RecRe Roundtable: Ben Anderson
I see Ben Anderson as the “north star” of how to be a successful business partner in higher education. Ben has a natural ability to be a connector, an innovator, and a thought leader in this industry. We had the opportunity to speak with Ben on this week’s RecRe Roundtable about his decade+ experience with higher education technology and got some insight into how he sees the campus of tomorrow.
Thank you, Ben!
Griffin Harrington:
Thank you everyone for joining another RecRe roundtable. This series is a chance for our team at RecRe to connect with the higher education both administrators and service providers to talk about their experience in this industry, share some nuggets, wisdom, and talk about the campus of tomorrow. And today I am pumped to welcome to the roundtable Ben Anderson. If you’ve been to a higher Education Conference than in the last decade that’s involved food or auxiliary services you know Ben. Ben started his higher education journey at Tapingo. When it got acquired by Grubhub he joined the team and has led campus sales for 5, 6 years, and I think he’s got a lot to share on his context there. Ben, welcome so much to the roundtable and thank you for being here. First question as we kind of go in is:
Why higher ed, and tell me your journey from where you started to where you are now?
Ben Anderson:
I appreciate that, Griffin. Great question to start with. I had done about 10 years in financial services and luckily reconnected with an old friend, who was one of the founders of Tapingo, and offered me an opportunity at the end of 2012, to move out to California and join a young tech company that was really focused on improving the student experience in college dining specifically. So I said, lucky, but to say that I have felt really, really blessed, and honored to be part of this world. High quality people really get a lot of equity about being able to work with the college students and be a participant and someone that can help support the journey of young folks as they evolve through college. So, I made it here randomly, but very glad I did.
Griffin Harrington:
Why have you stuck in higher ed for so long? I know it’s good people, but what about the industry has kept you hooked for the last decade, even through 2 different companies?
Ben Anderson:
Great question. I think technology. And being able to be part of a revolutionary time in higher education. Technology has been around forever, but especially in areas of dining where I’ve really focused. Labor has become more and more of a problem, the need to provide more service to students, more day parts, covering wider ranges, being able to reach parts of campus where students may not be able to show up at the Union. Being able to be part of this organic, but well timed technology and fusion in higher ed has been both pulling on the the parts of me that really just love the people, but also really love to see the real world experience, how the physical unions change, how the student activities areas and rec areas physically change to allow for this wider, more in-depth consumer experience.
Griffin Harrington:
The technology aspect that I know you’ve been a part of, such a significant growth in a fast changing growth with the couple of products and services that you sold has been a big part of it from my context, from watching you from afar for a couple of years, and then finally getting to know you the last couple of months you have done such an amazing job of building wide but deep relationships across the industry. From my perspective, seeing you, You’ve been recognized by the industries that you’ve been a part of for your ability to provide high quality technology, but also have such a high quality and trustworthy touch from a relationship perspective. Can you talk about how you have approached that, and why that part of the business and your perspective on this industry is so important to build those relationships?
Ben Anderson:
That’s probably a good add on to my answer earlier. But why higher ed? One of the things that I love about it is that it is such a diverse, active, and complex large institution. They are in some ways very, very competitive and always trying to be on the front edge. They want to make sure the students sort of feel that level of innovation in their daily life in college. But yet, in so many other ways, there are these old school institutions that haven’t always moved as quickly as the market, and I think that intersection creates this really cool bed of innovation where you have people that are looking for, not what’s the fanciest thing out there or not something that is gonna catch some eyeballs for a short time. It’s really about finding tech that, not tech for tech’s sake, but what is it solving for? What are you doing to make that campus experience better? I think that this is a really cool hotbed for innovation. In higher ed, it allows these universities to really make smart strategic decisions about what kind of technology they want. They don’t have to chase the newest thing. But what they do need to do is find vendors and partners that they can trust to evolve with them. That’s what I’ve really really loved about this industry is in so many ways I feel like I’m participating alongside the clients themselves, the students themselves, the various constituencies that make up a campus in so many ways. The technology partners that have been successful aren’t trying to solve the problems for the campus, but they’re recognizing that in unison and working together with the industry, not only can technology companies build products that can really be successful and build companies that can grow and thrive but they’re doing it in a way that’s changing things on the ground for the better of everybody.
Griffin Harrington:
Something you said at the top there that caught me was how the campus partners, the administrators behind the scenes, who are operating and making all these campus experiences so special for students are essentially creating a small economy that’s very wide and is a replication of a small city or a large city in some cases or a large, multifaceted organization, with apartments and gyms and dining facility. It’s a small city. The physical aspect of that city has changed so drastically in the last decade, since you’ve been in the industry. What are some of those physical aspects of technology change that you’ve seen over your time in the last decade?
Ben Anderson:
Some of the most interesting changes that are brought forward by technology and colleges are things that you see from the other angle. Now, how technology has got to a point where it doesn’t feel like you’re in the year 2070. It’s not like downtown New York City lights flashing. A lot of good technology is about how you create authentic useful space. Some of the big trends we see in unions or dining areas is how do you create space that can be multi-use space. That’s very true when we look at how dining operations and kitchens have been built and evolved over the last, however many years. How do you create an environment that can handle this use case or then maybe be able to feed 5,000 people for a catering event later on that day. You create these multi-use spaces that are only enabled because the technology allows you to connect to the consumer, operator, and service point. In the physical world without technology there’s only so many ways that you can connect, it’s a very physical experience. What technology has done (when it’s done well) is not to take that away, it’s how you enhance that physical experience. How do you make it feel more authentic and more custom? And that technology is really what’s enabling you to do that, not what is sitting front and center.
Griffin Harrington:
It’s amazing how the student has changed so drastically in the last 3 years, where they’re expecting such different experiences. Talk to that, I know you’re so tied in with so many different technology providers across the industry. Within the last 3 years, I’m sure, it has accelerated and sent it off course. How are campuses responding to today’s students after Covid?
Ben Anderson:
The biggest change through Covid, and it corresponds with how humanity and technology and all these things are changing, is this idea of where and how technology fits into the ecosystem. The example I’ll give is years ago, even not that many years ago, it was very common for a college to have a 3 to 5 year technology plan. What’s changed that’s driven by the evolving consumer, is that you just can’t think of the world that way. That’s a product from Covid. Universities realized that we have to bring down some of these bureaucracy and walls, not to be critical, but some of the red tape that might have been a little excessive. As technology evolves, it’s no longer realistic to think that you’re going to have it figured out. Things are changing so quickly. We don’t necessarily know what is going to be the most impactful technology change in the next 3 to 5 years. That’s why smart operators are trying to create these flexible spaces. They’ve realized and knowing that you can’t get it right, we both from a decision-making standpoint, and a physical asset standpoint, how do we mix up the batter where it can manage whatever is going to come. Not the cleanest answer to your question, but consumers are always looking for convenience and what’s new. One of the biggest changes is a lot of these technologies were first being presented to college students in college. Mobile ordering, kiosk, lockers, robots, etc. but that’s not the case anymore. Now students have experienced that through middle school and high school. In some ways universities used to be able to be a little protected from the outside world. The change is technology has become so omnipresent that you’re not just in your own world. Part of what makes college so successful, is it’s preparing you for the world. But it’s also giving you that experience in and of itself. That’s what has changed in a lot of ways. The consumer has just experienced more going into college but there’s some really cool changes in this new group of consumers. It’s not like this group of students coming in will be impressed by some innovative thing. There’s this really cool call to quality that you see. Experiences that are meaningful and authentic are what succeeds. If technology can play an important part of that, all the better. This group of students is not about just throwing technology in for fun.
Griffin Harrington:
We just had a conversation with an AVP at another campus. They were telling us how they’ve shifted their activities budget away from large scale big concerts that used to attract and used to be the cornerstone of their student activities budget. They’ve seen that the student consumer of today is much more interested in small group gatherings that are highly customizable, highly focused on small groups, and it’s completely shifted the schedule, budget, and approach that their administrations had to focus on their students. They’re just finding ways to meet the student where they are today. What does the campus of 2030 look like? Does it align where technology disappears into the background?
Ben Anderson:
Technology can work in the background, allowing a student to have a tailored experience, because a phone becomes the portal to so much. Technology allows us to have these very personalized experiences that we can bring into these bigger audiences. At a university, what are some examples of that? Being able to have more customized food service options, meal plans, being able to have your allergens embedded on the front end. I imagine that’s going to be true for activities and events. A lot of that is a product of the negative side of excessive technology, which is this fire hose of information that’s being flooded at us. It’s because of that as consumers, but especially those that already lived through this part of the technology journey think, if it’s not a customized experience, then it doesn’t feel like it was for me. That’s what technology has allowed us to do. Technology will fade into the background because, it gets to the point where, whether it’s enhancements in video tech and AI, the AI to me is really just going to be about how the technologies that we work with can be smarter and more adaptive to us. I was talking to a company that’s working on AI to help do coaching for job interviews or resume reviews. This is a good example of where customization can allow us to have that very personal experience, one that we know speaks to us. And I think that’s a product of what technology allows us to do but also the flip side, as consumers of technology and those of us moving through this world because it’s out there if it’s not being used to sharpen the messaging to us or give us that unique experience, it doesn’t feel like it was for us. It doesn’t feel like it’s as authentic. That’s these 2 diverging trends, where technology is moving, adding innovation, and convenience, but in some ways that’s driving us back to our core instinct of how we make sure it’s for us. That’s where universities are really going to meld these 2 trends.
Griffin Harrington:
5 or 6 years ago, when a student interacted with a robot or some fancy self-service technology, it was the first time they were doing that. But now you can find a scooter on every street corner in most cities in the country before a student gets to campus. AI and some of those technologies are going to interact with those 15, 16, 17 year olds way before the student gets to campus for the first time, so the campus will have to find a way to keep up and interact with a student in the way that they’ve been taught to interact with technology. Campuses will have to find ways to catch up drastically because that adoption is going to happen way faster than any physical technology has been implemented in the past.
Ben Anderson:
And I would add, too, part of that is fundamental connectivity. How do you make someone feel engaged and involved? You bring them into that process. Technology is also going to allow colleges, universities, administrations to solicit that information in a more effective way. It’s both a kind of push and pull. Technology is going to allow these experiences to be more immersive, connected and adaptable to which student is showing up. If you have a 3 year technology budget and you can’t change things for 3 years you’re not going to go to your student base and ask what they want from you. You’re not going to be able to adopt what they want. Technology and the barriers to adapt, change and integrate with each other is in a much easier way. That’s been a major barrier I’ve seen in the last 3-5 years. It used to be all these individual technology stacks and a manual human challenge to connect them all. That’s not nearly the case anymore. It creates a situation where universities can be more responsive, they can put their ear to the ground more because they’re in a situation to adapt to the change. The technology has evolved to the point where it can be implemented more quickly. It can operate and integrate with existing technologies much more easily, and the third consumer, the student and user, is just much more expecting or used to it.
Griffin Harrington:
For the young professionals trying to figure out how to make it In the higher ed world, how can someone follow along with the trends of tomorrow from a technology perspective? How can people understand what’s coming and learn about it from your experience? What would you recommend?
Ben Anderson:
There are some great publications out there that provide good technology information. Campus ID is one that I stay close to. Payments is a newsletter that has some good technology innovations. More than that, the associations in Higher ed are so strong, not just the conferences, but the research that the Associations do, from education to development, I think the associations become the water cooler of what’s happening in the space. Intentionally, people are showing up to innovate with each other. Going back to one of your earlier questions about what’s so cool about higher ed, I do think it’s at the forefront of a lot of these technologies and there is a reason for that. As consumers, we adopt technology based on how often we’re going to use it. There’s very few places in this world where you’re as immersed in an environment as you are in higher ed. All these use cases, whether it’s going to the Union or going to dining, you are having this constant frequency of the use case that makes it relevant to begin with. My advice is just to get excited about it. This is a really cool space for tech. The tech that’s evolving here in this space is as up to par as what you know exists outside of it. Those operators, administrators, and universities can tear some of those old mindset band-aids off when people say it’s going to take forever, or we just can’t do it. Now is the time to be really empowered to understand it may not be perfect, but we gotta think big. Technology forces us to think very ambitiously. How you operationalize it and how you bring it to life is what you need to be deliberate about. Those are the things that really move students. Those are the things that really move us as people trying to help students. We don’t want to make changes that are not impactful. We want to do things that the students are going to be excited about. It’s as easy as leaning in and feeling inspired and encouraged that we are now in a time and place where the universities need the tech for a lot of reasons like labor challenges. The students are expecting it, so why not go full force.
Griffin Harrington:
Ben, thank you for joining the roundtable. I am excited and inspired to go check out all these sources. Thank you so much for the time, and we really appreciate it.
Ben Anderson:
My pleasure Griffin, thanks so much.
Interested in participating in our RecRe Roundtable series? Email griffin@recrebox.com.
