Hari Rabu 8 April 2015 Bali kedatangan tim Digital Business nya Garuda Indonesia yang memperkenalkan situs Garuda Social Miles.

Acara dibuka dengan perkenalan dari Vice President Digital Business Garuda Indonesia, Daniel Tumiwa. Daniel menjelaskan mengenai bagaimana sebagai flagship nya penerbangan Indonesia, Garuda Indonesia merasa memiliki suatu kewajiban untuk turut mewakili Indonesia di ranah Internet dalam memperkenalkan khazanah pariwisata Indonesia. Tak ketinggalan, dengan dikumpulkannya destinasi wisata menarik di Indonesia di satu website ini, diharapkan menjadi alasan yang baik untuk bepergian mengunjungi pelosok Nusantara.

Dengan situs Garuda Social Miles ini juga, Garuda berupaya untuk lebih mengidentikkan diri dengan kekhasan Indonesia melalui dunia digital dan komunitas di dalamnya.

Anatomi Situs Garuda Social Media

Amalla Vesta Widaranti (@swankytraveler), Commercial Expert Garuda Indonesia selanjutnya menjelaskan mengenai bagaimana Garuda Social Miles ini dirancang sebagai platform untuk berbagi pengalaman wisata, sekaligus untuk menemukan destinasi wisata menarik di penjuru Nusantara. 

Situs Garuda Social Miles ini terdiri dari dua bagian utama, yaitu Travelopedia, dan Discover. Travelopedia menyajikan informasi menarik mengenai tempat atau obyek wisata Nusantara, sedangkan Discover membahas mengenai kuliner dan budaya yang khas dari berbagai pelosok Indonesia, termasuk koleksi tips yang berguna untuk membuat pengalaman bepergian kita lebih berkesan.

Reward GarudaMiles!

Adapun sebagai keunggulan website Garuda Social Miles, tidak hanya sekedar menjadi platform untuk berbagi cerita, namun setiap foto dan review yang pengguna upload di website ini akan diberikan apresiasi berupa GarudaMiles.

GarudaMiles ini sendiri setelah terkumpul bisa ditukar dengan tiket pesawat, maka dari itu Vesta menyampaikan, bahwa partisipasi di Garuda Social Miles ini sebenarnya merupakan suatu cara yang termudah untuk mendapatkan tiket gratis Garuda untuk berwisata! Siapa tertarik?

Untuk mendaftar menjadi anggota situs, kita bisa memilih untuk mendaftar melalui jejaring social media Twitter, Facebook, atau Google+. Untuk saat ini belum tersedia pilihan sign-up selain melalui metode ini, namun ke depannya dimungkinkan ada metode pendaftaran lainnya.

Setelah mendaftar, pengguna disarankan untuk mengaitkan account nya dengan account GarudaMiles, supaya perolehan rewards nya bisa tercatat.

Menyertakan elemen Storytelling dalam foto

Di sesi penutup, Anto Motulz (@motulz) menjelaskan bagaimana situs Garuda Social Miles ini sebenarnya mirip dengan situs berbagi foto dan ulasan, namun dengan ganjaran reward yang menarik.

Motulz lantas berbagi tips menarik mengenai bagaimana kita bisa bercerita dengan maksimal melalui tools yang sangat sederhana: ponsel berkamera, dengan cara memasukkan elemen storytelling dalam foto-foto yang kita ambil. Motulz membagikan juga beberapa trip praktis pengambilan foto yang bercerita, berdasar dari pengalamannya menjelajah nusantara dalam beragam proyek film dokumenter. 

Bonus!

Menyambut perkenalan ini juga, Vesta menjelaskan bahwa khusus untuk foto dan review mengenai Bali akan diberikan bonus double point reward selama sebulan mulai 8 April hingga 8 Mei 2015! 

Tertarik?

Ayo upload foto-foto keren perjalanan mu di http://GarudaSocialMiles.com dan raih GarudaMiles nya! (byms)

for Bali Food Adventure in picture!

#Bali #GarudaSocialMiles #GSMiles #blogger #traveling#promo #Garuda @garuda.indonesia #Indonesia.

Speaking of a long term strategy of Indonesian Food internationalization, Onboarding is a very crucial stage, it's when someone who's already curious about Indonesian food tried the food for the first time.

While broadly it means building Indonesian food restaurants all over the world, the more cost-effective solution (and a quick win), would be to leverage the stream of tourists visiting Indonesian cities! 

They're already eager for new experience, curious to try local food, and what's best than trying Indonesian food in its homeland? Refering to BJ Fogg's B=MAT behavior model, then it means that the Motivation (M) is already high, so that's left is the Ability (A) and Trigger (T) to create the expected Behavior (B) -- trying out Indonesian food.

While on most cases money is not an issue for the visiting tourists, sadly the availability and properness of good Indonesian food in the tourism destinations itself is often overlooked. 

While the street food stalls might offers authentic Indonesian taste, it's hygiene level is often worrying, and that poses a big problem for traveling tourists. Why?

Food Poisoning Risk

With just a few days of staying, the risk of food poisoning and spending several days in bed to recover is simply too high. Eating Indonesian food on the street then, would be something that the tourists have less Ability (A) for.

The restaurants therefore, provides a more suitable first encounter with its controlled environment as well as better hygiene standards.

However, most of Indonesian hotels are succumbed to the stigma that the taste of Indonesian food needs to be toned down to meet the International taste (read "The European Taste Stigma"), with the assumption that International audience have low tolerance for spice and local taste.

Issue with Recreating Authentic Indonesian Food in Restaurants

Outside of the taste discount issue, there's also the challenge of recreating authentic Indonesian food using European standard kitchen in the hotels and restaurants. Indonesian food are mainly cooked in traditional kitchen that utilizes traditional cooking wares and techniques, something that modern kitchens struggles as they utilizes a different cookwares with different cooking characters.

Take for example, the creation of sambal in traditional kitchen where chillies, palm sugar, terasi, shallots and other ingredients are mixed together through grinding them on stone mortar (coet/cobek), something that modern kitchen can't afford to do considering the effort and the time it take. While mixing the sambal ingredients together in a food processor might seem to do the trick, the absence of molecular binding of flavors releasable through manual grinding is noticeable, and to an older generation it's even unforgiven. I remember my late father in law (mertua) adamant demand on having his sambal only created using the old school Minang method using the huge stone mortar. Or the persistence of many housewives in the village to cook their rice the old way using two steps process of cooking and steaming, because the rice cooked in a rice cooker can't possibly compete.

While chefs might find a good workaround of the technical challenge, it simply means, there's a big challenge of creating truly authentic Indonesian food in hotels and restaurants. 

Alternatively, visiting tourists could also go out and have authentic Indonesian cuisine experience in traditional restaurants or warung. Unfortunately, Indonesian tourism destinations seldom have quality Indonesian restaurants exist that appeals to, or being actively promoted to international audience. This is the conditions that needs to be changed.

Conclusion

With the tourists already eager to try out Indonesian food, and they're already in Indonesia, the Trigger (T) in this Indonesian Food Onboarding scenario would be something easy to create, from something as menial as printed brochure, to a food festival.

The main concern however, which would ensure fruitful reward in the long run is on ensuring the Ability (A), Indonesian food must be made accessible to visiting tourists.

Let me know should you have comments. (byms)

BJ Fogg's Behavior Model image is from http://www.behaviormodel.org/

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Back at the Bango Panel Discussion, I was commenting on Om William Wongso notes about his experience presenting real Indonesian taste to international audience, and the misconception of many Indonesian chef in believing that Indonesian food must be toned down to meet International standard.  I presented some of my own experience in encountering "International taste" in Bali, and one of my favourite story is my first encounter with Will Meyrick's cooking:

Having been living in Jakarta and Bandung for practically most part of my life, I too believes that Indonesian food in hotels are tend to be pale, but it is necessary as to meet the International standard, hence I always avoid ordering Indonesian food in hotels -- except for some occasional Nasi Goreng craving. Back then the standard of reducing, taming down Indonesian cuisine I believed as a standard set in stone.

That's why upon first encountering Will Meyrick's cooking in Mama San, and later Sarong, in Bali, I was thrilled by how dare and "evil" his cooking are, compared with the cooking style of most chefs I know. Will didn't hesitate of delivering extra tanginess, saltiness, or even piercing spiciness into his cookings, something that I never know a "bule" chef can do. And with this kind of extremity, do his audience hates his food? On the contrary, both Sarong and Mama San sits at the top South East Asian restaurants on Mielle Guide and some other publications, as well as known to have a regular westerner clients.

Second one, is from my own presentation during Ubud Writers and Readers Festival 2014:

Being invited as a food blogger to share about street food in Indonesia with ibu Amanda Niode, I was curious about how an international audience would react in experiencing the taste of Indonesian street food, and decided to do a small experiment with presenting my 30+ mostly westerners audience a collection of sate I brought at various street food sellers.

Despite their unfamiliarity with the more exotic meat like chicken intestine and bone marrow, it turned out that the audience love the experience. (And no food poisoning report).

Third one, is from my favourite Nasi Ayam in Bali, Nasi Ayam Ibu Oki in Uluwatu:

Despite its scorching heat, among the regular patrons this eatery has are tourists, both the Asian ones and Australian. This place also known to present the "extra large" portion which consisted of extra rice portion, and are favourite among Australian surfers.

I have also conducted an impromptu interview with one of the westerners there, which I saw didn't even break a sweat after consuming a whole plate of Nasi Ayam Ibu Oki. Turned out that Bruce, is an American teacher on a NGO project in Lombok, but every once in a while visited Bali. He said he didn't mind the heat as he love spicy food, and likes Nasi Ayam Ibu Oki for it.

So, learning from all the three examples, with an appetite and taste preference not really different with us Indonesian, why on earth then, so many Indonesian chefs still believe that authentic Indonesian food is too overpowering for international standard? While many examples against it lies in their own backyard? This have to change!

As a note, I do aware though that some people can't tolerate even a modest spiciness on their food, but it simply mean making small adjustment during the final preparation of the food, instead of toning down all the flavours and making it a standard practice.

Or even better, pick from the hundreds of available Indonesian recipe, those that naturally have a softer taste spectrum. (byms)

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Here's a quick introduction into The Foodie (Experience) Journey:

There are four stages in which someone become acquainted with specific type of food, namely the Discovery stage, Onboarding stage, Exploring stage, and last, Mastery stage.

The Discovery Stage

The discovery stage deals with how someone learn about the food's existence, and it could happens both offline and online on the internet, or through other type of media (TV, printed magazine and newspapers, etc.).

Online wise, there's the Google search, Blog, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and other social media which can be accessed by people from around the world. Creating your content in these platforms thus, will provide a good chance of getting your content discovered by a wide audience.

Offline wise food expo, consulate bazaar, trade and culture exhibition would be a perfect example of how someone become acquainted with foreign food, both in discovering its existence, and goes straight into experiencing it first hand.

For example: there are new documentary videos available on YouTube about Indonesian Food, made by the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) a.k.a "The Good CIA." Through watching the videos, someone is getting curious to find out more about Indonesian food.

The Onboarding Stage

The onboarding stage deals with how someone moved past knowing, into experiencing it. Mostly it happens offline when someone eat the food for the very first time, and getting in touch with the food's related attributes like how the people dressed up in the food's origin country, how the music sounds, and whether there are specific custom with how to consume the food, e.g.: eating with bare hands.

Online wise, some people with advance cooking skill might want to jump into recreating the food and looking for the recipe online. Or when they're already in the food's country origin, they might need an App to better inform them about how to get a specific type of food they've seen on TV or in the news, this is where the mobile application and food blogs would also help.

For example: Someone might read a news in CNN Go that claims Rendang as the world's best dish, and decide to visit the nearby Indonesian restaurant in her city, or the Indonesian Expo held by the Indonesian consulate in the next city, out of curiosity. This is when she experience the first time how Rendang Padang looks, taste, and feel.

The Exploration Stage

The exploration stage deals with how someone getting more interested into the food and start exploring for options. Whether it's looking for something more authentic than what they had, or trying out a different dishes from the same culinary origin.

This is where someone wishes to learn more about the food they have already tasted, and experienced the collateral aspects the food brings.

For example: After the initial encounter with Rendang Padang, someone is curious to try out other Indonesian dishes and visit a nearby Indonesian restaurant where she gets to taste the Sate Ayam Madura, Gado-Gado Jakarta, and Rawon Iga Surabaya.

After continuous exposure with the food then, that someone could become a promoter of the food, sharing his passion to his networks and contacts.

The Mastery Stage

Last the mastery stage, deals with how to keep someone interested in the particular food, even when it seems that someone already knows and experience the cuisine inside-out. This is a critical point that decides whether one will continue its journey in getting to know more about the food and the cuisine style, thus become the authority figure for the cuisine.

Or will she reach the stagnancy as she couldn't get a better resource to satisfy her curiosity?

That's it! I adopted the journey from Customer Experience Design end-to-end journey, and I used this as an illustration to outline the experience steps, in relation with my role as a panellist in Bango's Panel Discussion on "Peluang dan Tantangan Kuliner Nusantara Untuk Masuki Peta Kuliner Dunia" (Opportunities and Challenges for Indonesian Culinary to enter World Culinary Map), early March 2015 in Jakarta.

Based on my own knowledge, and the other panelists' stories, Indonesian food is still struggling on both the Discovery and Onboarding stages, and by knowing this situation, we could get a better picture on what Indonesian government needs to do for each stages, and which one should be prioritized.

As this is still a very early version of the journey, feel free to make comments or suggestions. (byms)

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A big surprise revealed itself earlier this month, when I received a call from Kecap Bango, about their upcoming event. Turned out Bango was planning to create a Media Discussion Panel titled "Peluang dan Tantangan Kuliner Nusantara Untuk Masuki Peta Kuliner Dunia" (Opportunities and Challenges for Nusantara Culinary to enter World Culinary Map) in Jakarta.

While it sounds interesting, just like with other event invitation happening in Jakarta, I was ready to say thanks but no and proceed with the regular reason that I'm living in Bali so traveling will be an issie, et cetera.

To my surprise, they're inviting me to join the event as one of the panellist instead!

Upon further conversation it was revealed that I will be presenting the topic in relation with the digital channel, as I'm a food blogger. By doing so, I will be sharing the stage with the renowned Indonesian food ambassador Om William Wongso, and historian JJ Rizal. The event itself is going to be hosted by Kang Maman who does magic with his Notulen.

Since I think it's a great chance to boost forward my interest in food blogging, and getting acquainted with the creative minds, so I said yes. Despite the chills, and the piling up to-dos on my desk at the office.

The Bango Panel Discussion

So, on the D-Day there I were, entering Oasis Restaurant for the first time. I was in awe by the old school atmosphere charm it emit, which is quite consistent with the restaurant reputation as "The Rijsttafel restaurant. It's like entering the socialite club like Concordia Society in Braga, Bandung, during the Dutch occupancy era, but I can only guess. 

Meeting the organizers I was again briefed about how the event will proceed, and then met the other panelists when they arrived, discussing about how we would realistically proceed. Judging on the quite intense discussion with Om William Wongso, I'm really excited to hear more during the panel discussion.

Opening by Achyaruddin, MICE Director of Kemenparekraf 

After a round-table lunch with all the panelists and representatives, the panel begun with opening speech from pak Achyaruddin, MICE Director of the Indonesia's Kemenparekraf. Pak Achyar outlined the effort that Kemenparekraf has take, including the announcement of 30 Ikon Kuliner Tradisional Indonesia (IKTI), the controversy behind it, the challenges he's facing from both inside and outside the department, and what is the government stance at the moment.

First Session by JJ Rizal, Historian (and Depok Mayor Candidate) 

Starting the discussion, JJ Rizal first brought the topic of early Indonesian culinary history, with intriguing question "How come Indonesia doesn't have its culinary history written?" then followed it with some examples of Indonesian culinary records reaching back to the times when Ramayana was written by Empu Walmiki. There were mentions about the type of food for the commons, and food for the nobles. Interestingly, those that getting preserved is the first one, while the later got lost in time thus only records of their names remains.

JJ Rizal later also introduced two books that he believes are the most complete Indonesian cook book that's ever written, one of it was Oost-Indisch kookboek which was written by Dutch author JMJ Catenius-van der Meijden, and consisting of 1,381 Indonesian food recipes. The other book was Mustika Rasa which written and published by Indonesia's Department of Agriculture 47 years ago. It was created under mandate of the late President Soekarno and took 7 years to complete. The book itself is 1,123 pages thick and consisting of 1,600 recipes from all over the country. The main intention itself is to anticipate the food crisis, by educating Indonesians that there are a lot of food alternative existed, in their own regions.

Second Session by William Wongso, Culinary Expert 

Om William then proceed with sharing his knowledge of Indonesian food's current situation in the world, how we're still far behind other leading Asian countries like Thailand, Vietnam, Korea, and Japan, yet so little effort has been done by the Indonesian government to catch up with those countries.

Internally, it was revealed that even our Presidential Palace are still happy with serving visiting country leaders, an international menu set which comprises like steaks and so on, instead on insisting them to try the beauty of Indonesian food.

Furthermore there is also a confusion in our cooking industry, into thinking that we should tame down, or even alter our food taste to suit "the western taste" hence authentic Indonesian food is a rare thing to find outside Indonesia.

As with the food reproduction aboard, Om William also noted that today Indonesian food are still a hassle to recreate, due to the lack of proper seasoning ingredients. Unlike Thai chefs that's already have plenty of materials supplied by their country's industries, so in the word of Om William, it's like they're "a painter with all the paint provided", while Indonesian chefs are still struggling with preparing their dishes, sometimes from zero.

Substitution sometimes work, especially when there's Thai community or Asian community in the neighbourhood, as we tend to use similar ingredients, but care must be taken to ensure a correct output. For example, while Rendang Padang might still be created using Thai's coconut milk, we need to double the amount and prolong the cooking time as Thai's coconut milk tend to be lighter than Indonesia's.

Om William also raise the request for Indonesian industries like Kecap Bango to expand their export to the western countries, not to be shy, as it would help Indonesian cooks to recreate Indonesian cuisine correctly, as authentic as possible.

It was an interesting talk and I could sit there listening to his talk for hours, so many insight and opportunities.

Last, it's my turn to introduce the audience into "The Foodie Journey"

Third Session by Bayu Amus, Food Blogger from Epicurina

Borrowing the perspective from Customer Experience Design, I wrapped my presentation in a stages of "The Foodie Journey" that someone would take, starting from a complete stranger, into becoming the prominent promoter of Indonesian Cuisine.

The first part of that journey is the Discovery stage, and this is where someone becomes aware about the existence of Indonesian cuisine, and usually it's done with the help of the mass media, in form of articles or coverage. This is a very important stage of the foodie journey as you can't grow to like or love something unless you know that thing exist. Words of mouth is also a good source of introduction into Indonesian food, and in today's internet connected world, this is where the food bloggers, and foodies take part by actively spreading the Indonesian good food scene to the world.

Read the full disclosure of The Foodie Journey here.

Current situation

At the moment, sadly Indonesia is currently losing, even in this earliest stage: Discovery. On the internet, a Google Trends research produce an alarming rate of the decreasing popularity for Indonesian cuisine.

While quite a different result was exhibited by the popularity trend for Thai and Korean cuisine:

 Popularity of Thai Cuisine over the internet.

Popularity of Korean Cuisine over the internet.

Conclusion

Indonesia have a lot of food bloggers, English speaking ones, which means they can compete head to head with the neighbouring countries' food bloggers. Food bloggers and foodies also practically acts as promoters of Indonesian food to the world, which in turn help educating the international society on what Indonesian cuisine is, and what are the good food available in Indonesia. We can help raising international awareness and interest in Indonesian Cuisine, as well as luring people to visit Indonesia and samples its delicious food.

In turn it will help the government to achieve its target of 20 million tourist visits to Indonesia by 2019, and Indonesia can take pride in one of its biggest cultural heritage: its food. Salam kuliner Indonesia. (byms)

Closing note: One of the necessary skill for a panellist I believe, is to be able to connect with other speaker's talk, find interesting keynotes, then generate insight and correlation on the fly, to be inserted into your own talk. That's why taking notes is always useful.

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