One of the challenges thrown at business authors is to adapt the expertise, theories and tactics contained within their books to different industries, usually in the form of op-ed pieces or lengthy blog posts.
The following is both. I wrote this for Pow! on a rainy Sunday back in March, but it just ran last week in SuccessfulMeetings.com (and in the Successful Meetings magazine). You can link over to the post here...or just enjoy in below, courtesy of yours truly, author of both the book and the article:
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Surprise: The Secret to More Memorable Meetings
Let's face it—most conferences are stultifyingly boring. Sessions are the perfunctorily-attended "necessary evil" between networking opportunities at the bar. Conference floor booths are aisles of sameness; pamphlets, people in logoed shirts and takeaway promotional items that run the gamut from bouncy balls to mints to keychains. We attend, but we tend to forget as soon as we leave.
But it doesn't need to be this dire, because the element of surprise is the antidote to stale, stuck meetings. Not only do surprise tactics wake up a moribund crowd, but they bring attention to your company, product, panel discussion, or event, and more importantly, ensure that attendees talk about you and your event long after the physical gathering is over.
You don't need big budgets to pull these off, either; in the world of surprise, little things mean a lot, and guts are more important than bucks. Here are a number of tricks and tips to delightfully surprise your meeting's attendees, and create Pow! moments that will get them talking, keep them motivated, and ensure they remember.
1. Beat the Clock
A small tactic that will have an epic, exponentially disproportionate effect: Let people out 15 minutes to 20 minutes prior to a session's scheduled end-time. This is a meeting's equivalent of a three-day weekend. In all my years, I've never heard anyone complain: "Man, that meeting was too short."
2. The Best Booth Giveaway Ever
We all have enough pens, keychains, t-shirts, and the like to last us a lifetime. The best premium items I've ever seen in a booth were doled out by Austin-based Bazaarvoice—a series of adhesive, tongue-in-cheek tags to personalize those bland and clunky badges conference-goers are forced to wear. The ribbons shouted out slogans like "I Need Coffee" and "I'm Kind Of A Big Deal" and solicited smiles from everyone who saw them. More importantly, they also solicited cries of "Where'd you get them?" and drove traffic straight back to the booth.
3. Taking The Mountain To Mohammed
Speaking about giveaways, some people are still shy to plunk their hand in your booth's fishbowl for a chocolate or fridge magnet. Don't wait for traffic, go to where the traffic is and hand out your stuff. Wait for people in elevators, hit 'em up in line at snack booths, or hang around for them in the washroom. Radical, yes. Effective, also yes.
4. Hidden Agendas
Most conferences are like big boxing matches—there are a couple of headliners, and a whole lot of undercard. Rather than try to sell the less-than-famous speakers, hide them instead. Describe them, and their topics of discussion, wildly and cryptically and reveal the name (and face) behind the hype only when they take to the mic at the podium or table. Yes, they may still be unknown, but the proper intro and walk-on will set the stage a whole lot better for them ... and for your audience.
5. Mismanage Expectations
Yes, the meeting may be called for Conference Room B, but it doesn't have to stay there. Like the late Andy Kaufman did when he took his entire Carnegie Hall audience out for milk and cookies, start at point A, but take your attendees somewhere obtuse and/or exotic. Or better still, start them off somewhere different. Set up chairs in a pedestrian mall, in a bookstore, coffee shop, or clothing boutique. Sorry Mr. McLuhan, but the location may be the message.
6. Break The Dress Code
Clothes make the man. And the woman. And the meeting. Customize your meeting by costumizing it. Unveil your road map in a formal, black-tie setting. Call a pajama party to discuss the 24/7 nature of modern communications. Break out the '60s-wear for a keynote from an industry old-timer. Like Halloween, half the fun will be seeing what the other folks will be wearing. Instant buzz.
7. Power Pointers
Give an underworked actor (which describes most of them) a break—hire them to act out your speech's salient, important points. Improv comedians will provide you with something far more memorable than PowerPoint.
These are just starting blocks. The end results depend on your imagination, risk tolerance, and sense of adventure. But no matter what tactic you choose, the goal of any surprise is to generate what I call "Euphoric Shock," that moment that expands the boundaries of delightful extremes and is the difference between "Holy Jeez!" and "Who Cares?"
And trust me on this, whatever business you may be in, I guarantee it'll work better with a "Holy Jeez!"
