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Certificate program develops understanding of beer selection

The craft beer industry is exploding. Consider this: New breweries open at a rate of more than one a day, giving people access to a broader selection of ingredients and flavor profiles to taste and explore.

This presents a challenge for restaurants and bars, which must reevaluate their beer offerings in order to stay relevant to the expanding taste buds of their clientele.

In response, the School of Hotel Administration has launched a Beer Essentials certificate program to help hospitality industry professionals develop the end-to-end understanding of beer production, tasting and selection necessary for establishing an effective beer program.

Applicable to anyone with ties to craft brewing, this program will provide in-depth knowledge of the beer industry, including how to analyze and make informed decisions regarding beer selections.

“Customers expect more diverse choices now than what they’ve traditionally been given,” said Douglass Miller, faculty program author and lecturer at the Hotel School, who has more than 30 years of industry experience.

“This program will provide a comprehensive look at developing an effective beer program,” Miller said, “from ingredients and process to sensory analysis, to serving, training and sales.”

The Beer Essentials program consists of four two-week courses:

  • Beer Ingredients and Production
  • Beer Styles
  • Establishing a Beer Program
  • Beer Sales and Training

After completing the courses, participants will earn a certificate from the Hotel School and 40 professional development hours. Visit the eCornell website to learn more about this program.

– Bailey Karfelt

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7 expert tips for creating a great beer experience for your customers

Today there are over 15 million restaurants and bars in the world. Add in the booming winery and brewery industries, and the average consumer is over-saturated with choices when looking to grab a drink.

With so many options available, hospitality businesses are hard-pressed to elevate the experience they are providing guests. What’s the solution? Doug Miller, a lecturer at Cornell University’s Hotel School with over thirty years of experience in the industry, offers his best-practice tips for running a successful beverage program and enhancing the overall customer experience.

Consider your audience. Different people have different expectations. It’s important to understand who your customer base is, and where their interests lie. If you’re opening a new business, do some research. Visit successful businesses nearby, sit at the bar, and observe. Ask yourself, “What is the atmosphere? How are the customers responding to it? What’s on the food and beverage menus? What’s on tap? What are people ordering? What size pour is preferred?” If you’re an existing business looking to take it to the next level, do the research again. Study the differences between how your business operates versus the successful ones around you. Compare those to your ideal, and determine ways to bridge the gap.

Be strategic. Armed with information about your target customers, choices must be made. If you have a tap beer program, will you offer beer tastings? If you do offer tastings, you can work the cost of the tastings into your pricing model. Is your audience beer-centric? If so, maybe you don’t need to offer as many options for the wine lover. If not, you may need to consider alternative beverage offerings. Does your target audience enjoy craft, imported or domestic beer? Is there a popular beer being produced locally? A common mistake businesses make is putting thought into creating a local food menu, but then offering no locally sourced beer or other beverages to accompany it. If the local element is important, then it should be represented in all aspects of the menu and business.

Also consider how your beverage program complements your food offering (if you have one). If you’re serving seafood, are you offering a wheat beer or white wine to accompany it? If you’re serving red meat, do you have an ale or Cabernet Sauvignon on the menu? Some businesses may choose to forgo a food offering altogether. If you’re choosing to not serve food, consider your business hours and location. Do your hours of operation cater to an after-dinner crowd? Is the location near popular restaurants?

Cultivate an atmosphere. Atmosphere is one of the most essential components of any business. A beer program can be wildly impressive, but if the atmosphere doesn’t appeal to the clientele, the business will struggle.

Sit down at the bar and imagine the ideal experience of your clientele. Ask yourself questions. Is the bar and glassware clean? Is the lighting soft and inviting? Does the decor fit the vibe? What music is playing, and at what volume? Is it easy to carry on conversation? Should there be a television, and how often should it be on? If it’s not on, can it be covered or moved out of sight? Is there adequate seating for singles, couples and groups? Are there smells coming from the kitchen? Is there a draft from the front door? Is there space for bartenders to move behind the bar, and servers to move around the tables? Are the seats comfortable? Is there a place to hang a jacket or purse? Is a server readily available? Considering the customer experience from start to finish is an opportunity to spot aspects that may not be up to par.

Be efficient. Establish a strategy for success. Perhaps most vital to this is equipping your service team with the knowledge they need to serve any customer. Take time to ensure they understand the customer experience they should cultivate. Consider creating cards on each beverage so that your servers can access detailed information on the history of a specific beer, including alcohol content, IBUs, OGs or FGs as needed. Encourage them to be proactive in offering a second drink to guests — a best practice is to ask “What would you like to select next?”, not “Do you want another?”

Engage your audience. The most critical element of a successful business is the customer experience. And while menu options and atmosphere can be major players in creating a good experience, the make-it-or-break-it factor is service.

The service industry can be challenging; you are serving a diverse clientele, with different needs and differing expectations. Some beer enthusiasts may expect a comprehensive history of their beverage from their server, while others may want no engagement while they enjoy a drink. Some guests may lack enthusiasm or interest in beer altogether, and be present out of necessity for a friend or group. Regardless, it is important to create an exceptional experience for each customer, and recognize their individual needs. Service is a delicate balance of managing expectations and trying to meet the needs of the guest. An establishment should consider how they can improve the experience for their clientele and make their visit memorable.

The best possible experience can make many forms; for some, it will be engaging with the server over the intricacies of their beverage, while for others, it may be minimal yet efficient communication. Asking simple questions such as “Why did you choose this beer?” or “What brings you out today?” can offer insight into the guest’s beer knowledge and expectations. The answer may have to do with the brand, hops, alcohol content or simply the name sounding good. Any information can help servers to determine the level at which to engage the customer.

Pro tip — don’t leave the engagement to just the bartenders and servers! A manager’s place is also engaging with guests. Don’t waste time retroactively trying to handle online perception in an office during open hours. The best time to manage perception is on the floor as it’s developing.

Don’t make assumptions. The biggest mistake a service team can make is to assume anything about a customer. A guest may not be there for beer or wine. Men don’t always prefer beer, and women aren’t always wine. Neither beverage should be considered classier than the other; the same descriptors are used for both pallets, and the tongue has a similar experience – bitter, sweet, salty, sour or umami. A glass should be provided for either beverage; similar to wine, the full experience of beer comes from pouring it into a glass (not frozen; even chilled is not usually worth the fridge space) and allowing the guest to enjoy the aroma of the beer. Don’t expect every guest to be familiar with beer or wine, and don’t insult their understanding, either. Make every attempt to engage the customer on their preferred level, and avoid creating any sense of chagrin or discomfort.

Be decisive. With so many considerations available, it’s easy to become overwhelmed and struggle with decision-making. The same atmosphere doesn’t appeal to everyone. You can only have so many items on a menu to appeal to your clientele, and an over-saturated beer selection will not accomplish any goals. To be successful, you must determine your business strategy, research your target audience, and then make decisions that align accordingly. A beer menu doesn’t need to be huge; it can offer only 6-7 beers, given they are chosen with the clientele in mind. Purchasing too much beer runs the risk of it going out of date in the storeroom — the average shelf life of an IPA is around 60-90 days. Some beer styles can have a longer shelf life, but for most beers styles, fresher is better. Tap lines should be cleaned every other week, and no business wants to waste money on a keg that won’t sell. It’s impossible to carry every type of beer, so don’t complicate your business by trying to establish a menu for all (but do offer that level of service).

At the end of the day, an enjoyable customer experience comes down to three themes: the environment, the service, and the engagement. Devoting time to regularly developing and re-evaluating your business plan, menu, atmosphere and service team is essential to creating the optimal experience that will bring your customers back over and over again.

To learn more about creating the optimal beer program, check out the Beer Essentials certificate program authored by Doug Miller.

Douglass Miller
Douglass Miller, lecturer at the School of Hotel Administration (SHA).
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New online Digital Photography certificate program

Capturing great photographs takes more than a good camera or the right Instagram filter. To be a successful photographer, one must master a variety of observational and artistic techniques, as well as become intimately familiar with photography’s technical elements and professional workflows.

Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning is launching a new Digital Photography certificate program, aimed at building professional photography skills and knowledge. Available online through eCornell, the program will explore everything from the mechanics of the camera to the digital programs used for editing, as well as help students strengthen the self-discipline, concentration, and critical thinking mindset essential to good photography.

Composed of seven courses, this certificate program will cover the fundamentals of photography, explain how to choose the right camera and use it, explore the digital tools available today and deep dive into lighting, style and expression, and best practices. Learners will examine standard camera features and develop a toolkit of techniques for creating different types of photographs to meet their expressive goals.

“This certificate program is designed to build essential photography skills, learn best practices and develop a professional approach to photography, whether using it commercially or for personal reasons,” says Barry Perlus, program author and Associate Professor of the Cornell College of Architecture, Art, and Planning.

Perlus is a recognized artist and educator who employs photography and digital imaging in his artistic practice. His work embodies a keen interest in observation and interpretation, using elements of scale, perspective, light, color, and abstraction to create new interpretations.

Learners will benefit from expert insight into various image management programs and how to create an efficient workflow. Best practices will be shared on the nuts and bolts of professional photography, including legally protecting work, designing websites and developing a social media presence. By the end of the program, learners will have gained the necessary skills to achieve their professional or personal goals as a photographer.

Courses include:

  • Photography Fundamentals
  • Camera Selection and Mechanics
  • Digital Asset Management
  • Lighting
  • Style and Expression Through Photography
  • Building a Photography Portfolio
  • Professional Photography

After successful completion of the seven courses, learners will receive a Digital Photography certificate from Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art and Planning. Learn more about this program.

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CALS, eCornell, specialty food group team up for training

Fair trade. Organic. Gluten-free.

Twelve years ago, specialty foods were a mere 4% of U.S. retail food sales. By 2018, they accounted for 15% – almost $150 billion in sales – and the industry continues to grow.

Consumer interest in specialty foods has grown so quickly, companies and universities have struggled to keep up with the need for training the entrepreneurs, distributors and retailers who are working to meet the demand. That’s why the Specialty Food Association (SFA), eCornell and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences have teamed up to create an online certificate training program: the Professional Food Buyer Course.

The new course – the first in eCornell’s nearly 20-year history to be developed with a food industry partner – will be available exclusively through the eCornell platform on June 22.

“If you look at disciplines and you look at college preparation, there’s really no ‘specialty food department’ that will train people to do this kind of job,” said Robert Gravani, professor emeritus of food science and head of the project. “Most people are already in the business and grow into the buyer position; they’re not formally trained in it.”

That transition can be difficult for food buyers, distributors and retailers, who are accustomed to working with larger companies that have mastered the logistics of growing, packaging, storing, distributing and marketing a food item. For small startups and entrepreneurs, which supply the bulk of the fast-growing specialty food market, working out the steps of the supply chain in coordination with buyers is crucial for their success, said Ron Tanner, vice president of philanthropy, government and industry relations for the SFA.

“Specialty food buyers may discover a new product and fall in love with it, but they may not realize how the supply chain would work for them to get the product,” Tanner said. “A large company like a Wegmans or a Whole Foods wants to get that product on the shelves, but if you don’t know the capacity for the producer to actually deliver a consistent product, you’ll end up with out-of-stocks and other problems.”

In developing this collaborative course, Cornell faculty and staff interacted regularly with an SFA Advisory Council to discuss where training was needed, and drafts of the course were reviewed and improved by both teams, said Julie Stafford, who recently retired as industry liaison officer for the Cornell Institute for Food Systems.

“This was a new step for CALS and eCornell … but I think it’s totally in keeping with the public-private partnership approach that CALS has really been known for,” Stafford said. “I think we’ll be doing more initiatives like this in the future.”

SFA reached out to several universities and industry groups about developing the course, Tanner said. They ultimately chose to partner with Cornell because of the university’s demonstrated ability to work collaboratively across disciplines.

For example, Stafford said, food service is a new growth area for specialty foods, and Cornell Dining helped develop parts of the course.

“The real thing that sold us on Cornell,” Tanner said, “was that the various schools – food science, nutrition, business, hotel administration – everyone seemed to have something to contribute and everyone was willing to work together to make this a better product.”

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How Entrepreneurs Think and Behave

“Entrepreneurial thinking is about imagining the end and creating the means.”

That’s the mantra of Neil Tarallo, a senior lecturer at The Hotel School at Cornell University and the director of Cornell’s Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities. Tarallo, who learned about entrepreneurship at the knees of his father and grandfather, says that the term ‘entrepreneurship’ has become too closely tied with startups when in reality entrepreneurship is not solely about starting a business. It is a way of looking at the world.

As part of eCornell’s Entrepreneurship webinar series, Tarallo spoke with Chris Wofford about the behavior traits of successful entrepreneurs and the foundation for entrepreneurial thinking. What follows is an abridged version of their conversation.

Wofford: Nice to see you again, Neil. The last time you were here we covered the business model canvas, a great tool for entrepreneurs and managers. Today we’re going to be talking about how entrepreneurs think and behave. Why is this something we should look at? What can we hope to learn from today’s talk?

Tarallo: For me, having been an entrepreneur and then moving into an academic environment and teaching the subject, one of the things that became apparent is that entrepreneurship is less about starting businesses and more about how the people who start these businesses think and behave.

Over the past four or five years, there’s been some really great research into how entrepreneurs behave and documentation of the behaviors of expert entrepreneurs. For me as an academic, if we can teach those behaviors and help our students understand those processes, we can put them on a path to be much more successful in their endeavors.

Wofford: The obvious question here: What are those behaviors?

Tarallo: I think more than anything else, the behavior can be summed up as a level of comfort in moving forward without really understanding what the final goal will be or even which path you will take.

One of our Hotel School alum put it really well: “Most of the world needs to know every turn and every nuance in the path that they’re taking wherever they go. Entrepreneurs just need to get to the first turn. When they get there, they’ll look around and evaluate their environment and then they’ll make a decision on which way to go based on that information.”

To start a business or to create something new is very dynamic and it requires that we have a lot of information coming from the environment around us and that we can use that information to find the right direction to go.

Whenever I talk about this subject, I always like to define entrepreneurship because it’s really interesting to me that as I talk to people about what entrepreneurship is, there are a lot of different impressions.

While I wouldn’t say that anybody’s really wrong about how they define entrepreneurship, I like to make sure we’re on the same page. So I always start out by asking, “What is entrepreneurship and what does it mean?” Many of the definitions of entrepreneurship that you see involve some reference to starting businesses and honestly I’ve moved very far away from that. For me, entrepreneurship includes starting businesses but it’s not solely about starting businesses. I like to define entrepreneurship as the process of creating value by bringing together a unique package of resources to exploit an opportunity.

If you use this definition, you’ll see that entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial behavior can occur in many different contexts. As we remove the idea of a startup being the focal point of our definite measure of entrepreneurship, we find that it applies to corporate environments, social enterprises and nonprofits.

Wofford: So you’re saying that maybe people have actually exhibited entrepreneurial behavior but they might not think of it that way because the idea of being an entrepreneur is so closely related to having started a business?

Tarallo: That’s right, it’s really not just about starting businesses. The behavior aspect of it really winds up being an alternative way of thinking, and it’s a way that I approach my entire life and especially my work.

I think about entrepreneurship as being a capacity to perceive and act upon opportunities based on the environment around you and the ability to create and build something from practically nothing. That’s what really great entrepreneurs are able to do, and it involves putting things together in a way that other people haven’t thought of yet.

Wofford: We’ve got some questions coming through in the chat box here and I’m just going to throw one out at you and then let you respond: Do you think entrepreneurs are born or can we teach people to be entrepreneurs?

Tarallo: Well, I sure hope so because Cornell pays me to teach people about entrepreneurship! There is some research out there about how some people are born thinking effectually, meaning they think entrepreneurially. If you watch children playing together, you can see this really clearly. When you see little boys sitting down playing and they have a whole bunch of dump trucks but they need a firetruck, they don’t just say, “Oh geez, we don’t have a firetruck so therefore we can’t have a fire.” No way. What they say is, “Okay, you see this dump truck right here? From now on, that’s our firetruck.” And from then on out, any time one of them touches that firetruck, they’re making the siren noises and all that. That’s a form of effectual thinking.

What we’ve learned is that as people move through the education system in the United States, and I would argue in most other countries, they become less and less effectual in their thinking and they become more focused on how to get someplace and what is needed to accomplish something along that defined path. We work on changing that and it is something that I definitely think we can teach.

Wofford: How do you teach people to maintain or reclaim that effectual thinking?

Tarallo: When I came to the Hotel School at Cornell, my responsibility was to help hotels move their entrepreneurship programs forward. One of the first things we did was to separate the skills and tools that we can teach in the classroom – marketing, finance, those kinds of things – from the behavioral component of entrepreneurship.

The only real way to teach the behavioral part of entrepreneurship is to really immerse the students in the behaviors because that’s where you learn. I learned to be an entrepreneur at the knees of my father and my grandfather because they immersed me in that behavior. Teaching practical skills in a classroom is a very simple thing to do, but the behavioral part is a little bit more challenging.

But we do know that we can teach people to be entrepreneurial. Research shows that if you have had even one formal entrepreneurship course, your likelihood of succeeding as an entrepreneur increases exponentially. That’s because you start to become aware and you start to become conscious of these things as you go along.

Saras Sarasvathy, who has done some really great research at the University of Virginia into how entrepreneurs behave, has identified the two primary ways that people think as causal and effectual. Let’s break those down a little bit. Causal thinking is what we’re all accustomed to and what most of us do throughout the course of our day. In business schools, this might be characterized as a managerial way of thinking. Basically this is thinking about how to achieve a predetermined goal. This is when you say, “Okay, here is the challenge I have in front of me and this is what I am going to do to overcome it.”

The next level of thinking is called strategic thinking. In business schools, we sometimes equate this with creative thinking. This is about generating new means to achieve a predetermined goal.

When it comes to effectual thinking, and this is what Sarasvathy identifies as the way entrepreneurs think, it’s more about moving forward by understanding the means that are around you. Instead of saying, “This is the goal that I have”, what you’re saying as an entrepreneur is, “Here’s the problem I need to solve.” The goal is the solution to that problem but in effectual thinking you are not specific about what that solution might be.

Wofford: To oversimplify it, it’s sort of going with the flow, right? Reacting to what comes along?

Tarallo: Yeah, in a way. Sarasvathy also talks about not thinking about either the means or the end but just understanding the problem that needs to be solved and then kind of letting everything take you in that direction.

Entrepreneurs understand that we can’t control the future, nor do we want to. Because if we let the future unfold on its own, generally speaking it will be driven by our customers and therefore the solution that we create will be the solution that our customers desire. That’s why expert entrepreneurs tend to be more successful than others.

Wofford: Something I’ve heard a lot in the startup world is this idea of the agile methodology. I mean, in the end you’re trying to solve a problem and your solution might look very different than what you initially anticipated.

Tarallo: That’s absolutely true. You know, when anybody comes to me with a business idea and asks me what I think of it, I always tell them that it doesn’t really matter what I think. In fact, it doesn’t really matter what they think about it either. You can only present a product or a service; in the end it is only the customer’s opinion about it that matters.

As I evaluate whether or not someone has the potential to really be a successful entrepreneur, one of the things that I think about is how willing they are to be flexible with the solution that they’re creating. The problem we see with new and inexperienced entrepreneurs is they have this vision of what their company is going to look like and they follow that vision to the exception of all the information that’s around them. That leads to failure.

Wofford: Is this in part because they’ve put too much emotional stake into it?

Tarallo: Exactly. They get very personally attached. You have to be willing to let go. What’s interesting about some of the research into the behavior of expert entrepreneurs is that the only thing that matters to them is solving the problem. The thing that’s really compelling for them is that there’s a problem out there or a gap in the marketplace that needs to be filled. They don’t care they do it, they just care that it gets done.

I’ve created this little mantra: “Entrepreneurial thinking is about imagining the end and creating the means.”

To go back to Sarasvathy, she has something called “the lemonade principle”. This is about the old saying that if the world give you lemons, make lemonade. Entrepreneurs understand that when we have something happen to us, there are usually opportunities to be found. How do we take this worst case scenario and turn it into something that is a true opportunity? How do we move forward with it?

I have another little saying: “The world doesn’t happen to me but the world happens for me.” In other words, when bad things happen there’s generally an opportunity there for me to do something different and new. It’s the old silver lining in the cloud kind of thing.

Another one of Sarasvathy’s principles of entrepreneurial expertise is what’s called “the patchwork quilt”. This is about the fact that entrepreneurship is really messy. It never goes according to plan and things happen that force you to change what you do. So instead of looking at things like a puzzle, where we have very specific pieces that fit into very specific spaces, which is what most causal thinkers would do, for entrepreneurs it’s more like a patchwork quilt. It’s more about finding a piece of fabric and sticking it in, then finding another one and realizing you can fit it in over there if you squeeze it or stretch it out a little bit. No matter how I do it, at the end of the day it’s going to create a big quilt that will keep me warm. But I have no idea what that quilt will look like before I start down that path.

I’ve only touched on a few of Sarasvathy’s principles of entrepreneurial expertise, but I encourage everyone to look them up because they are all very interesting.

Wofford: Great. I can see that we are quickly running out of time. Do you want to leave us with some parting words?

Tarallo: I want to stress that entrepreneurship is not something you do, it’s a behavior. I’m really working hard personally to scrub entrepreneurship as a word that I use to describe a career, because it really is a behavior for me. It’s the way that I act, the way that I think.

Wofford: Neil, thank you once again for joining us. I know you are going to be coming back soon for a webinar that looks at innovation. I’m already looking forward to it.

Tarallo: Thanks, Chris. This was fun. See you next time.

Want to hear more? This interview is based on Neil Tarallo’s live eCornell WebSeries event, How Entrepreneurs Think and Behave. Subscribe now gain access to a recording of this event and other Entrepreneurship topics.

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Cornell’s New Commercial Real Estate Certificate Launches

Faculty from The Hotel School at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business have partnered with eCornell, the university’s online learning unit, to develop a unique online program focused on commercial real estate investment projects. From property development to valuation and management, the new Commercial Real Estate certificate program prepares real estate professionals to successfully develop and manage real estate assets.

 

“We walk students through the entire real estate process, from start to finish, unifying the specialized knowledge and principles in a very intentional way. Whether you’re new to real estate or looking to move up in the industry, this certificate provides a robust overview grounded in application. Throughout the program, participants are sent out to do real work—modeling, inspecting, calculating,” said faculty co-author Jan deRoos, HVS Professor of Hotel Finance and Real Estate at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business.

 

The Commercial Real Estate certificate, offered 100% online through eCornell, is comprised of six courses designed to be completed in three to five hours per week. To create a well-rounded curriculum, deRoos collaborated with Hotel School colleagues Jeanne Varney and Bradford Wellstead, combining expertise to provide a rich learning experience. Through the team’s courses, participants will learn and practice:

 

  • Planning a real estate development project
  • Managing a project budget, schedule, and contingencies
  • Developing a real estate investment strategy
  • Structuring and financing real estate investment deals
  • Effectively leasing and maintaining real estate properties
  • Managing real estate assets for success

 

This program is ideal for real estate developers, professionals with financial or operational responsibility for real estate investments, financing and asset management professionals, or people aspiring to work for real estate funds, REITs, or real estate advisory firms. Students who complete all courses receive a Commercial Real Estate Certificate from Cornell University’s SC Johnson College of Business.

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Smart Food and Wine Pairing – How to Think Like a Sommelier

Anyone who eats knows that certain foods taste even better when we pair them with others—think salt and caramel, cookies and milk, or smoked sausage slathered with grilled sweet peppers and onions. Wine has the same power, and customers will spend more money in restaurants that offer exciting wine and food combinations that enhance their dining experience.

As part of the Hospitality webinar series hosted by eCornell, wine educator Cheryl Stanley from the Hotel School at Cornell University provided an overview of the basics of food and wine pairing, as well as ideas for creative non-traditional pairings that you can try at home or on a restaurant menu.

An abridged version of her conversation with eCornell’s Chris Wofford follows.

Wofford: Cheryl, it’s great to have you with us. Let’s get started.

Stanley: Today we are going to be discussing smart ways to pair wines with food. People tend to think that there’s some magic formula associated with food and wine pairing, but you really just need to start with the basics.

It helps to start by asking, what is wine? Wine is just fermented fruit juice. Yes, you have some alcohol in there, of course, but you also have acid, sugar, tannins and water. And what’s in food? You have acid and sugar, and you have tannins in some food products. You also have fat and flavor. So, with food and wine pairing, you’re just aiming to highlight or complement some of those basic similarities.

Wofford: Are there rules of thumb that we should generally follow? How do you start pairing?

Stanley: Before we get into talking about specific wines, the very basic rule of thumb is red wine with meat and white wine with fish.

There are other general concepts that one can follow. Some of them involve matching or complementing body. Kevin Zraly, the author of the Windows on the World wine book, has a great methodology for explaining body to someone. Body is like milk fat. A full-bodied wine is like cream, and a light body wine is like skim milk. Within that range, you also have two percent and whole milk. So if you’re having a food that is full-bodied, you can complement it with a full-bodied wine. There’s also contrasting, where instead of balancing, you’re actually kind of juxtaposing or using the wine to contrast something in the food.

Wofford: What’s a common example of that?

Stanley: Acid is a perfect example because acid cleanses. You can have a fatty dish like steak and an acidic wine would cleanse the palate. It actually refreshes the guest’s mouth to take the next bite.

Personally, I love complementing flavor with flavor too. If you have a particular flavor in a wine, like a grassy-ness in the Sauvignon blanc, you could match that flavor with the grassy-ness in a cheese. That ties into another concept which you’ll commonly hear in the sommelier world: “grows together, goes together.” That’s pairing food and wines from the same area.

Wofford: Can you tell us a bit more about how we can get to know different flavors? What do you recommend?

Stanley: The Flavor Bible is an amazing book because it goes through the ingredients in dishes. For example, under “mushrooms” it has all of the different ingredients and spices and cooking techniques that complement mushrooms. The authors worked alongside a lot of chefs, so it’s not just their own opinions about what makes that perfect pairing.

If you’re looking to do a food and wine pairing, you can consult that book and say, “Okay, well, these flavors are going to be in this dish and this is what’s complementary.” Then you can look at your wines and see what’s available that could complement some of those flavors.

Wofford: Is it important to have a common vocabulary when talking about this? Something like ‘flavor’ seems like it could be difficult to articulate.

Stanley: That’s right. Building a sort of Rolodex of these flavors and aromas can assist you in making pairings in the future. How often do we honestly stop to think about what’s in our food? How often do you actually taste the wine, and really smell it and think about what you’re getting from the glass, and what you’re getting from the dish?

Wofford: What are some different ways restaurants can present wine pairings with food from a menu standpoint to ultimately drive more sales and revenue?

Stanley: I always bring up a 2008 study done by Wine Spectator. About 18,000 people responded to the survey and 50 percent of them said they prefer to see the wine list organized by varietal. That can be helpful with food and wine pairing because if you have the varietal listed, you are adding another tidbit of information and it can decrease people’s anxiety. They might not know that Chablis is actually Chardonnay. Or they might know that they like New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, and although you don’t have a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc on your menu, the guest can see that you have a Sauvignon Blanc from France.

Wofford: I think the varietal thing is a really good idea because picking a wine is sometimes intimidating.

Stanley: It is. I teach my students varietal lists because they are so popular and you can see a lot of benefits from wine sales by designing your list by varietal. One thing I also recommend which ties into food and wine pairing is to list the wines by body. For example, having your Chardonnay section list the lightest bodied Chardonnay first and the fullest bodied Chardonnay at the bottom. This way, if a server is not confident in their wine knowledge and a guest says they would like a full-bodied Chardonnay, they know to recommend the wines at the bottom of that section.

Wofford: Do you have some basic words of wisdom for how to build a well-rounded wine list? Are there any trends you’re seeing?

Stanley: Guests are getting more knowledgeable about wine. In some ways that’s good and in some ways it’s bad. There are some wine blogs out there that provide misinformation. Like with anything else, you have to be very careful about where you get your information online.

In terms of building a wine list, there are certain wines that you need to have. You need a light-bodied white wine and a full-bodied white wine. You need to have a light-bodied red wine and a full-bodied red wine. Depending on your staff’s knowledge and your clientele, do you go crazy with those and do a Nebbiolo from the Langhe region in Piedmont from Italy? Or do you do a Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon that people would be more familiar with?

I see some young beverage directors who try these wines that are really esoteric. They can’t sell them because the staff doesn’t even know how to pronounce them. That’s another big thing – train your staff on pronunciation. If they can’t pronounce it, they won’t sell it.

Wofford: I’d like to turn to some questions from the audience. Parminder asks: “How does one pair wine with Indian cuisine?”

Stanley: I love off-dry wines with Indian food. This could be an off-dry German Riesling, or even an off-dry Riesling from here in the Finger Lakes. Indian cuisine is so delicious and flavorful that you’re not looking for a wine that will butt heads with all of those different flavors. You’re looking more for a wine to cleanse the palette and just refresh. Another idea is rosé, which is high acid but with a little bit of a bigger body. That can also be very complementary to Indian cuisine.

Wofford: We have a good question here from Alison: “I have a really hard time knowing what dry actually tastes like. When someone is looking for a nice dry red wine, what flavor profile or flavor characteristics am I looking for in particular?”

Stanley: When a guest wants dry, I always like to follow up by asking what wines they normally drink. Because every person can have a different definition of what dry is, especially with some of the red wines that they’re now producing with higher amounts of residual sugar. They’re still being marketed as dry but they’re not, they’re actually sweet. So some people perceive dry as having very little residual sugar. Others perceive it as high amounts of tannin. That’s why a safe bet is to always ask what they enjoy drinking at home, and then gauge off of that brand or style or region to pick up on their definition of dry.

Wofford: We’ve got another great question: “As the wine drinking public becomes more sophisticated, more interesting varietals and new countries of origin emerge. How much should you change your menu based on new trends?”

Stanley: Don’t let trends dictate what you have on your list because you really need to listen to your guests first. If you have guests that enjoy drinking a full-bodied California Chardonnay, then you better have a full-bodied Chardonnay on there. They say that Grenache Blanc is becoming the hot varietal to replace Chardonnay. Well, that’s great but you’re still gonna have guests wanting the Chardonnay. So keep it on, and then introduce the Grenache Blanc. Offer a taste. If you offer a taste, you’re educating your guests and you’re giving them an experience that they might not get at another restaurant, for a cost that’s miniscule to you.

Wofford: What are some pitfalls you see people do over and over when it comes to their wine pairings? What are some common mistakes that are easy to fix?

Stanley: One thing is having wines that people can’t pronounce by the glass. You need to have some good go-tos. I go back to Chardonnay, and I go back to Cabernet Sauvignon. Those are comfortable wines. People understand them. People are familiar with them.

But if you want to still have fun with a Chardonnay, don’t do Napa Valley, do Margaret River in Australia, or do Casablanca Valley. There are opportunities to still have fun by introducing new places to your guests and to your staff, but still with a varietal that people can be comfortable with. Then see how it goes — maybe you need to go back to Napa Valley, and maybe you don’t.

Another thing is just the importance of reading the table. If the guests are having a business meeting, they’re not going to want to spend a lot of time talking about wine. They’ll want to just pick it. But if it’s an anniversary or it’s kind of an first awkward date, then you might want to talk a little bit about wine as a server because that can start fostering conversation at the table.

Wofford: Any last thoughts to share? Other than encouraging viewers to check out the great Rieslings coming out of here in the Finger Lakes, of course!

Stanley: It’s interesting you say that, as I’m the faculty advisor to Cornell University’s blind wine competition team and we were at a competition at the L’Ecole Italia in Lucerne in June. There was a Swiss Wine Magazine that had an article that said the Finger Lakes would in the future be the main competitor to German Riesling. It was pretty incredible.

The last thing I want to say is also my biggest recommendation for food and wine pairing and that is to never judge the guest on what he or she wants to drink. If they’re drinking what they’re happy with, they’re going to have a great meal. If you push them into drinking something that you think is the best pairing and they don’t like it, you have just ruined the experience.

Wofford: That’s really great advice. On the one hand, you are kind of a tastemaker, so you should be able to offer pairings when asked. But on the other hand, it goes back to reading the table and dealing with the audience that you have and making them happy.

Stanley: Absolutely. Help them out if you can but ultimately you have to please your guest.

Wofford: Cheryl, this has been great. Thank you.

Stanley: Thank you, Chris.

Want to hear more? This interview is based on Cheryl Stanley’s live eCornell WebSeries event, A Perfect Pairing: Wines to Enhance Your Guest Experience and Bottom Line. Subscribe now gain access to a recording of this event and other Hospitality topics.

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How to Make the Business Model Canvas Work For You

Neil Tarallo has more than two decades of entrepreneurial experience under his belt and is a senior lecturer at Cornell’s Hotel School as well as the director of the Cornell Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities.

But that doesn’t mean that he can simply come up with an idea and magically turn it into a successful startup. When Tarallo brainstorms ideas, he leans heavily on the Business Model Canvas. Created by Alexander Osterwalder, it is arguably the most important innovation in entrepreneurship and strategy in quite some time.

Tarallo joined eCornell’s Chris Wofford to discuss the Business Model Canvas as part of the Entrepreneurship webinar series. An abridged version of their conversation follows.

Tarallo: Entrepreneurs are problem solvers. We solve problems in a marketplace, and in doing so we create businesses. For us as entrepreneurs, it’s important to understand exactly who is feeling the pain, so to speak, that has been created by that problem. One of the nice things about the Business Model Canvas is it really helps us focus on that.

When I talk to entrepreneurs around the world about their businesses, one of the things they tend to miss is the value that their solution creates for their customers, and exactly what those customers think about that value.

People get a little upset with me sometimes when I say these things but products and services don’t create markets. Solving problems in markets, and creating value, allow us to create new markets. But in order to have a sustainable business, you have to solve real problems for real people and understand what that solution means to them.

It’s really not about your products or your cool technology or how great your food tastes. It’s always about how you create and capture value for your customers. So that’s what we want to focus on and I think one of the great things about the Business Model Canvas is it really helps us focus on that important element of our business.

There’s no shortage of new products. It’s not even cool anymore just to have a new product or new technology. There’s so many of them out there, but very few of them really bubble up to the top. That’s because the manufacturers misinterpret what it is that they’re trying to do. There’s that old adage: Build it and they will come. Whenever I hear that, I run as fast as I can and you should too because you need to do more than just build it. You need to make that connection and that’s really what the Business Model is about. It’s all about how a business captures and delivers value to the customers.

Wofford: Before we go much further, perhaps we better get into what the Business Model Canvas actually is and how it works.

Tarallo: OK. The Business Model was created by a guy named Alexander Osterwalder. He was doing his Ph.D. and his interest was in business models. What he discovered as he was doing his research is that when he would ask people about business models, no two people could define it the same way.

I give him a lot of credit for seeing that. I think it’s something that all of us who teach and talk about entrepreneurship over the last 15 or 20 years have encountered but we just never identified it.

Osterwalder wrote his dissertation, ‘The Business Model Ontology – a proposition in a design science approach’, about how we build and generate business models. His premise was that we need to have a common understanding of what a business model is and that we need sort of a shared language around it.

So he created this tool called the Business Model Canvas and that was followed shortly thereafter by another canvas called the Value Proposition Canvas. We won’t spend as much time on the Value Proposition Canvas today but it has also become a fundamental tool in innovation.

The Business Model Canvas has nine building blocks and we’re going to quickly go through each of those building blocks. In the very center of the canvas is the Value Proposition. This is where we articulate the problem that we’re solving as well as how we are solving it for our customers. It is the first building block and is at the dead center of the canvas because it is central to everything that we do.

All the way over to the right is Customer Segments. We need to understand, as specifically as we can, who the customers are. Who will be interested in our solution and what value do they see in what we propose for them? Continuing on, building block number three is Channels, and that’s how customers actually get and access our Value Proposition. It could be online, it could be in our store – there are a whole bunch of variations on how we do that.

Next, Customer Relationships, which is primarily the marketing component of what we do. Moving to the left on the canvas, we have Key Resources, what we need in order to deliver our value proposition. Above that is Key Activities, where you identify what activities your business engages in on a daily basis that deliver the Value Proposition.

All the way on the left is Key Partners and those are other organizations or people that we can work with to help us deliver our Value Proposition. An example there might be, if I sell coffee, coffee growers may be a key partner for me because I have to bring them on board.

The bottom of the campus is all about the financial aspects of our business. To the right, we see Revenue Streams, and that’s those unique products or services that generate revenue for our business. To left is Cost Structure, or what it costs us to deliver our Value Proposition.

Notice that when I talk about each of these building blocks, I’m always referencing the Value Proposition. The activities that happen within these building blocks are central to that. Everything I talk about on the Business Model Canvas focuses on that Value Proposition.

Wofford: Yes, I did notice that you were really driving that home.

Tarallo: Now, if you look at the layout of the canvas, what you really see on the right side is what we call front stage operations or what we call front of house in the hospitality industry. These are the forward-facing activities that customers see and feel and touch. On the left side of the canvas are what we call backstage or back of house operations and those are the things we do behind-the-scenes that customers don’t necessarily see that support the delivery of our value proposition.

My work with companies and with entrepreneurs tends to focus on that left side because it’s a much more difficult thing to do. I call the front stage operations low-hanging fruit: we get to talk to our customers, we get to do some research, we see what they value and what they don’t value. That’s all pretty easy to do. The interesting thing about backstage operations is that if we can figure out how to deliver value through our operations, we tend to create a competitive advantage that’s very difficult for our competitors to break into.

An example I always use for that is Disney World. It’s one of my favorite places to go because I learn so much about operations there. Disney really delivers value through their operations. They entertain you while you’re going through lines, they have a series of tunnels underneath the entire facility, so that they can get anywhere in the park in six minutes or less. Other parks can’t do that so they’re creating value through operations that really gives them a big advantage over their competitors.

Wofford: It’s fascinating, and for our viewers who are interested, just Google ‘Disney World front stage operations and backstage operations’. There’s so much stuff out there written about it.

Tarallo: Now, the lower part of the Business Model Canvas is what I call the economic model.
It’s how different elements of the cost and revenue structure of our business come into play and work together. So that’s the way I think about the model: right, left and lower side, with value being in the center of everything.

Wofford: So how does the canvas work?

Tarallo: As we build our Business Model Canvas, we really hypothesize and we’re guessing what we think is going to happen or could happen in each of these building blocks. Then our job is to go into the marketplace and test our hypotheses. We learn from those tests and we go back and we repeat this over and over again until we get it right.

Wofford: So following this model allows you to test your assumptions, right? That’s where you validate whether or not you do have unique value, whether you’ve got a competitive advantage and so on?

Tarallo: Exactly. You need to be objective. One of the big challenges for me in disseminating information about the canvas both to my students and entrepreneurs is that they’re very emotionally invested in their solution to the problem. For me, one of the measures that I use to determine whether I think somebody is in fact going to be successful as an entrepreneur is how flexible they’re willing to be in that solution.

Wofford: How do you know when you’ve got it right?

Tarallo: To be very candid with you, as much as we work on this and as much as we test, it will not be accurate. The day that we open our business is when we really find out whether it’s accurate or not. None of this is an absolute, but the canvas gets me on the right page. It gets me as close as I can so that when I have to make adjustment when I open my business, or as I’m running my business, I don’t have to take big leaps. I’m trying to mitigate risk and I think one of my favorite things about the Business Model Canvas is it lets me do that.

Entrepreneurs don’t like risk, contrary to what a lot of people believe. We understand risk. We understand it’s part of our lives and we work hard to mitigate that risk, but we don’t love risks.

Wofford: So you’re not rushing off to Vegas every chance you get?

Tarallo: Haha, no. When it comes to testing ideas we’re really trying to set up a series of controlled experiments that you can fail without jeopardizing your business. I always say that entrepreneurship is nothing more than a series of small failures. I’m very careful about how I say this though, because I think there is this belief out there that it’s good for entrepreneurs to fail big and fail fast. I’m not a fan of that. Failure is never a good thing. I want to try to control my failures so that I’m mitigating risk and I learn from my market in a way that’s not going to damage my brand or what I’m trying to accomplish.

It’s important to me to stress that in my opinion, the Business Model Canvas is not a replacement for a business plan. It’s not a replacement for a marketing plan or a strategic plan. It is an effective tool for understanding who your customers are, what they value and how you can create a solution for their problem.

One of the things that Steve Jobs was really good at with Apple was not even thinking about a product necessarily but going into the market and interfacing with the market and seeing what it is that they were struggling with. The iPod is a great example of that. He saw a problem that was happening in the marketplace and he really found it through observation and getting people to tell stories about how they get music and how they listen to music.

I contend that Apple’s business model as a whole is that they’re problem solvers. They find problems in the market that they can solve with their core competencies, which are design and technology. That’s how they come up with these really great innovative products.

I shouldn’t say this because you’re recording, but I think Apple is going to be out of the phone business before too long.

Wofford: Really? Why do you say that?

Tarallo: Because the problem is solved. It’s no longer compelling for them and for the first time ever we saw iPhone sales drop last year. If you think about the iPod, you can’t buy one of those on a store shelf anymore. Why not? Because the problem has been solved, so Apple no longer makes them. Our phones are now substitutes for iPods and I think you’ll see the same thing happen with the iPhone, perhaps sooner than a lot of people think.

Wofford: Well, if you’re right you’ll be glad we were recording this so you can pull up the video and say “told ya so”. Neil, this has been very interesting. Thank you for sharing your insights into the Business Model Canvas.

Tarallo: Thanks, Chris. I enjoyed it.

Want to hear more? This interview is based on Neil Tarallo’s live eCornell WebSeries event,Business Model Canvas: A Tool for Entrepreneurs and Managers. Subscribe now gain access to a recording of this event and other Entrepreneurship topics.

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Hotel School Offers Online Food and Beverage Management Certificate

With more Americans eating out than ever before, today’s food service operations rely on food and beverage managers for sales growth, profitability and cost control in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

The School of Hotel Administration has launched a new Food and Beverage Management online certificate program to give food and beverage managers an opportunity to develop the specific operations and management skills necessary to drive sustainable results.

“From menu development, to guest service management, to revenue analysis, supply chain management and employee training, this program provides professionals with essential tools to improve operations and become value-driven supervisors. Students gain hands-on experience through exercises, projects and tools, combined with insights from some of today’s most influential food and beverage industry players,” said Alex Susskind, associate professor of food and beverage management and faculty co-author of the program.

Offered through eCornell, students can learn the essentials of managing and operating a successful food and beverage business in three to five hours per week, over three months. Participants take five courses and one elective, preparing them to:

  • design and optimize menus;
  • manage the food and beverage supply chain;
  • use a systematic inventory purchasing and management process to minimize loss;
  • assess revenue with a Restaurant Revenue Management system;
  • build guest loyalty through performance standards, service recovery strategies and better guest feedback methods; and
  • effectively lead and engage employees to improve operational performance.

The certificate is recommended for food and beverage professionals, from front-line to general management, who want to improve their operation.

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Should We Abandon Tipping? Here’s What Would Happen.

A question that has been on the minds of many in the restaurant business of late is whether or not eateries should abandon the concept of tipping.

To discuss the arguments for and against dropping this long-entrenched practice, we invited Michael Lynn, a professor of consumer behavior and marketing at Cornell University’s Hotel School, to join eCornell’s Chris Wofford as part of our Hospitality WebCast series.

Wofford: Michael, thanks for joining us. Restaurants have been around forever, tipping has been around forever. Why is this suddenly such a hot topic now?

Lynn: Well, the debate over whether we should tip has also been going on forever. There’s a guy named William Scott who wrote a book in 1916 called The Itching Palm: A Study of the Habit of Tipping in America. All the way back then, he was saying that Americans should get rid of tipping and that it was undemocratic.

In the 1980s there was a bunch of interest within the industry in getting rid of tipping because the tax law made restaurants more liable for paying taxes on cheap income. Today, the increased interest in raising the minimum wage is creating price pressures on restaurants. So it’s a perennial kind of debate.

Wofford: Let’s get right to it: should restaurants abandon tipping?

Lynn: If I had to give a quick answer, I would say that if you’re a mid-priced or lower-priced restaurant then no, not yet. But if you’re a really upscale high-priced restaurant, you should consider it.

Wofford: You and I have both worked in restaurants for years. Something that always comes up is that there’s a big disparity between the money that servers make compared to those working in back. So as you talk about the minimum wage thing, is the idea to ultimately bring the wages of these groups a little bit closer?

Lynn: Well, let’s just take New York City as an example. Servers there are making about $25 to $30 an hour. Cooks are making $13 to $15 an hour. Yet the skill sets are not that different. There might be an appearance of difference in the kind of language used to describe the minimum requirements to be a server – you have look a certain way, you’ve got to be able to speak properly, etc – but serving is not a skilled job. Cooking is perhaps more skilled, but those people are making less money.

If restaurants, through higher prices or through service charges, were able to pay servers more than $15 an hour but less than the $30 they’re currently making, they could take that money and redistribute it to the back of house or keep some of it for themselves for more profit. Servers are making upwards of 25 percent of a restaurant’s gross sales while the owners don’t make anywhere near that level of profit despite taking all the risks. It’s a model that people need to start thinking about.

Wofford: Michael, you wrote ‘The Business Case for (and Against) Restaurant Tipping’. Let’s talk about the years-long research behind that: how do you go about it, who did you talk to and what were you hoping to learn?

Lynn: My very first study was standing outside of an IHOP restaurant interviewing customers and asking them to rate their service experience and tell me what their tipping point was. I was simply interested in whether or not tips really are affected by the service quality. And the answer is that people do tip more for better service but not a whole lot more. To give you some sense of the magnitude, if someone rates the service at 3 out of 5, they’re likely to leave on average a 14 percent tip. If they rated the service a 5, they might leave a 16 percent tip.

Wofford: When we talk about the idea that maybe we should eliminate tipping, what kind of behavioral changes might take place within a within a staff?

Lynn: Theoretically, if servers start making less money, they’re going to leave and go elsewhere to make the money that they’re accustomed to making. So you might lose your top-level employees. On the other hand you ought to be able to replace them with equally competent people. I’ve done a lot of research that shows that experience is not that strongly correlated with the quality of service. It doesn’t take that long to learn how to be a good waiter, and a lot of it has to do with disposition, not skill set.

So restaurants could expect to lose some current employees, but you ought to be able to replace them with equally competent people. You’d pay your back of house more, making it easier to attract higher quality back of house people, and you should be able to keep them.

Wofford: Let’s say tipping’s gone. What happens?

Lynn: You’re either going to replace tipping with higher services, including menu prices, or you’re going to add on an automatic service charge. The advantages of an automatic service charge is that it separates the paying of services from the payment for food, and it keeps your menu prices low.

Wofford: Would the charge be related to the overall cost of the meal?

Lynn: Sure. Let’s say I’m going to charge an 18 percent service charge. I have a choice: I could add the charge to every bill or I could increase my menu prices by 18 percent. Functionally it’s the same thing from the standpoint of the total expenditures by the consumer, but consumers won’t perceive them the same. Because when consumers judge the expensiveness of a restaurant, they’re looking at the menu prices. And when they see 18 percent higher menu prices, all they know is that their burger now costs a lot more than what it used to. But if there is an 18 percent service charge, they’re still seeing a normally priced burger. So, the perceptions of expensiveness are not going to be harmed by adding a service charge.

Wofford: Ok, but might customers’ perceptions of that service charge have a negative effect on them? You’ve basically mandated an 18 percent tip, which might rub people the wrong way.

Lynn: I have just completed two studies looking at the impact that moving away from tipping has on restaurants’ online service ratings. In one study, I looked at Joe’s Crab Shack, which recently replaced tipping with higher prices at 12 of its restaurants. I looked at the Yelp reviews and found that their service ratings declined when they abandoned tipping. In another study, I looked at a bunch of restaurants across a variety of states, mostly upscale, that replaced tipping either with service charges or by raising the menu pricing. What I found was that their declines in online service ratings were stronger if they replaced tipping with service charges than if they replaced it with service-inclusive menu pricing, and it was stronger for downscale restaurants than upscale restaurants. The only group that was able to do this without suffering a decline in online service ratings were the upscale restaurants that replaced tipping with higher menu prices. Why? I don’t know for sure, but I think it’s because customers hate service charges and that hatred translates to lower service ratings.

Replacing tipping with higher menu prices makes things seem more expensive, but that’s not so bad if you’re already a super expensive restaurant catering to a pretty wealthy, not price-sensitive clientele. But if you are a restaurant with customers who are a little bit more price sensitive, then the extra expensiveness that’s perceived when you raise menu prices will lower your ratings.

Wofford:So we are back to where we started – if you’re a downscale restaurant, you probably shouldn’t abandon tipping just yet. What about the fact that customers actually seem to prefer tipping? Tipping is empowering in a strange way.

Lynn: Absolutely. You get all kinds of perceived benefits from tipping. There’s assurance that I’m going to be treated well, otherwise I can withhold payment. There’s status and power that some people get off on. There are a lot of benefits to the consumer psyche from tipping.

 

Want to hear more? This interview is based on Michael Lynn’s live eCornell WebSeries event, Should Restaurants Abandon Tipping?. Subscribe now to gain access to a recording of this event and other Hospitality topics.