Minnetonka Vantage and Holter Communications - A Charter, Part 1
Never be the smartest person in the room.
That way, you’ll always have the opportunity to learn. I experienced that yet again a couple weeks ago as I met the team from the Minnetonka Vantage Program that chose my company for their project.
Vantage is a program for students at Minnetonka High School that have shown a desire and skill set to explore subjects and opportunities at a level of maturity mirroring post-graduate work. Of course, that’s my take on the program, because it’s so much more than that. Yet I’ve found these kids are bright and ambitious and want to learn differently outside of the norms of the classroom, and focus on local, national and global business and the complexities of our rapidly changing world.
A few years ago, while I was employed at Lakewinds, a group of students from Vantage did a data-focused project for our marketing team. I was the contact person on the business end which really meant I got to sit back and watch these brilliant kids dig deep into questions we hadn’t known to ask yet and find answers we didn’t have capacity to find.
Running my own business now, I was thrilled to get looped back into the Vantage program. First, I was asked to be a mentor to a student, and I can already say my life is better for knowing my mentee Katie. Then, rather last minute (which is my favorite thing) I was asked to lead a business charter for a team of Global Sustainability students.
Libby, Brice, Sydney, William and Hang welcomed me to our kickoff meeting with a very polished and professional slide deck presentation. We often strayed from the agenda and outline, as I am wont to do, and went down numerous rabbit trails as we got to know each other and dove into various topics.
In a nutshell, the team is looking at meat alternatives under the names Beyond Meat and Impossible from a climate change perspective. As in, can these alternatives to traditional meat be a component in addressing climate change, and if so, can they be marketed as relevant and delicious food options specifically to teens who are taking up the mantle of the critical issues facing our planet.
I am lucky enough to be their partner, and provide a bit of both encouragement and contrarian thought. They’ll lead all the research and data collection, they definitely are leading the communication and organization of everything. I get the fun part – blogging about the process!
My goal is to inspire them from all sides – marketing, environmental, food systems, recipe development and critical thought. I can say assuredly they need very little inspiration!
One of the ways I know we’re going to be OK as a society and a planet is because of teenagers like this. When they graduate, they’ll go on to impact our world in large and small ways. As a Minnetonka parent, I recognize the great privileges my kids and their peers have in this school district. The opportunities are endless. I’m thankful I get to watch from in the midst of it, through the Vantage program.