By Jared Gudnason 

Writer/Reporter

Approximately three semesters before graduation, I was in a Metro State University public relations course. It focused on the vibrancy of inter-generational and diverse communities, and how, as society moves “forward,” why numerous vantage points stemming from ethnic backgrounds are largely positive.  

I grew up as an outsider full stop and the first time I ever went on an airplane was to Seattle, Washington sometime around 1992, or so. The reason for that trip was to visit my grandfather, a Scandinavian national, as he was just recently fully recovered from a car accident. He was a migrant worker in-season, up in Alaska. A large portion of commercialized fish is harvested in the north Atlantic, and I clearly remember Mom buying it at the local grocery store. That aside, this is a long way of saying that our last public relations group project focused on Kowalski’s markets. This was a few years removed from COVID-19, but we still met through Zoom calls each week. We researched what is branded “Scan-n-Go,” where shoppers scan barcodes of their purchases on the app and then check out at a specialized kiosk. Some weeks all group members were present, sometimes it was two out of four. 

One of the main factor’s public optics, especially in my humble opinion right now, is that we occupy this arching and over-the-top digital topography. When we compiled our Kowalski’s research, we noticed that a majority of their employees observed that only younger generations utilized “Scan-n-Go.” And of those, the majority were high school and college-aged employees. While statistics show that it is largely unused, I bring it to light mainly for the following reason; whenever change occurs, the main constant in any human environment will take at least a while, to even an indefinite period for a new “thing” to acclimate to the masses.  

After we presented to our classmates, I “cheers’d” my classmates over a Zoom call with an Italian white wine, unbeknownst to me practitioners of Islam do not drink. While group work is oftentimes stressful, it was a privilege to start to understand how diverse situations ultimately infer greater wealth of knowledge. Think about these multitudes at your next fish fry.