“None of us is as smart as all of us.” Ken Blanchard

The power in the community.

Business is changing a lot these days, specifically with the rise in social media and the change from a top-down authoritative approach to one that is more collaborative with positive values driving the decision-making process. A fear-based corporate culture does not work in today’s markets filled with opportunities. The culture of tuning out the voices of the social community will not last. We need to listen to what the community wants. We want to last a long time, and we are just getting started!

This month, the community spoke, and we listened. As we have been working on our podcast “ What’s Burning?”, the logo was the last thing we needed to finalize. The team involved in the decision-making process liked five of the directions, and we had it down to one choice that we were sure we were going to go with. I am not sure why, but I felt like we should ask our community on social media to give feedback and either confirm our decision or get us to think a little more about the direction.

When we posted the different logos on our social pages, I expected mixed results, but I thought the community would mostly agree with our conclusion. Boy, was I wrong. Unanimously, the community had a clear favorite, and it was not the logo we selected. This is the beauty of today’s market; we can easily listen to what our community is saying; we just have to be willing to listen. As I said before, we are not creating the GCI for our own ego-boosting of creating something special, but for our community. I talked through the decision with our team, and everyone was on board that we move forward with the logo selected by the community—just one example of the power of listening to the people who support you.

Speaking of our podcast, we are very close to launching “What’s Burning?,” an original GCI series where we invite experts from across the food industry and around the world to help us reimagine culinary education. The goal is to prepare the next generations of culinarians. We will explore how culinary education should evolve and adapt to meet this changing food world. Keep an eye out for our first episodes coming out soon.

While on the topic of community, we are also working to create our communities in the areas of business, education, culture, and of course, culinary. This will help build our support structure and allow us to be more successful in all the endeavors we are working on.

We are also putting a huge emphasis on service and ensuring all potential students feel connected to the GCI.

What’s Next?

Here are some other areas in the process: video creation highlighting the uniqueness of Israel, enhancing our social presence with an inside look at what’s happening on the ground, budget process for 2022, and much more.

Last but not least, we are making progress on the demolition front and wanted to share a few pictures, so you can see how it all started. We cannot wait for the final product and all final products must start somewhere.

Have a great Thanksgiving for those reading from the United States, and everyone else, always be thankful 😊.

L’chaim (To life)

Nathan