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Jenn is the perfect employee: poised, professional, perky. She never complains, never loses her cool, always has the same sweet smile for everyone. Her voice is soothing, nicey-nice, even when customers start messing around in her personal business.  “Are you married?” guys want to know.  She kindly reminds them that she is not human.  When they tell her she’s “hot,” she gently directs them to Alaska Airlines’ warm-weather destinations. 

The pretty, brown-eyed brunette is an avatar, the go-to “Ask Jenn” assistant who has provided customers with travel information on the Alaska Airlines website since her “birth” in 2008. Her parents, she tells anyone nosy enough to ask, are all the smart people who created her at Alaska Airlines and the tech startup NextIT. But it is iSchool graduate Cindy Mitchell she calls “mother.”

Mitchell first began developing the interactive assistant while simultaneously working at Alaska Airlines as principal consultant and studying for her executive Master of Science in Information Management degree at the iSchool. The year was 2005. “I thought, if we could get a prototype, that would be a perfect Capstone experience for me at the iSchool,” says Mitchell, a tall, quick-witted blonde who looks nothing like her precocious six-year-old cyber protégé.

Mitchell worked on the early model of Jenn – a Betty Crocker lookalike – with NextIT, Spokane-based pioneers in the breaking field of virtual assistant technology. It would take her two years to sell her company on the idea.

“It seemed pretty scary, pretty ‘out there’ at the time,” she says. She made dozens of presentations, showing that an avatar could quickly access website content to answer routine questions. She was tenacious in her pitching, buoyed by her iSchool cohort and professors. “We talked a lot at the iSchool about being a change agent, about leading the effort to do something new -- about how you work across an organization to get people to hear your message,” says Mitchell.

Although she earned her undergraduate degree in elementary education and Spanish, the travel business always had a hold on Mitchell, who grew up in Nigeria, attended high school in Spain, and worked for the U.S. government in Liberia. She took her first step into the industry when she was 18 years old, enrolling in travel agent school. It was still the age of pencil and paper and fares were published in massive books, updated weekly. Tickets were written by hand, trips planned in person.

It was a far cry from today’s electronic era of self-help travel, says Mitchell. “Today you can get on a plane and the first time you must talk to anybody is the gate agent scanning your boarding pass.”

After working at various travel agencies, Mexicana Airlines, and Westin Hotels and Resorts, she was recruited by Alaska Airlines IT leaders impressed by her business savvy and the tech skills she’d honed in computer classes and on the job. She signed on in February 1996, three months after Alaska Airlines went live with its website and became the first U.S. airline to sell tickets online. It was also the first to allow customers to check in and print boarding passes at kiosks and online.

Alaska Airlines would notch up another first when it introduced Jenn to the world. She was the first online virtual assistant in the U.S. airline industry and a tribute to Mitchell’s skills at bringing different systems and teams in synch, say those who worked alongside her. Jeff Brown, executive vice president for sales at NextIT, describes Mitchell as a purposeful innovator, able to negotiate through the “white space” of loosely defined processes and procedures. Alaska product owner Theresa Miller, the soothing voice of Jenn, says simply: “It wouldn’t have happened without her.”

Today, the original Betty Crocker model has evolved into a terribly efficient Demi Moore-type beauty who handles thousands of customer questions a day. She’s a quick learner, with an ever-expanding database. If there’s a change in policy, she’s all over it. If someone stumps her with a substantive question, her team considers writing a new response. Miller typically goes into the studio every two weeks to record changes and additions.

Jenn’s chat is carefully scripted, even replies to off-beat questions customers love to throw her: “Why is the sky blue? (“The way light scatters in the atmosphere,” she answers); “What is your favorite food?” (“Copper River salmon – naturally!”).

Mitchell says preparing funny questions was a “stress reliever” for the team as they slowly built their avatar, starting with an internal version for employees called Super Jenn. There were long discussions about every detail of the image, down to the just-so tilt of the head. “It drove me a bit batty how wrapped up everyone was in her looks: the look in her eye, the bit of a smile, the hairdo,” says Mitchell.

Picking a name was another challenge. Focus groups considered Sam, Jill, Alli, Val, Jess, and Alex, before picking Jenn (the added “n” gave the name a little edge). The avatar team almost revolted when the brand and marketing group suggested a last-minute name switch before the launch. “In the process of creating her persona, we got really attached to her name,” says Miller. “It’s like having a child and they’re three and you’re changing the name. You can’t do that.”

Personifying the perky brunette has proven irresistible – for both customers who beg Jenn to name their first child and creators who throw her cake-and-candle birthday parties. Mitchell talks of her virtual offspring with motherly pride. “It feels like she’s so mature now,” says the iSchool alumna, who has remained an active participant in the school, teaching and serving on the MSIM advisory board.

“Cindy has been a staunch supporter of the program and the iSchool, first as an instructor and guest lecturer, and then as a booster for the iSchool within Alaska Airlines,” says iSchool senior lecturer Mike Crandall. “She is a great example of how giving back to the school can enrich a graduate’s own career while providing opportunities for current and future students.”

In March this year, Mitchell retired as Alaska’s director of strategic execution, doing what she does best: moving project proposals from idea to realization. The avid traveler has been on the go ever since, hopping between Paris and Palm Springs, New York and Maui – anywhere a plane ticket can take her. She is giving herself one year off work to consider what comes next. Says Mitchell, “I always joke that I have been at four airlines, three travel agencies, and one hotel chain. All I am missing is a cruise company and a railroad.”