(lively music) (lively music continues) - If you've ever wanted a say in how a region looks in the future or wanted to see a problem solved, there's an annual event, not really annual, every three years, coming up where you can share your ideas with business leaders, public officials, and your neighbors.

Big Table Greater Peoria is coming up in just a few weeks, and the theme for 2025 is "Innovation as a Regional Growth Strategy."

Here to tell us about it, Chris Setti, Greater Peoria Economic Development Council, CEO.

And David Aduama.

He is the Greater Peoria Economic Development Council Communications Manager.

Thanks for coming in, gentlemen.

- Thank you.

- Thank you for having us.

- All right, so Big Table, every three years, Chris.

- Every three years.

- All right, so tell us how this got started and what the goal was for that first year.

- Sure, right.

In 2019, it was a really, this has been one of those great group projects, that it was a part of the Peoria Chamber of Commerce and CEO Council, our organization at Greater Peoria, EDC, Discover Peoria, all of the local chambers, East Peoria, Morton, Pekin, all working together and hosted that very first Big Table event at the Peoria Civic Center, really, with the idea of just hosting a conversation.

Hosting a conversation about both what's great about this region, but also what work we need to do to make it even a better place.

And it was a really enthusiastic group and it was a really great day in Peoria.

One of the...

In the 20 some odd years I've been here, one of the proudest days I've had in seeing all of these people working together and just having a really great conversation, not with any sort of, you know, rose-colored glasses on, that everything here is great, but also recognizing that there are some really awesome things about this region.

And if we pulled together, you know, we can do even better things.

And so that really kind of kicked off this idea of hosting occasional, and as it turned out, every three years.

Our original plan was to do this every year, but then what happens in 2020, it's kind of hard to get a group of a couple hundred people together.

And so it really wasn't until 2022 that we had our next Big Table event that was also really well attended, also very powerful.

And so now three years later, we're ready to do it again and gather all that input another time.

- [Mark] Now, David, tell me, have you been to a Big Table before?

I know you've been here about four years.

So, you were at the last Big Table?

- Yes, I was at the last Big Table.

- [Mark] What was that like for you?

- It was fantastic, actually.

It was nice to just see the community come together, and the conversations that was happening there was great.

And one of the things that my key takeaways from that was, you'd hear someone on the table say, "Oh, this is not happening in Peoria.

We don't have this.

We don't have this in our region."

And someone else that is not paid to do that, 'cause we are paid to like talk about the region and, you know, promoters and all of that.

But someone that is like far removed from this, like, "Hey, I know we are doing something to fix these issues."

So, it's really great.

It's a way for us to be, like you said, honest about our challenges and find out how do we move forward as a region to fix those challenges.

- I think it's pretty neat that anyone can participate in this event, from CEOs and general managers to, you know, the guy next door.

- Absolutely.

I think that's the important part, right?

It really is about community input.

And, you know, we obviously have some great community leaders that we hope they'll be there, but also we want everybody's input because everybody has a stake in the future of the region.

And it isn't just Peoria, right?

It's Pekin, it's Morton, it's Washington.

It's the entire region.

And we actually have some opportunities to do some outreach even in some of our more rural communities because everyone has a stake in how this region operates.

And I think it was a great cross section of folks.

The last two times, I got to see a lot of people I knew and I kind of expected to see 'cause they're the folks that you would expect to come out to that sort of event.

But a lot of folks, I had no idea who they were.

And I thought that was really important that we were able to reach, I hate to call them ordinary folks 'cause I think we're all ordinary folks, but people who aren't in identifiable leadership positions in the region, either politically or business-wise, who really came, and everyone was given equal weight.

And I think that's one of the reasons behind The Big Table, is to give people a voice about the community that they call home.

- Did you get the name Big Table from, you know, Thanksgiving, Christmas, where you've got The Big Table where the adults are and smaller tables?

- No.

No, we didn't.

Actually, this is a movement that started, I believe it was in Columbus, Ohio, where they were the first to host a community conversation that they called The Big Table.

We actually got the idea from the Quad Cities that had done kind of a similar thing a year or two.

So it must have been 2017 or 2016.

We were looking for a way of hosting this kind of conversation.

And everybody has kind of done it a little bit different, but we really felt that it was important in a couple of ways, right?

Really, to help drive the idea of what needed to be changed or what needed to be different, but also to accentuate the positives of this community.

David is obviously a transplant to the community from West Africa.

I'm a transplant to this community from California.

And, you know, I think that we have recognized how great this place is, but oftentimes people don't recognize that.

So it tries to be equally celebratory of the region, but also critical in a way that is productive.

And so, you know, that's really kind of the goal behind this.

And so that's what we had taken for the folks in Quad Cities who had done this, was really a way of generating some groundswell of interest, you know, in pushing the region forward.

- I wanna talk about the positives and the negative feelings that people have.

You know, negative feelings, it seems like it's universal.

Crime, things like that.

No matter how much you quell crime, crime itself is a problem.

Did you...

In the last two Big Table conversations, did you hear about any problems that you just weren't aware of that people thought were important to get out there?

- You know, I don't remember anything that was shocking to us, right?

We realized that our region and our community has problems because every region has problems.

And if you were to host a Big Table conversation in any community, any city in America, you'd likely hear many of the same things about access to opportunity, about disinvestment, about crime, about educational outcomes, and you would also hear many of the same positive things.

I don't think that anything we heard from those first conversations was surprising to us, but that doesn't make them any less important.

I remember the very first event, a young woman came up and she talked about, she used the phrase "Bloom where you are planted."

And there's this other phrase that kind of goes along that with the, you know, "The grass isn't always greener on the other side of the fence.

The grass is greenest where you water it."

And that's really what we are trying to embody with The Big Table, is that we have grass right here to be watered and to bloom where you are planted.

And that's really kind of the themes that are moving behind the opportunity.

- Can you think of any... Let's talk about since the first one that you did several years ago, can you think of any problems that have been more intensely looked at since then that, you know, people might say, "Hey, this is a problem, it's still a problem," but at least people are looking at it in a different light or trying to do something about it more?

- Yeah, I'll talk about two different discussions that have happened through The Big Table over the course of the last six years.

The first was around talent attraction.

And in 2019, we really, kind of in the livability section, really started talking about all the great things of this region, but that we needed a collective effort to tell the story of the Peoria area to the rest of the world.

And from that has come then the Choose Greater Peoria, Talent Attraction Initiative and the positive Peoria that the Greater Peoria Leadership Council has put together.

Actually in 2022, at our last Big Table, the keynote speaker was a guy named Bob Ross, not the famous Bob Ross of public television, but a less famous guy from Topeka, Kansas who came and talked about Topeka Kansas' talent attraction initiative that they had.

And I think that helped to inspire the efforts that the region has taken towards that.

I think that the other, you know, the other initiative that has really been talked about since the beginning was the importance of innovation in startups in our community.

From that, although we had been talking about Distillery Labs and, you know, innovation, you know, prior to 2019, I think that really helped to kick us into gear a little bit more, recognizing that innovation and creating new companies is an economic development strategy.

And maybe, David, you could talk about the, like, keynote speaker.

We're really trying to lean into that this year.

- Yeah.

And just to touch on what he just said, usually when you have this event, people think we just come to talk and like nothing is done.

But the difference with The Big Table is we are very intentional about what we are doing and the information we are gathering from the people.

So, for instance, after the 2019, a group of civic organizations came together to start what was the GP 2030 Talent Attraction Campaign.

And in 2022 when we brought the keynote speaker Bob Ross to come and inspire because he comes from a region that's similar to ours, and they've been winning in the talent attraction game.

And so we brought him and we believe that inspired the investment, the huge investment of the campaign, the Talent Attraction Campaign, that is now Choose Greater Peoria campaign.

So, that's part of it.

This year, we just launched... We just opened the doors to Distillery Labs last year.

So we think it's right that we center around innovation and startup ecosystems because we have identified that our region is affordable, we are welcoming.

Like, when you come to Peoria, you're one step removed from meeting the people that are, like, make the decisions because we are sort of a small, big region, but also we are very connected and we collaborate a lot.

So, for instance, if you are a startup coming from, we had startup from Brazil.

They were in Chicago, and then they came here to Peoria, and the feedback one said was like, "Chicago was great, but we rolled a red carpet for them."

They felt like they were home and they could build something here.

So that's what we are leaning into.

So, we hired... We've contracted a keynote speaker, Victor Wang.

He is a world renowned entrepreneur, ecosystem advocate.

So he has an organizational movement called Right to Start.

And what they do is to invest, like, help communities like us build a robust startup ecosystem.

And we think we are right at the cusp of, like, something great.

Like, the goal of Distillery Labs is to be one of the top 25 startup ecosystems in the world.

So we have a big ambition for that.

And so we hoping that Victor and what he's gonna say and share would inspire the whole community and people that invest in us to pay more attention to, like, those challenges or the barriers that are affecting people that starting new businesses.

So Victor becoming, he is sponsored by the kind generosity of the Peoria Chamber of Commerce.

So they are the keynote speaker sponsor.

We sort of built... Last year, we did what we called Economic Development Forum.

It was the first annual event that EDC had ever done.

And we had Jay Garner who is a world-renowned site selection aspect.

So... Should I go into what site selection is?

- Sure.

- So, site selectors are people that, like, you know, when a big, like, caterpillar wants to move to a different city or state, they are hired by the corporation to find the best location for them to move to.

So we want to attract businesses yet so we can grow and give more economic opportunities for people in the region.

So, we had him here.

And it's funny because I keep saying this, like, "A prophet is not respected in his own country or his own town."

We've been saying the same thing all over to the community, but when he came and he did a presentation, we had actually a very good representation of the city leaders and regional leaders in the room and they found a lot of value in what he said.

And we're like, "Well, we've been saying this the whole time."

But it it was really like when he came and, like, an outside perspective.

So, that was really great.

- Yeah, and I think that's that's the goal here with Victor, is that, you know, we realize just how important an issue innovation in startups are.

So it's not the whole conversation about, you know, at The Big Table, there's gonna be lots of different conversations, but we thought that we would find somebody who could provide that outside perspective because he works with communities just like ours across the nation oftentimes.

And this kind of goes back to the thing I said earlier about the grass is always greener, is that we as Peorians or Greater Peorians might think we're the only ones that have these challenges or these opportunities because we maybe lack perspective about other communities.

And people like Victor or Jay Garner who was here last year at a different type of event kind of showcase that there's opportunities and you can learn from other communities and what they're doing.

And that's really... And Victor will be a really...

I've gotten a chance to hear him speak before, and I think he will really help us help to define what's next.

We've gotten a lot of mileage out of the Peoria Next Innovation Center and Distillery Labs.

How are we all gonna bring it together to kind of become that world-renowned startup ecosystem?

- You talked earlier about talent acquisition, and what better example do we have than David.

- Right, yeah.

(David laughs) - I mean, you're from Africa, you lived in Las Vegas, and you came here from Las Vegas, which many people are thinking, "Why would you do that?"

- [David] I keep getting that a lot.

- But, you know, those of us, Chris and I who live here a long time, we know the positive and negative aspects of our area.

But you coming from a big town like Las Vegas, what made you wanna come here?

Sight unseen?

- Well, one, I really wanted to leave Vegas.

So, for context, in my country, we are very community oriented.

So, like, I know my (indistinct) best.

I don't wanna know them, I don't want them in my business, but it is what it is.

But in Vegas, I lived in Vegas for two and a half years, and I didn't have friends.

All of my friends were colleagues, people I worked with.

And I lived in an apartment complex and I didn't know the name of my next door neighbor.

So, that was a problem.

And then when I started looking for jobs, I was looking for regional... Like, jobs that, like, had regional aspect to it because my last project at my last job in West Africa, I was covering 15 countries.

So I had that, you know, mindset.

So when I saw the job description and it had regional, I was like, "Yes, this is something."

And I've always been passionate about community development.

I've been doing non-profit work since I got out of college.

I started with a social enterprise and then moved to the USAID environmental project.

So, helping underserved communities, helping a region grow, I think is very crucial.

And I actually love being part of the process.

I sometimes considered Peoria as a mini startup for me.

And, like, you see the potential.

Like, as an outsider, I see all the potential, and I think we can, as a coordinated region, we can get to realize that potential.

So, it made sense.

So when Chris said, "You got a job," and moved to Peoria, I was like, "Sure, I'll do it."

And everybody told me not to do it, to be honest.

And I had advisors that said, "No, don't do it."

"Google (indistinct) in Peoria," and I did.

I was like, and I remember clearly saying to my first boss, who is a mentor to me, I told him, "If Peoria is in the State, I think I can make an impact there."

They need me.

Like, I would bring a fresh, you know, insight and perspective to the place.

And to be honest, I've not regret any decision I made moving here.

I moved (indistinct).

I rented an apartment without it being, like, seeing the apartment because I was like, "I'm just gonna, like, go with fate and just, like, know I'll be successful."

Honestly, you put me anywhere, I would survive.

So I moved here, and it's been a great community.

I have, for the first time moving to the United States, I moved here about eight years ago, this is the first place I feel like I've been home.

Like, I know people, sometimes too many people, I have a community of friends, I have a community of colleagues, people care about each other and we all have the same goal.

We might have different, like, ideas of how to get there.

And so part of some of this conversation is to come all together and realize that actually everybody in this region have one single goal, which is to improve our economy, to improve livelihood here, and to give opportunity to everyone.

And so sometimes we might have varying ways of how we think we get there, and The Big Table is a chance for everyone to have an input and for us to like, you know, after everything we do, we write a report and we take actually quotes from some of the things that the attendees say and we sort of put it together.

I don't know if you wanna talk about this Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy.

- Well, go ahead.

- I was gonna ask you, Chris, if you could just kind of take us through the day.

- Yeah.

But importantly, and the time that people spend, you know, they spend a day and a half, they could spend up to a day and a half with us, we don't take it for granted.

And it isn't just an opportunity to kind of, an airing of grievances and a hope for the future.

We actually use it to form the backbone of what we call our Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy.

Every five years, we put this together.

We call it The Big Table Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy just from a branding standpoint, but we want people to understand that the input that they give, good and bad, right, or critical and praising, it makes its way into this plan.

And so the day it, it's all day on Friday and a half day on Saturday.

It's gonna be at the Four Points Sheraton.

We'll feed you and hopefully you will be entertained by the conversation, but the day is broken up into kind of four segments because there's four topic areas.

One is around innovation in startups that we've kind of talked about that is highlighted by a keynote speaker, with Victor Wang.

The other segments, one is around our workforce on our education.

How are we preparing people for the opportunities that this region has?

One is around livability and how are we accentuating our livability and how are we improving our livability.

I think the focus there may very well be on Downtown Peoria and how important Downtown Peoria is, not just to Peoria, but to the entire region.

And then another segment is around ensuring access to opportunity.

How are we making sure that everyone in our community, regardless of race, gender, age, ability, is able to access the great opportunities in this community?

So what happens is, throughout the effort, there is a small...

So every segment, we'll say, there's a small panel conversation, 15, 20 minutes, to kind of introduce the topic and talk about something that's great or interesting or problematic that's happening within that theme, and then we turn it over to the tables.

And everybody is arranged at tables of eight to 10.

We will have facilitators at each table that will walk the table through some questions to get their feedback, gather all that information, and then do like mini report outs before the next session starts.

That's really the important part.

It's less important what the panel members are saying.

The important part is the conversation at the tables themselves.

And that's where, we really could call it The Little Tables instead of The Big Table.

But that's really the key, is it's an interactive day, so don't come expecting to just listen to six or seven hours worth of people talking.

Expect about an hour's worth of talking, maybe two hours worth of talking, and then about six hours worth of conversation over the course of the day.

- Sounds like you need to put a big ad on social media saying, "If you have any issues that you would like to discuss, come to Big Table Peoria."

Because a lot of us, we complain, but we don't do anything about it.

- I think it's important...

Certainly, but don't come just with complaints.

- Sure.

- Come with your ability.

Because I think we often, it's easy to complain, it's harder to solve things.

And I think all of us have a role to play in solving things.

It's not always the government or somebody else's problem to solve.

Community solve problems.

That is sometimes channeled through our local governments or through other organizations, but oftentimes it's people taking it upon themselves to be neighborly, you know, to pick up litter, to raise their children well, to get involved in their communities and their schools and their churches.

So we want people who aren't just coming to complain, but who are also coming, you know, to really celebrate the community and lean in.

- That sounds like a good networking opportunity, whether, you know, if you're a business person or just someone who wants to make friends.

- Right.

- Yeah.

- Okay, so you told us where it is.

When is it?

- It's October 17th and 18th.

So Friday and Saturday.

Saturday will be a half day.

And I'm currently working on another keynote speaker for Saturday, but the details will be shared later.

But Friday's the full day, and then Saturday is gonna be a half day.

And because, like, I'm fortunate to work in an organization where I can, it's sort of part of my job to go to community events like that, but we understand that not everybody would get the day off to attend a whole day event.

So we sort of having a mini Big Table on Saturday for those that aren't able to attend on Friday because, again, we believe that every voice matters.

And back to what Chris was saying, it's not just come and have, like, bring your grievances, right?

But sometimes we at the civic organizations that we are paid to do some of this work, we can get lost in our own echo chamber.

And, like, you know, there's a saying in Ghana.

I don't know if it's familiar here that says, "The person that's cutting, weeding cannot see his back and the line is not straight."

So we have all our blind side.

So having people come in and say, like, give us different perspective, just like how I as a Ghanaian immigrant being here sees so many opportunities that when I speak to like people born and raised here, they're like, "No, this place is not great," all of that.

And I'm like, "Yeah, these are all the things that, you know, make this place great."

And as someone, a transplant, this is great for me.

So, come with your ideas, come with solutions, right?

If you have like...

If there's an issue that you think, "Oh, we need to fix," and you have, like, an innovative way to solve it, please come and share that with us.

- I would also add, in addition to the big Big Table, we're also hosting what we're calling Rural Big Tables.

We're still working some of the details out there.

But we understand that not everybody is gonna be able to come to The Big Table in Downtown Peoria or even feel comfortable doing so because maybe they're from rural, more rural Woodford or Taswell County.

So we're going to have many conversations hosted in each of those counties over the course of October and November.

We've got one in (indistinct) and Woodford County so far, and we're working to identify other locations and times so that everybody feels welcome because it isn't just a Peoria, an urban Peoria, East Peoria, Morton thing, but it is the whole community that's important.

- And real quick before we leave, their website people can go to to find out more about this?

- Www.bigtablegp.com.

- Bigtablegp.com, great.

Well, David Aduama, did I butcher that?

Aduama?

- No, it's fine.

- Close?

- Sometimes I even butcher it myself, so... (Mark and Chris laughs) - Chris Setti.

- That easier, yeah.

- Both of these guys here from the Greater Peoria Economic Development Council, thanks for telling us about Big Table.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Appreciate it.

And thank you for joining us.

Be sure to check us out at wtvp.org and on Facebook and Instagram.

Have a good night.

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