PR: 2-Day Conference for Food and Service Industry Professionals Centered on Doing Good

PITTSBURGH, PA (PittsburghNewsWire.com) — July 24th-25th, 2017, Adopting Identity + The Good Peoples Group, a Pittsburgh-based multidisciplinary problem solving firm, have joined forces with Ace Hotel Pittsburgh and CollectedPgh to host a 2-Day intensive conference called 86: Removing barriers that prevent your business from staying relevant and maintaining integrity – A conference for food and service industry professionals.

It’s not just in Pittsburgh that local business owners are late to a trend or are caught in a social media crossfire. So often, our gut reaction and defensiveness get businesses into trouble. At the end of the day, whether it is cultural appropriation, racism, the history and culture of a business, or just simply staying relevant to customers, the answers are often not there. Accusations of cultural appropriation go hand in hand with gentrification and call into question the idea of Pittsburgh as a “Most Livable City.”

“When these situations happen everyone suffers, the business, communities, a city’s reputation, as well as staff and management of that space who may feel unsafe. People often stay silent for fear of losing a job or future career sabotage. Times are changing and in 2012, The Food Institute’s “Demographics of Consumer Food Spending Report” stated that nearly half of what Millennials spend on food is spent eating out. They go where the food is good, but they also care about connecting to your brand. Therefore, to stay relevant in any industry, especially one centered around public interest, you must begin to explore what and who the company really stands for.” says LianaManeese, founder of The Good Peoples Group.

The 2-day conference opens Monday, July 24th from 10pm – 6pm, with an evening networking event and social between 6:30pm – midnight and continues Tuesday, July 25th from 10am – 2:30pm at Ace Hotel Pittsburgh.  Partnerships include: Ace Hotel Pittsburgh, 412 Food Rescue, Scratch F+B, CollectedPgh, The Good Peoples Group and other service industry innovators in Pittsburgh.

“This conference, to me, is about dialogue. We all know that there is something amiss in the industry when it comes to integration. But I don’t think that we fully understand the scope of the problem and so we will at best be lucky in our efforts to address it. People should not only be aware of what’s going on in our communities, or practice sustainability from a checklist. We must work together to promote an actual understanding of why certain business practices matter and follow that up with accountability practice. It doesn’t all have to be so hard, finding joy in personal and professional growth is a sign of a resilient leader. But, first and foremost, it requires some deep listening on the part of ownership, management and front line staff. I look forward to the day when that level of listening becoming the cultural norm in the industry.” says Don Mahaney of Scratch F+B

CollectedPgh
website: collectedpgh.com
Twitter:@collectedpgh #collectedpgh
IG: @collectedpgh #collectedpgh