of,
of
success. Mm-hmm
as
in, I was
getting better and
better at
imagining things in a different [00:21:00] way, visualizing in three
dimensionally,
capturing it by drawing
it from different angles,
constructing it and understanding the difference of
reality
between the
built environment and the imagined environment.
And,
and
then the positive reinforcement from,
from my family of
seeing this
grow.
And so I
was very good at that.
And
the only
thing that was kind of
close to was in
school when they would've a science
fair,
I was always
winning
the science
fairs. I
would win the,
the
the
art,
um,
you know, competitions,
but
that was
the limited area of my
success
academically. So
Dan Ryan: limited
area.
Yeah.
So
you would win all
these events
and Excel at
them,
but
at the expense of
something else.
Vito Lotta: Yeah.
I'd the
challenge in
school was,
you know,
you started
out
in an
early program before kindergarten and you go to kindergarten, you go
to
first
grade and
we're,
everybody's starting to
learn,
you
[00:22:00] know,
see
John run
and
then we get
to
second,
third grade and
I'm still at
see
John
run.
Oh. And everybody else is
learning how to read. And
I'm like, going,
how are you
cracking the
code? How are you
decoding
this?
And that was the thing where I was like,
you
know, that's
when that you
felt this
sort of
heavy
load come
down, like,
oh my gosh,
I'm
the only
one that
can't
learn
how to
read
beyond C
John,
run.
Dan Ryan: And
what
was it just
aptitude or
was
it like a
a learning
difference?
Vito Lotta: it, it was
a learning
difference. It was, you
know, I didn't understand until later
on it was
dyslexia.
So it was a challenge of, and it's
maybe more
complex than just that. I
mean, one
thing is you, I
would see things differently.
Flipped,
rotated flopped
mm-hmm
um,
and
just
the
the whole
process of
decoding
as you're
reading.
I
mean,
if it was just
oral,
that
was fantastic.
So they
would always say, well, you're smart.
So you're just not trying
[00:23:00] hard,
you
Dan Ryan: And then I'm I'm envisioning you
using your
dad's drafting
table
and.
You're
kind of decoding and programming things to figure out what you're trying to do, which is not necessarily
not necessarily
as linear as
reading
might
Vito Lotta: Right. And so, you know, I couldn't understand how other people couldn't visualize three dimensionally and they couldn't understand why I was finding it so
difficult to read.
You
would get like a
crossword puzzle
or
a
crossword
puzzle in mazes, in a
book.
And I would
go through all the mazes.
Instantly
just
all the
mazes are done
and
they would say, well, do another maze. They're all done.
They would
gimme
hard ones. They'd be
done. It was like, there was no maze that was not,
uh, a
breeze
to just whip through. Cuz I could
visually, I
see it
instantly and go
through it.
But
being
able to do the crossword puzzle was
challenging
because
it had to do with the, the
reading, the
writing, the
word
side of
it

as
a
visual,
But [00:24:00] in
conversation, it was
fine.
so to
now, today I've got the
benefit of new technology.
right?
I,
we,
I sort of
go when I,
if
I
do, they
jump all the way
to
the
forward where
I'm
like, oh, well maybe I
can make a living doing something that I can
do as less reading it and writing as
possible. And
it's
all about
drawing and
visualizing.
Architecture's
great. Especially in the
3d space
until
somebody
invented
email.
Oh,
And email is a huge
part of our
time.
And
it's
like,
oh my
God.
So,
Dan Ryan: but I email
with you. So I know you
can
read and
Vito Lotta: I listen to the
emails
and I dictate
the
message and then I have it playback. Cause even if I type it,
I'll,
I'll
read it
and I'll go,
and they're reading a
lot
stronger now,
but it took time to get there. But if I read it, it's, I'll
read what
it ought to.
say. And then I
play it and
listen to
it And it's
like, oh
no,
no, that's
completely
wow.
Dan Ryan: wow. mess.
so
I'm actually [00:25:00] very intrigued
by that.
Because
again, as we
talk
about
growth
through getting uncomfortable,
mm-hmm
you
were perhaps I I'm not, I don't wanna be a psychologist
here, but you're spending a
lot of
time doing what you're comfortable at.
Right.
Dancing.
drawing,
drafting,
creating,
inventing, tinkering.
Um,
but
obviously
you graduated
from high school. You graduated from college, you're leading teams,
you're working at a
fortune 500
company.
Vito Lotta: passed a
licensing exam for an
architecture.
Dan Ryan: Oh my God. I can't even imagine how boring and Byzantine
that
was. And
that's a lot of reading like
Vito Lotta: Natalie, was it. A lot of
reading? I was worried
that when I got, okay, the
answer is
B and I'd go over to
is be the
second one
from
that
side or
that
Dan Ryan: side.
Right.
Right. But then if
you think about it, you didn't spend all of your time at that
drafting table, as much as you wanted to.
Correct. You did have
to get really
uncomfortable [00:26:00]
to
push yourself,
to
catch
up to all of your peers. Mm-hmm
.....And
how
was
that for
you?
Vito Lotta: Well,
I mean,
so,
you know,
you
probably should edit some
of this
stuff out,
cuz it's so
bearing my
soul, but I didn't think I was
gonna get
outta eighth
grade
the
teacher,
but you did. I, the teacher
literally said,
you, you,
you've, you
failed every spelling
test of the year. Abysmally. You're not getting outta eighth grade
until you learn how
to spell all these words. So I studied and studied and
studied and
studied. She
gave me the
a hundred word spelling test,
which you know, to now
now a hundred doesn't seem
like
a big number, but, but
when I was trying to get outta eighth grade, it seemed like it was a
million
Al all these things
that
end with
T I N or
SI
O N I'm like, I can't
tell the difference between these words.
I get
through
the whole
thing and
she doesn't give me an
answer. I
go to the graduation
with everybody
else
and not knowing, not
knowing.
And then they hand you
the diploma
And [00:27:00]
then you get
back to your seat and you
peak and you
open it up. And of course it's empty.
Why do
even realize it's
everybody's was
empty
because they give you the
certificate later? I thought,
oh my God, you get
outta eighth grade
Track 3: holding it
together.
Vito Lotta: Yeah. So
then,
you know,
figured that
out. So
went
to
high school and
then at that point it's
like, well,
I'm gonna
do the
least as
possible. Get through mm-hmm
then there was
this
case of going through every drawing class, every art class drafting class, and the
last one
was architectural drawing.
And
the instructor
said
we want people
to
enter
the
AIA drawing competition.

So
great.
We
go meet at the AA office, American
Institute
Track 3: of
architects. For
those
Vito Lotta: of you who don't know,
they give us this
big program, they read the program
and you design the site, the architecture
interior design.
I look at this big program
and I go, oh, I have to [00:28:00] read
this

So
I
struggle my
way through that. And,
but
I
said,
well, why don't you just tell us what you want
us
to
draw? I'm
you know, I'm good at drawing?
It's like,
no, no,
read it.
I
go through the
process. I
design a site, I
design a
building. I
interiors,
I
do it on
illustration
board with ink,
pull my
first all
nighter. And I'm
thinking, this looks, I have first, first,
all.
nighter. And
I
decide, I'm
not gonna turn this house
looks
abysmal. You know,
I'm scratching
back
using wide
out to make it look nicer. And my
dad
goes, no, no,
you have to turn it in. You don't
quit.
You turn it
in.
Let
it
send
it, let it
if the
chips fall, where they
fall.
So I
submit it and
Month goes
by and they
come back and
Like,
oh,
Vito, you
won
first
prize.
I'm
like,
how's,
that
Dan Ryan: was
that for Illinois.
Vito Lotta: Um,
it was Northern Illinois chapter. Wow. Of the AI.
So it
was a
student
[00:29:00] competition. I
wasn't
going against professional architects.
Dan Ryan: Oh. But don't,
don't be little that that's
Vito Lotta: So
we
go to the
big
award
ceremony and
I look at
audible
mention drawn by an angel,
third
prize,
second
prize drawn by
angels. I look at mine, the one I wasn't
gonna turn in, cuz it was not a
great drawing
and it's for
surprise to
hanging up. And I was
like,
oh my
gosh, like
what
am I
being punked here? You know, I was like, what,
how
what's going on there?
So these architects come up and
they
pat me on the back and
they go, you
know,
congratulations for
winning. And I'm like,
I
don't understand.
These are drawn by an
angels.
Mine
looks
like Al
and they
go, yeah. It's, you know,
It's,
we've
seen better
drawings.
I
didn't
cuz
I
drew an illustration board, which is
unforgiving.
I
didn't
Do it
where I could erase and
clean up and they go, well,
it wasn't
a drawing competition.
It
was a
design competition.
And I
didn't know that.
So
they
go, I go, what was so good about the design? And they talked
about [00:30:00]
the
site
design and
the, well you
entered the
site and
how
I
had the
pathway go, where you would get a
glimpse of
the
clubhouse that you
were gonna
go, which is what
the
building
was.
And then you
didn't see it. And then you had
another glimpse of it
again, and
then you didn't
see it. And then you arrived.
And
so you had this
arrival
sequence of experience
and
they used
technical
terms to
describe this that you learned in
design school,
which I
had no
idea what they were talking about.
They found your
happy place. And then when I
went into the
building, it's like, you
had the
sequence of,
you.
know,
The
space got smaller
and
tighter so
that the next space felt bigger and they
go,
well, that's compression to release and
I'm
like,
I,
whatever they go,
yeah, you
did
it.
And it's like, well then the destination of this fireplace,
well,
you could see it through the portal of this wall, but you couldn't get to, you had to go around it. You
had to
lose your side of it and
then come back to it.
And they were talking about
destination denied.
And so they were
using this
vocabulary
that
put
a
theory
behind what
I [00:31:00] was doing instinctually.
And
then that was the hook that got my passion. I'm like, oh my gosh, there's
something I'm
actually good
at.
So
they said, yeah. So,
you
know, with this
scholarship money, it was a small scholarship.
You
can
go on to
study architecture. I'm
like,
great. And
they go, well,
how do you
become
an
architect? So
I'm thinking it's
like
a
trade
school. Think,
oh, you go to
university.
I'm
like,
oh, that's
never gonna happen.
cause
I
always studied academically.
And
at that point then it was like,
okay,
paradigm
shift. I
have to
redo everything. I had to go
back and
take the math courses that I avoided. I had to go take all these
engineering and science
classes that I
avoided.
And then I
found
out that
I was actually
good at
them.

Mm.
And
so when, so it was
probably
non-linear.
Yeah. I'm
like when you got
to, you
know, visualizing through dimensional geometry and they were like
trying to explain the
class, oh, the intersections of
two planes of
the
line
and
everybody's like,
we don't get
it. I'm like, what do you not get? I'm
[00:32:00] like, you have a,
if
you have a
yellow
plane
and you have a
blue
plane in the
intersect, you get a
green
light, can't
you
see
that?
Dan Ryan: I'm always
amazed at like, you found your, you found your path,
but it's always
just
heartbreaking to think of all the kids out there that never could find their path and right. They just struggled. They're like, ah, I don't like this and I'm just gonna go do something else.
And
uh,
it's just,
it's
amazing.
And I
think the more
people
that.
hear.
Learning
differences
are
strengths
in most,
every
case that I've heard
of.
It's um,
you just have to know how
to
find and
tune into that
Vito Lotta: I like
you've
ever heard of the
book, know your strength.
Yeah.
So I
love that, cuz it talks
about,
you
know, figuring
out
who you are
and what your
strengths
are
and
leaning into
your
strengths.
That doesn't mean abandon your
weaknesses. Mm-hmm
as
in, you
know, I finally got
the ability to
read well,
but
I mean, [00:33:00]
not
like
you, I
Dan Ryan: I don't
devour
books
yeah,
Well I do
Vito Lotta: it for recreation
Dan Ryan: yeah,
but I have, uh, trouble
visualizing a
3d
space, So, ,,you
know,
um,
everyone's got their
own
strengths
and weaknesses and
I
think we can
all
learn so
much from
that. And
I
think it's also
interesting
that,
you know,
going
back to
the drafting
table
as a
kid and creating
all
these things, it's.
you've
kind of
come
full
circle and
you're
living in
that
almost
childhood
mindset.
Right.
And that,
you know, it's such
a,
a,
cliche, oh, find
what
you're passionate
about
and do it,
but
like
you found it,
Vito Lotta: well,
you
you're
a parent
mm-hmm, ,I'm a parent.
You,
you
see with your kids at,
they
may
have at some
time in their
life look the
same, but
they're
completely two different
people. Mm-hmm .
.And
so it's it's helping them find
what their strengths
are, what their
passion
[00:34:00] are
is.
And
as you
say, it's about doing hard
things.
Like you remember the
first
time
you
did
something hard, like learning how
to ride a bike.
Oh
yeah.
Which is
involved,
crashing. Right.
That's a inevitable part of it. Learning how to ride the bike. So one of my
sons,
I remember that
when
he wiped out and it hurt
and he
kicked the
bike and he got frustrated and he
said, you know,
the bikes, aren't good for me.
And I just
remembered
me
going
through that, his age. And I said, I
want you to
remember this
moment
clearly,
cuz
eventually when you're
older,
you're gonna
confront something
right In
life. That's gonna seem
impossible. You
can't get
beyond. And
I'm telling you
someday you're
gonna
be a
great
on a
bike
and
you're gonna look back at this and go, wow, it wasn't that
bad.
So when you're an
adult and
you run into something really hard in life, you're gonna go,
I can't get through this and
you have
to remember, you
can get through it and you will get
through it
cuz
you can
do hard
things.
Dan Ryan: Yeah.
I'm
always like
I just
read
this book [00:35:00] by
David,
uh,
Goggins, I
think.
Vito Lotta: the runner, the X
Navy seal.
Dan Ryan: Yeah.
And
the
thing, the
big
takeaway
was
when you
really
think you're at your
limit,
you're
really
probably
40% of the way
there
mm-hmm .
And
I've
thought about that in
a lot of
different
ways. It's
really only been a
month since I've
read it,
but
you know, if
I'm running or
working
out or.
Whatever,
doing
something
strenuous
working on something.
And
I'm like, I'm kind of burning
out. I'm like, you know what I'm
feeling like
I'm burning
out
right
now,
or I'm
tired, or I don't
want to
go on,
I'm
only
40% of the
way there. And it just helps. I'm not saying I ever get to
a
hundred, I'm
not
running
ultra-marathons, but I think we can apply that
to
everything
that
we do.
Vito Lotta: So
recently
I've had
just
had my
13th
anniversary with
Hilton mm-hmm ,which is the
same day
as my wedding
anniversary and my wife
and
I went to
high school
together.
Wow.
Um,
so I
remember you
and I met.
about
12
years
ago. [00:36:00]
And
at the
time we
started
talking
about
taking up
martial
arts at a
later age. Yeah.
And
so you
went
to
path of
jiujitsu.
Dan Ryan: I
did.
And I
started doing it, but then the
pandemic made me
not want to do it anymore. Mm-hmm
because sweat would drip
into my
eyes. Mm-hmm
Vito Lotta: well, also
breathing in that
close to other
people during the pandemic,
but
that was
something that you and I
pursued
later in
life,
too. A
new challenge.
Dan Ryan: Totally.
And
I,
one of the
things I
really
liked about
that
too, is
I remember
going to one of my
classes, I
brought my
kids,
um,
it was like
down in some
basement in the
flat iron
mm-hmm
and,
uh,
you know, I'm
going
up
against these guys who
were
older,
younger,
smaller,
and they just
destroyed me.
in front Of
my
kids.
Yeah. And it was also, but
I
wasn't embarrassed. I was like,
that
is
really awesome to
get knocked
down
like
that
in
front of my kids.
Vito Lotta: by
being
humbled.
Dan Ryan: Yeah. And
it's about
the
thinking it's
and I
think they also
appreciate it
too. I mean, I [00:37:00] think
it's like,
we all think our
parents are
these amazing
people, but we also
just
see
that they're
normal.
Everyday people.
Mm-hmm
we're
not,
we're
not
something
special.
Although
kids,
I am
special.
I, I know all,
and
you always
need to
listen to me
because I
know what
I'm talking
about.
So to
try
new things,
to
get knocked
down,
to know
that
you always
have
more in the tank
to have
found the place where
you Excel and
that you're passionate
about, like
taking
all of that
in, in your life experience to
where
you are
now. What's the,
what's your
favorite thing about what you do now at
Hilton?
Vito Lotta: You know, what
what's interesting
is
shifting
gears from working for an
architecture
into a
design
firm,
designing
with a
client
for
the
end user,
um,
you're
you're
doing the
design. And when you
shifted to Hilton,
uh,
we're global
design
services [00:38:00]
at
Hilton,
we
are
setting the
direction for
each
of the
brands
so that
you, you,
have the
freedom of flexibility.
For
the
owners and their consultants that they
hire to design
something
that
they
are passionate about,
but
make
sure that they
land in the
zone of
what's
on
brand
versus
us specifically
doing the
brand.
So not only are
we
exploring the
future and
what's possible,
and what's right
for the brand, we
have
to
think
in
terms of
what's the
legacy of
properties that are
already out
there
that
can't evolve as
quickly.
And
then an individual specific projects,
then
we
provide guidance, review and approval of
design for
each of the brands.
And so
when you're
able to
look at a design
that
somebody's
working on
and
and sort of
guide them
along, so you always wanna
start out
with,
so
why are
you
doing what
you're
doing
Why
are you
designing
[00:39:00] what it is? Well, the first answer you usually get is
it's
the
property improvement
plan.
The
acronym, PIP. PIP.
Yeah. Yeah. And
they're like, well, we have to do this.
And it's
like,
okay. Yeah. Um,
but
you know,
it's
like washing part of your face.
Doesn't
make
sense. It's like, what,
what
all should you
be
doing with the
limited
budget and time
that you
have to do this
constraints? And then you have
to think in terms of
why are
we doing this it's well,
it's
for the
guest, the user.
the
guest
could be somebody
who walks
in and
visits and
uses it. It could be
somebody who's
not
even gonna stay in the hotel. They're
gonna
stop by there
for a drink
and meet somebody or
they're,
they
they they have an
overnight in the
hotel, but then you
have the users of the operator.
So you're
thinking about
the
users. You're thinking
about the
the
business success of
it.
You're thinking,
working
within the
constraints that you have,
and,
you
know,
you're in the business of
design has to be a success for
the hotel
operator.
So
with all these things going on,
[00:40:00] we're trying to
make it
a win, win,
win,
where
everybody's happy. So how do
you
make
this a
great design?
So when we bring
in a
designer and
you have
world class designers, and
you have
people who
they've
never designed anything before, but the owner believed in
them and you're
trying to
help them get
to a better
solution
at the end
and
for
all the stakeholders for all the stakeholders. And we see
so
many hotels
and our
brains are
going
so quickly that
when they
start to
go down a path,
you're
like,
eh, no, no,
no, no,
no.
Uh,
let's get
you on
the right path. And it's not the right path
as in,
this is
the way it's done, therefore do it that way. It's
that
there's a
reason
things are
done this way.
Now
we
don't
have to be constrained by that.
We can
do
it
many other
ways.
So
when somebody says, oh, I've got
a new
idea, let's
go do it this way. It's like, well,
there's a
reason we
haven't done
it that way before.
And then don't just give up, like, let's explore it
together.
Like maybe we can
crack this
nut. It's like,
maybe there
is a
way of doing it in this other way. That [00:41:00] was never
done
before
and to
solve it.
So you're trying
to
solve
functional issues. You're
trying to keep in
mind
housekeeping, how they
have to do it. There's a lot of
variables at the
same time
and we
are
in a very quick
motion
working
with
them,
collaboratively,
getting
consensus and getting
it in
the right direction.
That
success is
fun.
Dan Ryan: Hmm. And it's.
Again,
going
back to your
childhood, it's
building that
better mouse
trap,
right? Mm-hmm
or
rabbit
trap.
Um,
it's,
it's
finding
it's it's
also,
again,
back
into
that
idea of,
okay,
there's
we
know what
works, but
there's really
no
strict
game
plan. Right. It's problem solving it and finding alignment
between
all the stakeholders. Right.
Which
is oftentimes
non-linear as
well.
Vito Lotta: Right. And
the
other thing is instead of
starting the
design of, oh, I've
gotta check these
boxes and get the PIP
done. We
start
with
going,
what's the
[00:42:00] story behind the
design.
So when
you
are
like, we
we have what we call hard
brands and soft brands,
collection brands. So
like a
cur and a tapestry
is a
collection brand
where
they're in
slightly
different categories,
but we'll use
Curio, for
example, it's, we'll use the catch phrase, phrases, your
brand,
it's our
engine.
So
come into
the fold.
What's your
hotel story about
it's
easy when
they come in
with a hotel
that
is.
You
know, been there for a
while. It
already
has a name
and they've been
independent and
they're just coming into
the
system is
something else. If
you're gonna
take a
bank
building and
convert it
to a
hotel,
or
in some case,
building a brand new
hotel, there's no
history
there.
So
you
start by
creating a
brand
story
behind it. And that
story and
vision
is
the guide to what you're
gonna
do design wise.
And yeah,
you gotta
make
sure it functions. It
works well and meets
the,
uh, the basic
programmatic
[00:43:00] requirements.
But the main thing
is what is
that vision and story
behind it.
Similarly, with
a
hard brand
Hilton,
hotels and
resorts, that's been
around over a hundred
years. Every
property is truly
unique from
the
next,
just
like your
kids. Each one
is
truly
unique, but
you can te of
course, and you and
people from the
outside go well,
clearly in they're in the
family. Yeah.
So. You
know, you
wanna be able to look at a
Hilton and go, oh, I could tell a
Hilton hotel resort is in the
family,
but
it's
not
the hotel of a
hundred years ago.
It's
gonna be a
hotel now. That's, Hilton's gonna be more
playful. It's gonna be more energetic. It's gonna be younger. It's
gonna have
more
color to it.
It's gonna,
it
could spin more
lifestyle in one
location. It
could be
more
traditional in
another location. It's,
there's
so many different unique directions. It can go.
And
that's one thing that's great
about
the new head of
our
full
service brands. Gary Stephan has
said,
you
know, there's,
you
know,
it's a new sky,
it's a new
direction. We're gonna
go. [00:44:00] There's a
new optimism, an
opportunity
here. We
can't neglect the ones that can't change as
quickly,
but we need to let everybody know that we can
really stretch the
envelope of where we can go design wise. But
at the
same
time,
you
have
to
have an
ethos that
says.
If you
do
this, you're
sort of in the
target
zone.
And if
you
do
this, then
you're,
you're
not
this
brand, you're
another
brand.
Dan Ryan: And
you know it, when you feel
it. Oh,
I'm
still
shocked.
You
just said it a
couple
seconds ago
or
MI a minute, a
couple
minutes ago.
You've
been there for 13
years.
Yes,
I
cannot.
How
did
the hell
did that
happen?
That's that? I feel like,
I
feel like I just met you. I can't believe it's
12 years. It's like a
whole
full
turn of the Zodiac
plus a
year.
Like,
how did you
find your way
to Hilton?
Vito Lotta: Um,
well, um,
there were, I
was with
Getty's group for a
while in Chicago
doing hospital. That's where I
got my
went from
healthcare into hospital. .
And so I
started [00:45:00] losing
learning the, you know,
the,
the foundation
of
hospitality there
and, uh,
interesting
things that
stood out in my mind were them saying,
you
know, it's
it's
guest
perception,
guest
experience, but then at the
same
time, they flipped their
hat and it was think like a hotel
owner.
And
after a time with
then I
went to
work for
Gossler and I
did a.
Almost 10 years with
Goler and,
um,
things were
going fantastic
there. I
was
leading a
team.
I was
bringing
work in the
door
and things were
going great. And then we skidded
into the,
uh,
fun time economic crash
and,
uh,
At that
time, it was like, okay,
everything in
hospitality where
skids off breaks, nothing's
going
on. And, um,
uh, one of our mutual
friends,
um,
said, give me
your CV. I
think I know somebody you might be hiring. And
so I
said, no, no. Just tell me who to.
send it
to.
I [00:46:00]
I'm
an
adult. I'll
send the
CV there. I don't need to
give
it to you to
hand to
them. And he's like, okay,
fine.
and then,
you
know,
kind of
struggling to
find opportunities during
that
time I
gave, um, him
a
call and, uh, there's no
answer and
says like, oh my gosh, what.
what's
going
on here? And somebody says, oh, um,
I
said, why
why is
Larry
tracks not answering the
phone at
Hyatt? And
they go, oh,
didn't you
hear what
happened? I
go, no, what happened? I go,
oh,
he's never had a design of
Hilton. I
go,
oh,
so I
Speed.
Dial
him on the cell phone. he has his
phone
and he
says,
uh,
yeah,
you
wanna send
me that
CV note? I go, yes. Larry
Dan Ryan: ah,
okay.
I
didn't know that.
Vito Lotta: Yeah. So I'm
like,
okay, this is
fantastic. Goes
now.
Okay. The
jobs I
guaranteed,
it's
got an
interview for it.
right?
I go, okay, you want my portfolio? And he goes, you've been showing me my
portfolio,
your portfolio for
years. Cuz
I would come in
with
ER's portfolio when I'd sift through this thing
[00:47:00] And I'd go,
I
don't know anything about
that project. Well,
here's the
project I
worked
on
and
we did
this, our
scope was this cause sometimes the
scope would
be
minor or major and
you
know, so I
would be
very
transparent as you know, I
am
what
we did as
Gemer
and
what
other
firms did, what my team
did
or what I specifically worked on.
So
he
already
knew
my portfolio.
Um, so
we went
and interviewed at a
Starbucks near
Wrigley
field.
Great.
Cause that's He
lived in the
Wrigleyville
area
and he's like, okay.
Here's the
job
position for you.
It's
the senior director of DoubleTree. And,
um,
you
know,
this
is what the
role's about,
and
this
is
what
it's like
to
work on the
corporate
side. And I'm
like, oh, I had no
idea what it
was like to be
on that
side of the
table.
They
flew me out to
Beverly Hills.
Did the interview there with,
uh, Matt
Richardson about, and then they're like,
you got the
job. Yeah, that
was [00:48:00]
13 years
ago.
Dan Ryan: Wow.
Wow. It's
so crazy.
13
years has gone by so
fast. I
know we spent so
much time
speaking about the past
and your origin
and
kind of
how
you
came
to be where you are at
Hilton.
Um,
as we
kind of
shift
gears and
look
to the future, what's exciting. You
most
about the
future?
Vito Lotta: Um, well,
I'm still passionate about
innovation.
Okay.
Um,
Track 3: that
came up a
lot
in our conversation and
dad to
you.
Yeah. Drafting
Vito Lotta: tables
and
the, the
part about innovation
these
days is
there's the, you know, the,
the,
technical,
the
digital,
you know, the physical
and,
uh,
so the, the
the
keyword there is the fi
is kind
of in
between the
two,
the
interface
between the. And,
uh,
so
it's always great to
see new
innovations
come
up and
sort of
fan the
flames of
creativity of other
inventors and
seeing how,
how,
[00:49:00] when
you
see
where they're
going, how
they can make it
better.
Mm-hmm
..Um,
but
one of
the
things
I
find
frustrating is
when the
answer to
most innovations is, oh,
we can
do an app for
that.
right.
And I'm
saying,
well,
you know, we still live in an analog world. Right. You still have
physical
bodies. And
how do
you, how are you comfortable?
Right.
So even like the matter of
sleeping, you
can't sleep
in any other
way. Like
if
you know,
50,
a
hundred
years from
now,
as
long
as we have gravitational
pool, I think we're
probably
gonna
be
sleeping horizontally.
I agree. You know, we're not gonna be just
a drift if,
if, we're a
wait
list.
Right.
But
there's
ways of
exploring
things of
how you can sleep differently by
using
like
nomadic air. You
know, like there is
this,
this
theory
of providing comfort, like through
body compression, uh, they found this
with autistic
children.
Uh, they
found it
like
with,
with
cows,
you can kind of compress and
hold a
cow to
comfort
it.
So you can,
the veterinarian can
take
care of
it. [00:50:00] Uh,
and
it's not
just squeezing it.
Like, don't
move it
comforts it
it.
soothes it. And
so like
Dan Ryan: like
those
gravity
blankets are
freaking amazing.
Vito Lotta: So
there's these pneumatic boots with
air pressure that, you know, are,
have,
it helps with the
healing process. Well, the idea
of like using it
around your
body to
wrap it and
snuggle
you and
comfort you and
help you
sleep and
have it
read your,
your,
bodies, um,
you
know, the blood pressure,
the
the
rhythm of your
brain
and
what
level of sleep
you're in, uh,
the temperature you
have and to augment
to
this, to
make it
prescribed
for you. That's
an
exciting
trend of the future.
Dan Ryan: And
I know we also
share
being on the
advisory
board of hotel of
tomorrow, ,
which is always
what
I
love about it
is it's
just
creating
this
open
source
kind of
boundary
pushing
where
where's this
all
going. Right.
Um,
and I
know like speaking to
Ron swindler on
this and just all
the
work that they've
done
has been [00:51:00] amazing, but
what
are some other
initiatives that
you're
you're seeing or a
part of
it that are
Vito Lotta: Well, one thing I'd like to see more motion on is, and I mentioned this
a year ago at
the lodging conference when Ron kindly had me on
this
panel to
speak
about the
hotel
tomorrow
is
that,
um,
we were
leading up to, oh, we're gonna have the hotel tomorrow with the
Oculus glasses. So we were all in this virtual
reality space. So we were
able to
meet with each
other and our
avatars that was in a, in
a
built
environment. And
that's,
that's
great,
but
it's a
hundred
percent digital. And
what
I
see the future
of is
making it
a
hybrid.
So it's
more virtual,
virtual
reality,
um,
augmented reality, sort of
virtual reality.
So
if
these
glasses that we're both wearing were
actual digital glasses, and
there
was
four
people in the
room, maybe
three of
us, or two of
us are actually in the
same room
and
the others are
in different
locations. So I see
you and can touch [00:52:00] you.
But if I
reach over
to touch the
next
person,
it's a
ghost, it's a
ghost. And it,
I can
only see
it in my glasses, but they're sitting on the sofa
with
me.
And
when
you see
us, you see us
sitting
together.
And
so getting that
sense
of
making
the physical reality
more part
of
that experience.
So
you can be
with
your grandmother who
you
more
often in
person.
Dan Ryan: Well, I tell you, and I think what I loved about hotel tomorrow as well is dawning those OCUL Oculuses or oculi if that's the
plural of it.
Um,
and
being on the air ship
and
talking to
people and
seeing a
presentation and
audio, the
audio
being louder when I'm
close to
you, or I could hear
people kind
of
off
chattering,
um,
the technology,
it,
it
still
seemed a
bit
rough
mm-hmm
because like,
I don't know
how much
bandwidth it would take
to
make it all
rendered perfectly like you're in a movie screen,
but
to
just
glimpse
that
3d
virtual
[00:53:00] space.
it was
just like
the first step into kind of, it helped me really get my head around envisioning
what
that future could be and that from whether it's augmented virtual
in
person, all of the
above, I
think that
there's
still so much more room
to
grow. I
don't, and I don't,
Vito Lotta: know where the hell it's. Well, the way my mind
works is I keep
flipping
back and
forth from the
extreme
ends of the
scale. So
one
extreme
end
is
anything's
possible.
We're
gonna figure it out. We're gonna
make it happen.
So
there's no wrong answers. There's no bad
ideas, right?
So you just go, go
go
just with, with
no
filter.
And
then I
flip to the other
extreme end,
and this goes back from a childhood of,
you could
design
it, but you had to build this, gotta actually work
reliably and
repeatedly.
And so
the
thing is, well, how do you really make it
happen?
So
I'm
when
I'm
always at the
trade shows and I
go to
somebody's
booth and
they go, well,
this is what we got now. And this is what
we're gonna do the future. I'm like,
yeah.
Right.
Okay. Then I
start challenging it.
So
right
[00:54:00] away, I
challenge
this like,
well, if we're gonna be sitting here and ICU and you're physically
here and I see
the person
who's not quite here,
we have to
have around us,
like
many photogrammetry,
real
time
scanning of
us. so that the
photo. So
the photogrammetry is
creating that
digital model in
real time
and
generating
it in such a way. You see many glasses.
Not a
problem.
It's just a matter of
processing
speed
and
storage capacity, which in the
future gets
better and
better and
better.
Yeah.
But
you
know, you have to
stop and
go. Yeah. But what does it
really take
to do
that? You know?
and then
the
other
thing that's concerning about all this innovation
is
how do
you
do it while protecting privacy?
So
for example, the team,
and of course,
no one person
designs,
anything,
right? The
team I
was
on for
hotel
tomorrow, we
had
as a
group of
four, an
idea,
and it turned out.
three other teams were
along the same direction [00:55:00] with
this idea.
So
wees our ideas
together.
actually, Ron was
great at
having his team,
listen to all our
ideas and help,
you know,
compress them together as one idea. But one of the
things that we
talked
about
is
the
idea of this journey.
If
you
walk into a
property and you
were going
to
wanna
have
great
service, how can the people there when you walk
in
immediately know,
oh, Dan's here
and I,
these are
Dan's
preferences.
How
do we welcome and greet Dan
exactly the way Dan
wants to be
greeted and give him the
drinking
wants and
the
food and just
his
personal nuances of
of how you dance
around
him to
make
him
graceful and
elegant.
Nice. How do you
Meg, that just what
Dan wants versus what
you know
Jane
wants?
Well,
then the thought is let's take that
to the next level. What if Dan
wants to be
treated differently on
different occasions? So
if
Dan's
traveling
on business [00:56:00]
with a
group or
business on his own
or family with just his
wife or
family with
his kids,
it's like,
how,
what
level do
you
wanna be
treated
differently? And
maybe
in some cases, anonymity,
mm-hmm
And our case anonymity is when we're checking out the competition.
Right.
But
if you wanna
walk up and say,
okay, I'm on
business trip by my O myself, I'm gonna walk
in.
Do
I
wanna
sit
at the
bar
or the communal table? What
feels socially more
comfortable and
safe for
me?
And when I
sit at the,
at
one of them, do I want
the
server to
come
over and say,
you
know,
Hey
norm, or,
Hey,
you
know,
Sally,
whatever the
name
is,
which
is your alias.
Dan Ryan: So it's
almost like
having a
a
dial for priv
for
privacy or
anonymity or to
not
Vito Lotta: still get
the,
Your
reward points
still give
usable
data
that has business
quality
to.
the restaurant, the
hotels, and it's CLO cross platform
without getting expanded. but
with, but
without
giving
up your privacy of [00:57:00] you ate at
this
time, and you
can
serve
this
many
calories and you have this much
fat, protein and
carbs,
you know,
it's like, so
none of your business, what I ate
Dan Ryan: but
all
that
information
lives
somewhere.
Vito Lotta: Right. I
mean, cuz
I'm not
the type of
person you've
seen My
Instagram I've posted zero
right.
I,
I
um,
I
think
people have
different
levels of
privacy
that they want. and
so that can
be integrated.
Dan Ryan: Oh, I
like
that.
Um,
I
want to
go
back
to when you're at your drafting
table as a
kid,
but before
you
won the
AIA award
mm-hmm okay. So you're
there, you're
at the table
you're
working,
you're
designing
your
whatever
trap
or
contraption.
Let's just say contraption, your surprise gift. Um,
And
then
you, the
veto that I'm speaking to
sitting to
right here, right
now,
you
magically
appear in
front of your younger self. What
advice do
you have for
yourself?
Vito Lotta: It's the
same
advice I
try and
give to
my [00:58:00] kids.
And
is
that
you
have,
you have more
capability
than
you're aware
of
Dan Ryan: which
kind of,
that's
amazing,
cuz that
also ties into,
when
you
think you're,
you've hit your limit. You're
probably
only
40% of
the way there.
Vito Lotta: Yes. That's
part of it,
but
it, but it's
also, you
know,
when, when
somebody
tells a
child,
you know,
you can do anything you
want, if you want to,
it's like, well
I was never
gonna
be a
basketball
player
or a ballerina,
you
know?
Mm.
Swing
dancing is
probably as
close as
I
get to that.
Dan Ryan: Or maybe a
literary major
Vito Lotta: Yeah, no way.
so there's,
there's,
like
you have your
own unique strengths,
but
where you can go
with
it is far beyond what
you're imagining.
And the
other
thing
that
I would
tell then, which I
also
tell
my
kids
is
what
you can do in the future.
Um,
and you be, might [00:59:00] be
great at
that.
Technology doesn't even
exist
yet.
So
when we were kids, there was no internet. So
how
would you imagine doing some of the
things you
could do today?
Cause it,
it just, it wasn't on the board.
So,
so the emphasis is just, you know, follow your, love, your dreams, play into your strengths, know that you have more capability than you would imagine you have, and opportunities are gonna come in the future, both from discoveries of ways to integrate to things of capabilities and talent.
So you didn't know you have, or didn't know it mixed together as well as the fact that no one person does anything. You, nobody gets anywhere as a soloist. It's, you know, you get to where you are in the future because people invest in you and you need to invest in others. So there's this combination of the, the two of those working together.
How can you help other people? And as well as a result of that, everybody
helps each other.
Dan Ryan: I love [01:00:00] it.
And.
And,
I
think I, and I
think for most of the
people that
I'm speaking to
here
and that I
interact with,
or
that I'm drawn
to,
it
really
comes
down to
there's
this
theme
of,
we all
stand on the
shoulders of
those
before
us.
Right.
Right.
We're
all a
part of a
team
that's
trying to
get
something done.
We're
not
a
party of
one.
Right.
Um,
alright. I I'd
love, I
love that.
I cannot
wait
to listen to
this and
share this with
everyone.
Um,
how
can
people
get in
touch with you if they wanna learn
more?
Vito Lotta: Uh,
you know,
LinkedIn is easiest.
Okay,
perfect. Yeah. And, um,
they connect with
me. Um, you can send a message in LinkedIn
and
if, if there
seems to be
the right
rapport, then the next
step
is
here's
my
Hilton
email address.
right.
Dan Ryan: Well,
we'll,
we'll,
we'll
put
that in the show notes and uh, of course we'll
put
all the
Hilton
information up
there as
well.
Um, [01:01:00]
I
wanna
say
thank you for helping me get uncomfortable.
And
I,
I feel
like
also you being from Illinois
in a
weird
way, I feel like we're in
Wayne and
Garth's
basement
right now
from
Wayne's
world.
recording this,
but I
feel like I've learned
so
much
about
doing
this
my
first one
in person.
And,
um,
thanks for
helping
me
get
uncomfortable, but
also
be
comfortable
with
this
format
because
I
think
that this is gonna help
all these
conversations that
I'm
having with
you and
others
evolve.
So thank you.
Thank
Track 3: Thank you.
Vito Lotta: Thank you, Dan.
So I
would,
you know,
you're, you're, a
good
friend,
um, and
I trust
you.
Uh, you've
done
such amazing
podcasts
that, uh,
you made it
comfortable
for me to do it.
Dan Ryan: Oh, see,
we're
both
helping
each other now. Um, and also,
you know, looking
straight at the
camera right now.
Thank you to the guests. We
keep
growing
every
single
week. It is
so
humbling.
Um, [01:02:00]
and the
feedback is
amazing.
So if this has changed your
idea
on
how to grow, how to get
uncomfortable,
how to
be
the best
that you can,
uh,
how to
make
others
comfortable,
please pass it along.
It's
all
word of
mouth.
And, um,
thank
you.
We'll
look forward to the
next one.