Archive For: Events

What Could You Do With A Million Bubbles?

I am thrilled to be working with Peter Merrett from the House of Wonderful to bring together a fantastic EXPERIENCE in Sydney.

Now this is where a usual post would bang on with sales copy and get you to sign up. Let me approach it differently.
If you are after an amazing interactive experience in Sydney on Thursday September 13th, then click on the image above to find out more and get your ticket. It will be an experience you will talk about for ages!

OK – no more sales.

Let me quickly chat about why this event and this opportunity stood out for me and how you may shift your events because of it.

The event is focussed on customer experience and I think as someone who has hosted and attended many events, the experience is beginning to feel the same. Have you ever been shopping and wondered, “am I in Myer, David Jones or Kmart?” Yes the venues are a little different but the EXPERIENCE is all the same.

How many events have you been too that are along this line:

  • Welcome
  • CEO Welcome
  • Amazing Speaker 1
  • Inhouse Speaker 1
  • Morning Tea
  • Breakout sessions
  • Lunch
  • Amazing Speaker 2
  • Afternoon Tea
  • Inhouse Speaker 2
  • Inhouse Speaker 3
  • Closing
  • Drinks

They are barely memorable.

It is a balance between Education and Entertainment. We are now of the age that if we are not entertained, we will whip out our mobile phone to check emails, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Whatsapp or eBay. We are still paying attention (sort of) but if we are not entertained, or inspired our brain moves on.

With the hosting work I am doing, this has had me continuing to raise the bar. From turning the delegates into a choir (sounds good when there are 500 people singing and laughing), to connecting with the delegates by making up some funny jokes with and about them on the spot, to getting ideas from the audience and turning it into poetry as a bit of a poetry slam – it is amazing the things that can happen. For one client we turned their IT briefing to their clients into a Graham Norton style interview panel. I must confess that one went from Boring to Boinnnggg quite well.

Now some people think that if it is too much fun then the delegates or audience are not learning. That is simply not true. Laughter opens the mind, keeps people focussed and makes the experience more memorable.

So Dear Reader how are your events?

As an attendee or organiser, what are you doing to fire them up?

How can you get a Million Idea Bubbles popping for your clients and delegates?

If you are looking for ideas, join us in Sydney so we can show you what to do with a million bubbles. (Oooops… a final sell!!)
Head to A Million Bubbles for more information and to register.

See you there!

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When is the Best Time To Invest in Your Future?

I love big old trees like this one. It is one of the many old gum is on our property in central Victoria. But for me to appreciate this tree today, something had to happen many years ago.

It is the same with our future. A bright and prosperous future depends on us doing great things today. While in the world of social media, some people become rich, famous, celebrities, influencers and fabulous overnight, I can tell you (particularly in my case) that is not the norm.

Many years ago, the band The Presidents of the United States of America released an album which had a few songs about peaches. In one, there were millions of peaches, in another they were eating peaches on the back porch. The concept of eating your own home grown fruit has always appealed to my gorgeous wife and I – so to make that happen, we had to do something today (well a couple of days ago actually).

I know I have mentioned before the saying, “The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago and the second best time is today.” So we have chosen to embody that saying, peaches and all!

On Saturday we had 43 people and 5 dogs come and help us plant about 60 fruit trees and about 20 Golden Ash trees on our block with a Shed on it. We had done the hard work prior to fence off the area and protect the trees from the horses, kangaroos and anything else venturing in the paddock as well as setting up an automated irrigation system and pretreating the soil (there is a bit of clay there!)

It was a magical day and a pure delight to have family and friends helping build a better future for us all to share. Yes it was cold. Yes it had a bit of rain. Yes one of the dogs (naughty Molly) thought the trees were sticks to play with and tried to run off with them, but having that many people meant that it wasn’t a great deal of work but there was a lot of celebration. Check out the photos below.

Dear Reader, I am sure you are thinking, “well that’s nice but I don’t have a block or want fruit trees.” That’s ok. Everyone is different.

So what DO you want in your future? What do you need to do NOW to make it happen? Who can you get to help you start or progress your dream NOW?

Let me know if I can help.

 

The Golden Ash

 

The Orchard

 

Some Workers

 

A Big Feed

 

Staying Warm

 

Even Horses Love Selfie

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Events Are Not All Glamour

Last week I hosted the Queensland Mining Awards. It was a fantastic night. Over 600 people came together in a stunningly decorated venue to celebrate innovation, community support and achievements in mining.

What you usually don’t see is all the hard work and lack of glamour happening back stage. Like this photo.

While everyone else is being waited on, the support team and I were back stage getting ready for the next round of awards, dressed super stunningly, balancing our meals on our laps. Quickly dealing with any hiccups that may happen, guiding recipients to the media wall for photos, ensuring recipients are in the room for their announcements and any number of other small things that happen throughout the course of the evening.

All smiles and glamour regardless of what is actually happening.

I am certain you are the same at your work.

Often the story of the graceful swan is shared, smoothly gliding along the surface while paddling like crazy beneath.

While the event was a huge success, there was so much that went into it. Months of planning to assess the awards, set up for the venue, logistics for sponsors, pre-recorded video and audio, rehearsals of timing, comedy routine preparation (and changes and practice and changes and practice…), media announcement of winners, social media postings, media interviews, and so on.

Events are no small thing to get right. It is so worth having the professionals help make it happen.

What behind the scenes work do you do that no-one else knows about?

 

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The Most Talked About Element at An Event

When it comes to events, there is one element that is the topic of discussion above all else.

If you get it wrong, Lord help you. You will be trashed talked on social media and there will be an undercurrent of dissatisfaction throughout the event. But if you get it right, while it won’t give you rock star status, it will reflect positively and will give you some peace and quiet.

Naturally, I am talking about the catering!

While it is not the reason you went to the event, it is the most talked about element. With todays large number of Special Diet Requirements, it makes it even harder to get right.

I have heard comments like, “The sessions were ok but how good was the food. The food alone makes it worth it” or “The sessions were good but that food was rubbish. I am not coming back if that is all they can do.”

While it seems crazy, it does have an impact. So make this potential problem disappear. Make sure the catering is great and that you NEVER run out of food.

Oh if you are after a winner, for afternoon tea serve fresh scones with jam and cream. I have seen loads of “gluten free” people line up for them! They are the perennial favourite.

Then when you do get the catering right, make sure you reinforce it. Here is something I did for the 2017 Professional Conference Organisers Conference.

As I say, while the positive impact is not huge when you get it right, you don’t ever want to get it wrong.

 

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Closing Ceremony Focus

You know you have stuffed up on an event when the national broadcast of the event tells you at the end of the event how bad you did.

No doubt Channel 7 Executives knew that they were going to cop some abuse for many of the issues of the closing ceremony so they allowed their commentators to explain how it wasn’t Channel 7’s fault and then really tell the organisers how wrong they got it. See the footage above for Johanna Griggs and Basil Zempalas explaining how disappointed they were.

While Johanna and Basil listed many issues that the organisers got wrong, there was one main thing. The big issue was the focus of the Closing Ceremony.

After days of events and competitions it felt like the closing ceremony was used to make a political statement when it should have been a celebration for the athletes. A celebration of so much hard work in getting to these games, let alone securing any medals.

Event Professionals know that successful events are not about the corporations that run them, they are all about the delegate. They are about the people who have turned up to connect with others, compete with others, celebrate with others. When you take the focus off the delegates, they have no reason to stay and as we saw at the closing ceremony, an event without an audience has no soul.

For your next event, granted it may not be the size of the Commonwealth Games, where will your focus be?

It may be as simple as a dinner party, a birthday party or an event for your work group. The principle still applies. Where is the focus?

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5 Minutes vs 40 Years

I was fortunate enough to host the Opening Ceremony of the Global Speakers Summit in Auckland, New Zealand recently.

As a fun MC kickoff, I performed what I refer to as my Impro Slam Poetry. That is where I ask the audience a question (in this case, What do you want to get from the conference?) and then get about 10 words or statements from them.

Then, off the top of my head, I create a piece of poetry that I make fun, entertaining and relevant to the event. It’s got a lot of energy, I love to do it and the audience are always amazed at how it is done.

Afterward I am always asked, “do you have part of it pre-written?” And the answer is “NO.”

It is not a trick, it is a skill. Each time I do it, a poem is made up fresh using the words provided.

It’s not five minutes of trickery, it is 40 years of skill.

It’s the same with what you do. You can probably create or tweak a spreadsheet without thinking about it, or whip up a powerpoint slide deck without thinking about it. Maybe ride a unicycle or stitch up a dress or even speak a foreign language. These skills are something you build over time but look impressive when you only see the end result.

So what are your skills? What can you do that other people think is amazing but you know it is years of practice that builds the skill?

More importantly, what is it you WANT to be able to do? That is what you need to start working on today so that in 10 years it looks like magic!

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