The enabling Infrastructue

What it means by an enabling infrastructure:

It was Feb 01 2015. Midwestern USA was being pounded by a blizzard. Both the major airports of Chicago, O'Hare and Midway, were shutdown. The air travel was at its worst delays and cancellations.

I was flying from sunny Orange County to Minneapolis and to catch a connection to Midland MI. Completely oblivious, I had no idea that the Midwest was this bad until I landed at MSP and the gate monitor said my flight to MBS was cancelled. This is the only flight to MBS everyday.

No issues, once I am away from home I do not care where I sleep, until it is a Marriott! :) I walked over to the nearest customer service area, captured a desk, picked up the phone (direct reservation line), explained to the agent and sent her off to find me options.

At this moment I understood that Airline was not going to offer a hotel accommodation because this was a cancellation due to weather. While I was on hold I pulled out my laptop, connected to Internet - went to my corporate portal, went over to my booking engine. Searched for hotels next to Airport, found two - most airport hotels (hotels near airport) offer a shuttle service. Confirmed that they do.

Meantime the agent on the phone needed some information and correction, it took approx 20 minutes to get all booked. I called the hotel were I would have stayed and changed my reservation, called rental car and changed it, all the while I was on hold.

Because of my elite status with Marriott and rental car company, all the reservation changes happen seamlessly and in literally a minute without any penalties.

I landed at MSP around 6:45 PM, and was watching Super Bowl in my hotel room at 8:15 PM.

New England Patriots won after all that controversies of the deflated ball!

It is important to recognize that I had never put a foot into Minneapolis, before.

Next day, I had my full morning breakfast, worked till noon  and headed to the Airport. There was no impact to the required productivity of the project. I could participate in key calls. 

Morale of this story is: this is what it means by enabling infrastructure.

- clearly defined processes within airlines and infrastructure to get to them.

- airport infrastructure of WiFi and its consistent functionality.

- hotel services and processes clearly defined and consistent across the globe.

- the Marriott consistency and familiarity

- ease of use of corporate portals and technology which work seamlessly.

- not to mention - clean and abundant toilets and washrooms.

Infrastructure is not limited to physical aspect of it: it is not roads, cars and malls, alone: it is an orchestra of effective processes, clear and concise communication, effective tools, well trained humans, honest and focused objectives, and a need to excel supported by the physical infrastructures.

PS: The context of this post is developing countries. When McDonalds, Malls and roads pop-up in these countries - the feeling of "infrastructural sufficiency" evolves. The intent of this post is to define a level of maturity required to enable the human growth.