The LongView

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I was told today that we may have to be patient for success. That, while social media are indeed being embraced by the enterprise, the FohBoh vision may be too big for foodservice. Hmmm.

The 4C's of Social Media
FohBoh has content. In fact, more P2P content in one spot for the foodservice industry than anywhere else.

FohBoh Is collaborative. We have 13,000 members that suggest that we are an active, engaged community. Not all at once, but we are engaged.

FohBoh is The defacto online restaurant community. We have members, content, groups, interaction, dialog sharing, and 13,000 members...

FohBoh has collective intelligence. We are the deepest peer-to-peer resource for our industry. Our members are the voice of the restaurant industry.

The Restaurant industry isn't waiting for analysts and investors to say, ok, the timing is perfect for us now. That concept is a circular reference.

We are working hard to move this needle and educate investors, analysts and others to deliver solutions to this industry. We need social media business cases and thought leadership now, not when prognosticators say so.

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Time for the restaurant industry to embrace the new, new

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I find that I am always thinking about what's next. I am a gadget guy, for sure. Call me the ultimate early-adopter. I remember my first computer purchased for a ton of money in 1984. It was a Macintosh. I jumped right in and started playing with it. Totally unafraid, as I should be. Unless I dropped it, I wasn't planning to break it. Really, what could a 512 machine do? Practically nothing, almost everything.

I'm a believer, and I practice the art of the possible. I have no fear. So, why is that? What was it during my childhood that turned this personality on? My parents were hard working, middle class folks. But not risk-takers. My grandfather was an entrepreneur and inventor, howevever. Maybe "it" skipped a generation; kind of like hair-loss.

Being a risk-taker is a hard thing to tell someone. Like your wife! Actually, my wife knew it long before we were married. It's my first wife that didn't know. That is, until I had quit my job, moved to Reno, Nevada in 1980. Then a year later, I opened my first restaurant at the age of 26. I just decided to be an entrepreneur. I had a vision and focused on that goal. In those days, being an entrepreneur wasn't something you actually put on a business card. It wasn't something that I even identified with. I was just a someone that had a dream and followed his heart. I was a risk-taker restaurateur.

Here's the thing I just don't get about the restaurant industry. An operator will take enormous personal and financial risk developing and operating a restaurant. Huge amount of risk with huge failure rates. But when it comes to technology, clams up. "No thanks." "Not for me." "Too complicated." "Too expensive." "Never had it, don't need it." "It's a fad." "We have all the technology we need around here, thank you very much!" Gez. Ask any technology vendor about selling into the foodservice industry and they just look down and say, "man, can you say late adopters?"

But, wait. I see as small crack. A glimmer of hope for the sales rep and the operator. Its called social media. Why does it takes an economic meltdown and a fundamental shift in how humans communicate to drag a restaurateur to the table?

First, foodservice is already very late, so may they are right on time, again. Social media has been around since the Internet started. Social media is just people having conversations online. The change is speed and dialog...a two way conversation. The future of the social web is positioning restaurants to leverage this amazing force of change betetr than many industries. If, they will use it. Don't be afraid. You cannot break the Internet.

1. It's mostly free.
2. You cannot break it.
3. It will, if used strategically, build relationships with new and existing customer and should increase sales.
4. It is powerful and can, drive operating costs down.
5. It should be looked at as a utility: Business CRM, Social CRM, Business Productivity and Workforce Productivity tools to help sustain and grow your business.

The trend is more use, not less. The reality is your customers and employees are online using social media and social networking right now. Are you?

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