I recently spoke with my culinary team about always being on stage. No big deal; it’s not really a new concept. Who hasn’t preached this for the last 50 years? Unfortunately I was not referring to the pre-planned, rehearsed productions we usually think of.

It is the hidden camera, breaking news type scenarios that I am concerned with. Its mind boggling to think that most people can record and broadcast to the entire world from their personnel electronic devices. The ramifications of a poorly trained associate making an isolated mistake, or a fluke situation on the part of a staff member or guest, can become the next YouTube sensation. The potential for negative publicity resulting in embarrassment, loss of prestige, and business is very real and does happen. Read more of this >>

What are you doing when you aren’t cooking (for your hotel restaurant)?

Most chefs de cuisine start their day with morning staff meetings, review invoices and new orders being placed, review daily prep sheets (if this has not been assigned to someone else), review the week’s budget and any cost overruns, prepare reports for weekly department meetings, and so on. Somewhere, and at some time, you spend the rest of your time trying to catch up on e-mails and respond accordingly.

Networking through professional trade blogs definitely works; however, the impetus to sustain written communication is time-consuming and can sometimes seem counterproductive—it takes you out of the kitchen and away from the line and interferes with scheduling, ordering, prepping, personnel issues, etc. Do you feel blogs have any relevance to your line of business? Read more of this >>

Quality and consistency are required of all brands to be successful, and when operations are over multiple locations, it is always a challenge to maintain the control to provide that consistent quality your customers demand. Slowly but surely, the tools to provide insight and control, even when you are not in the restaurant, are being made available.

Computer sensors are showing up in every type of device used in the industry. Deep fryers, refrigerators, freezers, air conditioning, and even coffee machines have sensors and digital data. Two innovative companies, Perk Dynamics and La Cimbali, have partnered to provide a leading edge automatic espresso/cappuccino machine that can be monitored remotely and reprogrammed from a central location. This new product innovation could be ideal for hotel lobby kiosks, resorts/spa area, hotel restaurants, and for high traffic convention areas. Read more of this >>

There was a time not too long ago when you needed to be someone important to have a voice or to be heard. Times have surely changed.

With the advent of LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and thousands of blogs, everyone has a voice these days. People from the “old school” like myself would probably consider watching paint dry more enjoyable than “tweeting.” However, it must be important to someone to know what you are doing every five minutes because this method of communication has really taken off. I can’t figure it out, but I’ve never claimed to be the sharpest tool in the shed or the tastiest French fry in the happy meal.

These forms of communication link millions every day. Information travels to and fro. Businesses make a living out of it. In shifting the focus to our industry, the idea of instant communication has the potential for great value.

Before making a purchase, you are able to read reviews from previous buyers. The same real-time feedback can help us in the hospitality procurement field. I will give you my own example.

As a participant in LinkedIn, I am a member of four industry groups, which are online discussion forums that connect people throughout the industry. If I want to get comments on the quality of a certain table, see who has comments on a certain brand of product, etc, the feedback is only a few keystrokes away. Granted, the online discussion forums are not scientific research. But they are forums for informational exchange. The information obtained on these forums is what marketing firms would spend large sums of money in trying to obtain through their own research. Online discussion forums can be a true procurement resource in your purchasing arsenal because they give a voice to the everyday buyer like you and me.

While you will probably not see me “tweeting” any time soon, you can rest assured I will use online discussion forums to help me be a better buyer.

In a recent article by David Schepp that appeared in the Daily Finance by AOL entitled, “Coffee perks up July sales at McDonald’s”, he credited the positive performance of McDonald’s to their increase in sales of brewed beverages, mainly premium coffees. McDonald’s and Dunkin Donuts can compete with Starbucks and other premium coffee houses because of the advancement of technology in the coffee/espresso markets.

Coffee remains a religious war; in that, the making of espresso/coffee is art vs. science. Most coffee/espresso machine manufacturers have been in the business over a century. These manufacturers from Italy, Switzerland, and Germany (mainly) crafted machines that were meant to be manually operated by artisans with proper skills and training that could craft the perfect cup of coffee. Coffee requires that many variables be taken in to account and adjusted to produce that perfect cup.

To the perfectionist, the coffee aficionado, technology can never replace the artisan but to a person like myself and 90% of the population a good barista can, in fact, tune a more automated coffee machine to produce a consistent almost perfect but maybe not quite, cup of coffee all day long.

Semi-Automatic or the newer Super Automatic espresso/coffee machines are coming into the modern age and taking advantage of science and computer controls. With the advantages provided by the newer technology Dunkin Donuts can produce and very solid, good tasting cup of coffee, espresso or cold coffee drink. Chain restaurants are successful because they can produce a consistent product, no matter where the location. It may not be the perfect meal but it is consistent.

I have interviewed Jerry Leeman formerly from Perk Dynamics, Inc. (www.posstrategies.com), a software company in Oklahoma, that is taking the technology to the next level. They have developed a software package, “AutoPerk™”, that connects the Point of Sale (POS) software directly to the newer Super Automatic coffee/espresso machines to interface with this software. Embedded in the machine is a display to provide drink queue and customer information. Having all the information about the drink and customer visible on the front of the espresso machine allows the barista to focus on preparing the next cup of coffee or add syrup for the next queued drink that the machines are not capable of adding (as far as I have seen).

The AutoPerk™ software also provides load balancing across multiple coffee machines and time-release queue for orders placed in advance. The software also allows the transmission of customer information stored in a loyalty system to be provided to the person serving the brewed beverage. This connection of the POS to the coffee machine will increase efficiency, reduce errors in ordering, reduce labor costs, decrease shrinkage, and increase overall customer satisfaction.

I recently had the pleasure of attending the 2008 Insight User Conference held by Agilysys, Inc., the company that owns and supports software including Eatec, Stratton Warren System, InfoGenesis, and many other hospitality solutions. This organization has gotten to be so big that they have their hand in nearly every facet of the hospitality technology industry. At the conference, we were able to see the latest and greatest of the functionality that is and will be available in the market.

It’s amazing to think that technology is bringing us into a new way of doing business. Just imagine what possibilities lie ahead in the next few years. Imagine operating in an organization where paper is a thing of the past. Companies like Federal Express and United Parcel Service have been utilizing technology such as signature capture for years. Imagine invoices getting sent to your organization online where they are reviewed, returned, and the funds are immediately transferred between banks. Organizations could realize potential payment discounts they could not realize in the past. How about customer information such as food preferences imbedded on room key cards, where technology would allow your service team to obtain this information anywhere on the property that guest may travel? The new bells and whistles of Point-of-Sale technology help organizations better manager their guests. The hospitality industry has historically lagged behind other industries in their application of technology. Of course, we all realize that what we do is very unique.

Some of these items and much more were discussed at the User Conference. As a hospitality operator, you need to understand the potential of technology. Technology is a tool. If used correctly, this tool will help to improve the overall efficiency of your operation. Conferences like this help to expose all of us to the potential of what can be.