I recently attended the E Tipu (food and fibre) conference in Christchurch. This is the third time I've attended and each year has stepped up a notch or two, due to the hard work of Dr. Victoria Hatton and her team.
Food and fibre covers an enormous number of topics and is super important to our economy. Like Victoria, there are lots of smarties clustered around this industry, many of whom are based in Palmerston North, where last year's conference was held. I'm wondering where it will be held in future?
I'm not directly involved in the food and fibre industry anymore, but I do want to keep up with what's going on in the sector that accounts for $62 billion of our annual exports. There are speakers from the fashion industry through to tech and I love the diversity.
.jpg)
I go to conferences with the attitude of wanting to come away with a small number of ideas I want to implement. One or two is a good number for me. More than that and it's usually just fluff that I won't actually make happen.
This time, I got more than usual and haven't managed to work out why yet. However, I do think that it's in large part due to the space CI is in right now, going through a creative process of storytelling with PJ Manney and Andrew Melville. Storytelling was big theme of E Tipu this year.
I want to share a few notes I took, in no particular order:
- Long-term funding with short-term strategy is a recipe for disaster;
- If Patient Capital is required then make sure your request is implict when raising funds;
- Data is going to be incredibly important for marketing in the near future of AI;
- Companies are built to be stable and sure in an unstable world. What are you going to do with that?;
- Innovation moves at the speed of trust - in a world where trust is declining;
- Doom leads to apathy, not action. Tell hopeful stories even in tough times;
- Creating good value for your customers does not mean cheap;
- Culture is like coral - it builds with time;
- Historical context is important to your storytelling;
- How we communicate matters;
- The future will be wildly different to where we have come from;
- Resilience is way more important than sustainability;
- Tensions indicate an opportunity.
This is not my to-do list. That's way more introspective and I'm not ready to share yet.
"...your message matters..."
The keynote speaker, Jack Bobo, came on at 4.10pm on the Friday afternoon with the title 'The Best Story Wins'. I reckon about 30-50% of the punters had already left by then and I felt sorry for them after hearing this speech. To be a keynote, you need to have some creed in an already impressive array of speakers, and I had high hopes for Jack's message.
He repeated over and over, "your message matters", and I was reminded just how much more effort we need to place on his skill in Aotearoa New Zealand.
I think the most glaring example is the difference between our national rugby teams, the All Blacks and Black Ferns. The women are engaging, articulate, eloquent at times and humorous. Meanwhile, the All Blacks can be dull as fuck.
If the All Blacks weren't bloody good rugby players nobody would listen to them. It's an effort to listen to uninspiring drudgery. Your story matters, and it needs to be told well.
On the subject of women, E Tipu is a gender-balanced conference which is very different to where the industry has come from. Male-dominated industries will not flourish now, nor in the future, and I'm stoked to see the food and fibre industry exhibit greater inclusion than in previous years.
Behind the scenes, Collective Intelligence is deep into storytelling right now and it's hard and skilled work trying to crystalize the messaging. And tiring.
Next year, I'm putting my had up to be a speaker at E Tipu, as I believe I can add value to their kaupapa. I would only offer this if I truly believe our story can add value, and I got some great feedback that it can.
Well done to the team that brought E Tipu together!
Photo Credits:
Photo by Josh Sorenson on Unsplash
