Inspiring HAS Food Experience

Roger Engelberts, Chief Emotions Officer of Imagro, teased the audience with some techniques, tricks and tips to arouse ideas for the upcoming HAS Food Experiences. Strategy-artist Marc-Jan Janssen added value by visualizing to process and the outcome.

The Indian Talking Stick
The session started with an Indian Talking Stick. This is a kind of stick with feathers and beads. The purpose of the Indian Talking Stick is that people have to Listen to understand and not to reply as quickly as possible so they can defend themselves or something. The participants alternately take the Talking Stick in their hands and tell his or her talent and ‘How Can I…?’ -  HCI and put the stick back on the table. The next person had to wait 10 seconds before he or she took the stick and had to repeat the HCI from the last person. They had to tell their worry for the Food Experience. For example: someone said “I’m Sandra, my talent is individualism and my HCI is: how can I let everyone participate proportionally on the Food Experience and let everyone shine? (not only one person but everyone!)”. The thing I noticed was that at the end when almost everyone told their talent and ‘HCI’ the rule ‘wait 10 seconds before you take the stick’ was no longer followed anymore. People are impatient. Maybe because of the low-context culture in the Netherlands, people are always in a hurry.

Big Hairy Audacious Goal
The next exercise was about BHAG. BHAG means Big Hairy Audacious Goal. BHAG gives a concrete and ambitious goal of what somebody wants to achieve in for example 5 or 10 years. The group had to write ideas or dreams on a whiteboard about the HAS Food Experience in silence. If you wanted to react on or complete someone’s word, you had to write your word beneath or above it. People where very enthusiastic while writing their dreams on the whiteboard. Someone wrote “It has to be on the television on 24 kitchen” and “Next year we want a confetti cannon XL”.

Pleased by the result
During the last exercise people were divided into 3 groups. They were spread throughout Imagro: one group sat in the treehouse. They had to answer questions like: “Define the HAS Food Experience in only one word” and “Assume the role as a student”. They summarized the answers of the questions on the end of the day.

The group was pleased with the results and said they had a lot of new ideas for the following HAS Food Experiences, especially the project manager Mary van Hoek-Hendriks (teacher/advisor Food Innovation HAS Hogeschool). If you have any questions about the HAS Food Experience, feel free to contact her. Marc-Jan Janssen drew some ideas on a paper. His outcome is really nice! You can see it below the page.

Britt Gommans – intern at Imagro
Student at HAN University of Applied Sciences in Nijmegen.

I have been studying Food and Business for three years now. Food and Business is an education which is specialized in market research, dietetics, food safety, (retail) marketing, chemistry etc. Summarized: it’s a very varied study. Before you start with your internship, you have to choose between three directions, namely: business, quality management or product development. I have chosen for marketing. I’m glad that Imagro gave me the change to develop myself in this category.