Reflections on a summit

It is amazing how time manages to get away from us, particularly when a holiday rolls around. Here it is, the first full week of July, already 10 days since we gathered together 12 college and university foodservice professionals in Austin, Minn., for a meeting of the minds. It seems like only a couple of days has passed.

In partnership with the Hormel Foods Corp., which is headquartered there, we planned three days of intense brainstorming about how college foodservice can better meet the needs of its student customers. With the help of facilitator Deb Van De Weghe, a Minneapolis-based think tank called Iconoculture, and some of Hormel’s own resources, we got our 12 representatives thinking like college students, examining more critically their own operations and sharing ideas with each other in a way I think can only occur in small groups. After this experience I understand much better the idea behind focus groups.

Our group came from all over the country, from private and public institutions: Arizona, Brigham Young, Connecticut, Georgia, Kansas, Michigan, Penn State, Princeton, Texas Tech, UC Santa Barbara, Villanova and Washington State.

There was an ice-breaking exercise that, to save participants any embarrassment, I won’t describe here—although I would be happy to elaborate one-on-one with anyone who asks because it really does relax people and start the flow of conversation. There was a presentation from Iconoculture on Millennials, those children and young adults who make up the present and future customers of college campuses. And there were several opportunities for the group through some clever exercises to come up with new revenue ideas.

I will readily admit to having misgivings about this summit, at least in the back of my mind. I thought, can we really make a difference in a market sector by drawing together only a dozen or so operators? But then I realized two things: we’re not out to improve an entire market, and innovation never takes any market by storm. Rather, it takes root like a plant, and grows and spreads itself until it is ready to be harvested by the community.

That’s what I think we accomplished in three days. We sowed seeds, helped people establish some new bonds and gave those people food for thought. Personally, I connected with some old friends and made several new ones, and I gained even more insight into the ways that trade magazines can bring operators and suppliers together without selling a product.

I plan to revisit our 12 participating schools next year, at least virtually, so see what innovations sprang from this summit of ours—although I really don’t think it’s going to take that long to see results.