Posts Tagged ‘customization’
Trivia Themes Which Nobody Likes: A List of Failed Trivia Rounds
Thursday, June 30th, 2011
Following up on yesterday’s post highlighting 5 trivia themes proven to bring smiles to people’s faces, I thought today we would explore the flipside: live trivia party themes which are surefire flops.
As discussed yesterday, I’ve been writing & hosting live trivia events for 5 years, and in that time have experimented an awful lot with trivia questions and themes. I’ve managed to develop a strong sense of what people respond to, but also what does not resonate well for live trivia. On the one hand, I enjoy being creative, and pride myself on coming up with rounds which are unique, fun and different; on the other hand, though, if the rounds don’t soar with the audience, well- they tend to sink like rocks.
Below is a list of my all-time greatest trivia theme flops, in no particular order:
1) Funky Sounding Colors Round – I announced colors with weird names, and teams had to name the family of more familiar colors which they belonged to (ex: “chartreuse” is a mix of green & yellow). This was the most stale, boring and uninspired round I’ve ever done, people were booing halfway through. Ouch.
2) Awareness Ribbons Round – Like the colors round above, only I’d give a ribbon color, and the audience named the cause the ribbon was associated with (ex: pink = breast cancer awareness). Not only was this incredibly dull, but there were multiple causes for each color (do you have ANY idea how many causes use blue ribbons??)
3) Weird Beards Round – Early on in my pub quiz days, I thought it would be fun to describe weird people who have beards [ex: “This person lives in isolation, but breaks into people’s homes once a year." (Santa Clause)]. What the heck was I thinking?
4) Pie Round – I thought this was clever, since I love pie (any baked goods, really, but pies especially). Asked questions about sweet & savory pies, ethnic pies, ingredients, shapes etc. Total flop. People don’t care about pie. I was crushed.
5) 2008 Year in Review Round – Sounds innocent enough, only I did it at a bar on like, January 3rd, 2008. I thought it was pretty clever- turns out, not so much. It could have been called the “extreme current events round,” and I still would’ve gotten booed back to the stone age.
6) Band Hometowns Round – I name the band, you tell me their hometown. Guess what? Not only do people not know where bands come from, but they will argue your Wikipedia-backed answers to death. Epic fail.
7) YouTube Viral Videos Round – So it turns out, people don’t know anything about viral videos beyond the basic premise. Once you start asking about character’s names, view counts, quotes and such, the crowd turns on you like a pack of killer whales on a freshly-wounded sea lion. Beyond bad idea.
8) Math Round – Terrible.
Believe me, there are more. These are just the ones which stick out in my mind as being particularly ill-received; there’s nothing like having upwards of 150 strangers booing you to remind you not to ever, ever offer that round again. If you’re a fellow quizmaster, hopefully I’ve spared you similar shame; for trivia enthusiasts and HR managers looking to book a private trivia party for your company, don’t worry- you will never be subjected to these rounds, I guarantee it.
What experience do you have with horrible trivia rounds? Leave them below, so we can know to avoid as well!
5 Fun Themes for Live Trivia Parties, and Why They Work
Wednesday, June 29th, 2011
Perhaps one of the first things I’m asked when holding an initial conversation with clients is, “what kind of trivia do you guys do?” The answer brings both good news and bad: the good news is, you can have a trivia event about any topic you like! The bad news, of course: where on earth do you begin?
Having produced so many live trivia events over the past 5 years, I’ve had the opportunity to experiment a lot with trivia topics, throwing an awful lot of trivia spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. While this kind of event entertainment can be customized to fit the needs of any group, I have found that the below broad themes for trivia questions consistently go over well, especially for intelligent, fun-loving & competitive groups:
1) Pop Culture – People love pop culture, and consume it voraciously. TV, movies, music, celebrity gossip, fads, commercials – you name it, people follow it, with passion. We recently held a night of pop culture trivia to benefit VH1 Save The Music, and had to close sales in advance because it received such an enthusiastic response. When it comes to selecting trivia questions, pop culture is definitely a winner.
2) Nostalgic History – It’s important to know the age of the group, so that appropriate history questions can be asked which evoke an emotional response. None of us were here to witness the Mayflower landing, but LOTS of us remember where we were when OJ took his fateful ride in a white Bronco; tugging at the nostalgic heartstrings goes over extremely well at trivia events, and I use this as often as I can.
3) Geography – People go nuts over geography – who knew? Whether asking about cities, states, countries or oceans, people have atlases tucked into the dark recesses of their brains, and feel ridiculously satisfied when they pull out the correct answers.
4) Local Trivia – I mainly produce live trivia parties in New York City, and find that any NYC-centric questions really go over well – especially those which only “real” New Yorkers will get (I’m talking famous subway performers, bus stop billboards, flyers of guys who teach guitar etc.). However, regardless of where the event is being held, natives will always respond well to questions about that place.
5) Other Media – People love it when you toss another form of questioning at them, in order to mix up the flow of the event and skills needed. Music rounds are popular, whereby you play songs over the sound system and attendees need to guess the title and artist. Picture rounds are also great, where teams need to identify 10 obscure celebrity photos for points, as well as figure out what all of them have in common. I’ve also seen video rounds at some trivia nights – I don’t do these, because I feel the results don’t justify the time & labor needed to assemble, but still they are enjoyable.
Even though I’ve created so many events, I certainly don’t claim to be the final answer when it comes to ideas for trivia themes. Do you produce, host or attend trivia events? What themes do you find are consistent crowd pleasers? What new themes do you think would go over well? Please share your ideas below!
Why So Complicated? Less is More with Employee Entertainment Activities
Friday, June 24th, 2011
I’ve worked with many companies and corporate groups over the years, with the goal of developing customized employee entertainment in NYC and the surrounding areas. I don’t have to tell you how hard New Yorkers are working every day – especially since the economy tanked in 2009, and many people are doing twice as much work for little or no additional compensation. As a result, when it comes to NYC team building activities, the instinct of smart HR managers, recruiters, summer associate coordinators and other staffing professionals is to try and give staff the absolute blowout experience.
While the intent here is solid, in my experience less is actually more when creating events designed to boost employee morale and teamwork. Take scavenger hunts, for example. Before starting a professional trivia company, I had the incredible experience of creating adult scavenger hunts in NYC, primarily for corporate groups. As a naturally curious person with a knack for writing and an intense drive to create fun experiences for people, this was the perfect job; I would literally spend hours, days and even weeks creating customized scavenger hunts for individual companies, and loved every second of it. But was this hyper-detailed production really providing any additional value to our clients?
You see, for people doing a scavenger hunt (or trivia, or obstacle course, or competitive boat race, or cooking class or any other fun group activity) the experience itself is relatively short-lived, typically no more than an hour or two. Does the activity have to be so complex that the experience is muddled by the details? With scavenger hunts, I would become fixated on ensuring that the group got as much out of the event as possible: a fun and memorable experience, rolled into a social activity, with a hearty dose of culture and history education to boot. But you know what? People didn’t care about that so much as they did about winning, having fun memories, and often partying well into the night afterwards.
That’s not to say I don’t think detailed effort should go into trivia team building events – far from it. However, from the standpoint of creating experiences which will be fun and memorable for employees while simultaneously boosting morale, I think that overthinking the activity’s format and content is a waste of time. Keep things simple: events should be incredibly fun, completely different from the day-to-day office routine, incorporating customization to make them more memorable and leaving everyone feeling better about themselves, their colleagues and their work environment.
What do you think? Are you in charge of designing or commissioning staff entertainment activities for your company? What is your opinion on complexity vs. simplicity when assigning value to employee entertainment events?
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?
Customizing Corporate Team Building Activities: Silly or Significant?
Friday, June 10th, 2011
I was recently on the phone with a prospective client, who was interested in building a team building trivia party for her office. While explaining my company’s range of services, she asked an astute question: what is the value of customizing a team building event? I’m glad she asked that, because I feel passionate about the answer – enough to want to share the answer with as many people as possible, hence today’s blog post.
It’s a valid point: say I’m a business owner, department manager or HR professional who wants to offer my company’s employees a fun activity, to reward them for hard work and a job well done – hopefully boosting morale and promoting teamwork to boot. What does customization have to do with that? Bowling’s not customized, but they’d have fun doing it anyway – why should I care if the activity is tailor-made for my staff or not?
I would argue – forcefully so – that customizing employee events as much as possible will produce better results in the long run. Below are some of the benefits of customizing team building activities, and why it’s worth the effort:
They’ll Be More Memorable – When events are customized for specific groups, incorporating familiar language, situations and “inside” information that only they are privy to, participants will be more inclined to think back positively to that experience, a key element of a successful event.
They’ll Be More Impactful – Activities which are carefully modified to perfectly fit the group will resonate far more strongly than a “one size fits all” approach to team building, increasing the likelihood of the core messages sinking in and being applied back at the office.
They’ll Be More Fun – It’s easy to dismiss standard team building exercises as boring, because for a large part, they are (trust falls, anyone?). However, it’s hard to not have a good time and be “present” when the entertainment event is specifically targeted to your work, your team, your colleagues and to you, personally.
The Results Will Last Longer – Favorable team building skills such as communication, collaboration, negotiation and decision making are more likely to be reinforced back at the office when the skill set has been introduced in a familiar practice setting.
I could go on, but to me it’s clear: in order to get the best results from an event, customization is key. That’s not to say that employees CAN’T practice important skills at a more cookie cutter-type event, but in order to have an event which is memorable, impactful, fun and produces lasting results, make the effort to specialize as many aspects of it as you can. You’ll be glad you did in the end, and so will your team.
What are your thoughts on customization and team building? Is making events tailor-made a complete and utter waste of time when creating fun group experiences? Share your opinion below!
TrivWorks founder David Jacobson blogs daily on a wide range of topics relevant to corporate event entertainment, team building and live trivia. 
