Posts Tagged ‘case studies’
Party Like it’s 1776: Declare Independence from Middle Management Syndrome!
Monday, July 4th, 2011
Today being Independence Day, I thought it would be an ideal time to explore a topic directly affecting many of those who plan and attend NYC team building activities. As a manager in your company – perhaps you are in charge of the team or division, head of the HR department or even the company itself – you are under a tremendous amount of pressure from both above and below to get things done. In a sense, everyone in a leadership role is a middle manager dealing with both direct reports who have their needs, issues and concerns, as well as bosses, clients and other stakeholders whose expectations must be met.
When I was in business school, we had a case study in our organizational behavior management class which I loved called “Bob Knowlton.” Perhaps one of the best-known studies in its area, the piece depicts a fictional employee, Bob, a skilled tech worker who does his job well – so well, in fact, that he is suddenly promoted into a management role, directly supervising a handful of his former peers. Sounds pretty good, right? The only problem is, while Bob is technically proficient in a specialized practice area, he is neither trained nor experienced as a manager of people. Bob soon finds his days filled with the frustrations, fears and politics of middle management, on top of his own work duties.
This “middle manager syndrome” is really quite typical, isn’t it? Someone becomes competent at their job, get promoted, and soon faces a host is scenarios & situations which have nothing to do with the work itself, but with delegation, performance and supervision. At the same time, those above are seeking accountability from the newly-promoted on a far greater scale than ever before. What is a middle manager to do, when there are so many stakeholders to appease?
I argue that “middle manager syndrome” can be kicked to the curb the moment managers decide they are no longer going to try and please everyone all the time. Yes, of course it’s important to keep the bosses and clients happy, and direct reports cannot simply be ignored; however, to truly break free of the familiar “Bob Knowlton” trap, managers should instead seek to devote themselves fully to a set of key professional goals and objectives, and do whatever it takes to get there. It’s a change of mindset from “keeping everyone happy” to “getting things done” which will make all the difference, and allow people to declare independence from “middle manager syndrome” once and for all.
But that’s just my opinion, a lowly NYC corporate event entertainment company owner. Are you an HR professional, management or industrial organizational expert? What are your thoughts on how to overcome “middle management syndrome?”
Using Live Trivia for Audience Engagement & Brand Awareness: The Economist Case Study
Friday, June 17th, 2011
This week, I had the honor of producing and hosting another very special trivia event with The Economist, the distinguished weekly news magazine known for broad and insightful coverage of current events, politics, economics and world history. Readers of The Economist are equally bright, intellectually curious consumers of global affairs, and in an impressive effort to engage this loyal readership, the magazine is continually seeking new and creative ways to reach out off of the written page, allowing enthusiasts to connect with them through a variety of means. These not only include a Facebook page with a over 700,000 fans and an official Twitter feed with nearly 1 million followers, but also many “live” audience engagement events held in various cities, ranging from social gatherings to editor meet-and-greets.
The idea for The Economist pub quiz came about late last year, when the magazine was approached by an avid reader who also loved NYC trivia nights. Feeling that live trivia parties would be a perfect match connecting the cerebral publication and its clever readers, we set out to create events which would not only deliver a hearty amount of entertaining & high-brow trivia, but which would have an instantly recognizable Economist look, feel and flavor. Using the same level of care and attention to detail which The Economist is known for in its articles, we then set out to craft trivia questions which the average reader would have a reasonable expectation of knowing about world affairs, politics, economics, and the magazine itself.
After selecting fun trivia bars in New York City, the magazine made sure to paint the venues “red” for their events by tastefully displaying the magazine’s famous logo on signage and flatscreen TVs throughout the rooms. Upon arrival, attendees were presented with Economist pens and answer sheets, as well as complimentary red T-shirts. Teams were instructed to choose their own team names, and encouraged to be creative to earn bonus points – resulting in many humorous Economist-themed names, which delighted the crowd. After reading out a couple rounds of trivia, we then welcomed a high-ranking member of the magazine’s editorial staff to read off their own favorite trivia questions about The Economist, as well as share a sampling of their ipod songs, which attendees could earn points for identifying. After raffling off several prizes, we passed around a round of picture trivia featuring major political figures, all of whom had something in common which the audience had to figure out in a set amount of time. We concluded the events with a final round of “challenging” questions, and then awarded prizes to the winning team.
I find these Economist pub quiz nights to be so fantastic, for three reasons: 1) the audience who attends loves the magazine, and clearly enjoys the opportunity to interact with it in an exceptionally fun, unique and personal way; 2) the magazine gets to engage with its most loyal fans firsthand in an extremely positive, high-energy manner; and 3) the intellectual challenge of creating questions for highly intelligent, sophisticated and lively trivia enthusiasts simply can’t be beat.
Do you feel that experiential marketing and brand awareness events successfully bring a brand closer to its audience? What other ways can you think of for a distinguished brand to engage with its loyal following in a “live” setting?
Conducting Virtual Team Building Events – MTV Case Study
Tuesday, May 31st, 2011
It’s a classic problem for office managers, corporate event planners and human resources professionals in the 21st Century. You have been tasked with creating a team building activity to help boost morale & foster goodwill amongst the disparate groups which make up your office or department. The only problem is, while you and the majority of staff are at the company’s Mother Ship in one city, a critical team works off-site, and interacts primarily via email & conference call. Do you fly the outside team in, for the sake of a group bonding exercise?
If your budget for employee entertainment is like most companies in this economy, I think we both know the answer to that. However, thanks to virtual meeting technology, team building events no longer need to exclude those who don’t work at headquarters. This past fall, one of our clients, MTV Networks, faced this exact problem, which we were able to solve using technology.
In this case, the department wanted to hold a fun live trivia party as a reward for hard-working staff, following a particularly arduous project. However, while the majority of the team was in the New York City office, several crucial team members were stationed down at the Nashville office. What to do?
For starters, we decided to hold the event on-site in MTV’s largest conference room, reconfiguring the space to make it usable for us. Next, we set up the satellite video conference system, and established a live video & audio feed directly to the Nashville conference room, making sure to run our host’s microphone through both the local sound system as well as the video conference channel. With the Nashville team now proudly represented on the huge screen – and the NYC group displayed on theirs – we proceeded with our live trivia, just as we would at any other event.
Teams usually write down their trivia answers on sheets provided at our events, however we had Nashville send theirs in via email. Once all the answers were collected, they were scored, announced and the next round read out, just like normal. An “iPod Round” was easy to do- just played the music through the audio input, and Nashville could hear the tunes in realtime just like the NYC group. When it came time to do our “Picture Round” – a sheet with celebrity faces, which teams must identify for points – we fired off an email attachment. Moments later, we watched on screen as someone came into the Nashville conference room with freshly-printed picture sheets. No time wasted, and very, very cool!
In the end, the entire group had an absolute blast- and would you believe, Nashville actually won! They cheered just as loudly and enthusiastically as an other team would, despite the fact that they were in an office many miles away from the main group. It was a successful event by any measure, and was possible thanks to the virtual technology available in most any modern workplace.
The role of technology in virtual meetings, team building, corporate entertainment and other activities is evolving rapidly, with social media also making a huge impact. Next week is Internet Week here in New York, and the social media/event planning experts at Liz King Events will be teaming up with “virtual venue storefront” Pogby to present Planner Tech, a showcase for tools used to integrate digital & social technology into live events. The event will be held on Thursday, June 9th at 6pm if you can make it – otherwise, be sure to follow the action on Twitter by using the #plantech hashtag.
TrivWorks founder David Jacobson blogs daily on a wide range of topics relevant to corporate event entertainment, team building and live trivia. 
