The theme of this year’s conference: Go For The Experience.
What a superb theme.
The ASBO audience is comprised of people who have the noble (and often thankless) job of keeping schools on track with budgets, finances, resources and safety. A tall order today.
When you think of the week you’re up against, ask yourself, “How can I go for the experience?” How can I transform a “conveyor belt day” of commitments, conference calls, meetings, presentations, client calls, emails, emails, more meetings, more conference calls — into a series of experiences?
Hmmm.
When I teach presentation skills, I often explain that one of the biggest mistakes presenters make is to put too much focus on the information they want to convey and not enough focus on the experience they want the audience to have.
How can you set up the meeting room environment? Is there music playing when people enter? What’s the lighting like? What is your first moment? Your final moment? How can you take the audience on a journey with engaging anecdotes, surprising stories, unusual imagery and analogies, heart felt and honest humility, light hearted humor, startling statistics/facts, and a slam dunk delivery style that leads to laughter and applause?
“Going for the experience” applies to everything…to presentations and to LIFE.
Often we think of the tasks ahead each week like items we need to get through: the checklist of activities and “to-do” items. We make a list: on our computer, in our calendar, in a date book, on a pad.
What would happen if rather than just write the appointment and the time, you added one descriptive adjective to each event – one Through Line or theme – that would represent the experience you were committed to creating.
Bahh-humbug you mutter. Let me just get through the week.
Ahhh. Brilliant way to live.
Why not turn a black-and-white grey scale calendar into a full spectrum experience? This is The Prism Effect in action.
Impossible?
I don’t think so.
Unless of course that’s all you want. A grey scale life with a few sprinkles of color on weekends.
But that’s not much fun. It’s not a great way to live.
Get out your colors and dig into your most creative self. Bring a little fun. Bring a little surprise. Shed a little light and joy on the scene.
Want some ideas on just what to do? Here’s an article I wrote for ASBO on just this topic.
Give it a shot. Everyone will be so thankful you did.