It’s a highlight of the spring season for me. In fact, it’s a highlight of the whole year.

To teach about narrative and innovation to MBA students, that is, in the food and wine management program at the University of Bologna in Italy.

It’s a highlight because the students come from everywhere – Italy and the US, as you’d expect, and also this year from Thailand, Uganda, Canada, Nigeria, Turkey and India.

It’s a highlight because they always have professional experience in the wine and food industry, and they come equipped with real world knowledge.

And it’s a highlight because their perspective on wine + data is almost always outside the box. They’re young enough to not be tied to traditional ways of operating in wine, yet also mature enough to see realistic opportunities and fresh connections.

It’s a shot in the arm for me every year, including this year when we shifted the whole experience online. The overarching theme was narrative and innovation, with deep dives into food, wine and data on three successive days.

Here were, for me, two of the most salient takeaways from the day dedicated to data. 

1. This year’s students are the most savvy and most well-versed yet, when it comes to analysis. It’s a subject and a profession that’s become increasingly common within this demographic, and this year there were full-on engineers and analysts contributing to the conversation.

2. Maybe it’s a student thing, or maybe it’s an MBA thing, but the sense of “disruption” was palpable. It was one of the first questions asked of Heini Zachariassen, founder of Vivino, during our live Q&A with him: How is the current crisis impacting his business, and how will COVID permanently disrupt the way of doing things?

It’s a question on all of our minds, no doubt, in terms of our individual businesses and collectively as an industry. It’s also unfolding before our eyes, even as the rate of change begins to slow slightly.

On our side, as Enolytics Lite ramps up, we’re keeping in step with wineries who are pivoting with agility – to adjust to the current reality now, and also to strategize around re-engagement of new and existing customers in the months to come. We’ll be sharing more on the topic of re-engagement shortly.

How are things going for you? Please be in touch. I’d love to hear.

Thank you, as always, for reading –

Cathy