THE BLOG

Helping you to create more influence.

2020, A Golden Era For ‘Experience Designers’?

Nov 16, 2020
3 min

2020, A Golden Era For ‘Experience Designers’?

We are living in a world where people are spending more money, and investing time on experiences over products. And as event providers, we know we are in the experience business. So what is our opportunity in 2020? And what do we need to do to take advantage of this We all live in the Experiential world You may have heard the term “Experience Economy” which was developed by Joseph Pine and James Gilmore, basically meaning that the economy we have today is based on experientia

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Andrew O'Loughlin

Nov 16, 2020
3 min

The Gifts You Actually Give

I’ve realised this a lot recently as I’m walking around event sites and stadiums before the gates open and before the wider world arrives. I’ve watched what goes on and I’ve been reminded by the scale, depth, and generosity of the service we provide. The gift of service As event people, I think we come together to serve people. To provide for the public, and for each other. We support each other across our event teams, and the experiences we serve up to our respective audienc

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Andrew O'Loughlin

Nov 16, 2020
5 min

Generating Momentum

How to generate momentum – 101 It’s likely you are either starting up with your event or trying to change something. Either way, we know that to succeed, we will need to overcome some resistance. Newtons 1st Law Inertia ‘the invisible force that resists any forward motion (or change) in direction’. We find resistance in many guises, whether it is getting an idea approved, a new initiative or a whole new event off the ground. We get push back from others, and it can also happe

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Andrew O'Loughlin

Nov 16, 2020
5 min

Where are you in your event lifecycle?

And, from discussions I’ve had recently, many of you are probably thinking what about your journey – what is your next role?? Lifecycles in events Everything in life has a lifespan. It is the same for your events. We are all trying to increase the profile or scale of our events, and it is often difficult to know if we are trending in the right direction. EventBrite’s 2019 industry survey found the #1 challenge facing event professionals is finding growth for their events. And

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Andrew O'Loughlin

Nov 16, 2020
6 min

The cues you can use

I’ve had lot’s of questions from people looking to create rituals around their events. And so I hope these final steps in the 4-part series helps you too. In the past weeks we’ve followed the work of James Clear, and his record-breaking book on habit formation, and as James discovered there are 5 primary ways that a new habit can be triggered. As you will see, these link closely to how we approach Experience Design. HABIT DESIGN is influenced by: TIME PEOPLE PLACES PREVIOU

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The 4 Law’s you can use to influence everyone

Andrew O'Loughlin

Nov 16, 2020
3 min

The 4 Law’s you can use to influence everyone

Why are we concerned with habits? As any event is essentially trying to influence someones behaviour, and as habits determine 95% of what we do, the more we can influence habits, the more we can influence people to sign up, show up, and do something – again, and again. Why are rituals so useful? With events, we are offering shared experiences, to do something together. A shared interest which ideally becomes a shared passion. Both events as a whole, and, the moments in them,

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Andrew O'Loughlin

Nov 16, 2020
4 min

4 simple steps to unlock new rituals

Great experiences in events often come from rituals. These range from remembrance rituals like ANZAC Day or ‘rites of passage’ like visiting the Gallipoli Dawn ceremony. Or milestone events such as Grand Final’s, the Boxing Day Test, or weddings and even NYE. And within these events are ritual moments, like the Last Post on ANZAC Day, the first ball at the Test Match, and all manner of ceremonies we engage in. These are all rituals which we share together en masse. Rituals ar

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What Moneyball taught us about off field success

Andrew O'Loughlin

Nov 16, 2020
3 min

What Moneyball taught us about off field success

As I said last week, it’s amazing how much our minds are controlling us, and what people think of us, without us knowing it. So I’m exploring how this may be important for you, and your work. NUMERO UNO! Confirmation bias is the #1 mother of all biases, and it refers to our tendency to like information that confirms what we think, and ignoring or ‘reinterpreting’ any info that contradicts our beliefs. Without knowing it, we are all interpreting information the way that suits

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Your biases are influencing you, and your events!

Andrew O'Loughlin

Nov 16, 2020
3 min

Your biases are influencing you, and your events!

We have never thought about everything, and we never will This is because as humans we don’t have the time, energy, and bandwidth to make all the decisions. The reason is primal, as if we were to absorb and respond to every stimulus around us, every environmental cue, we would go mad.Which means we need to take mental shortcuts. To make all these decisions we need some pre programme responses. To make automatic, unconscious decisions. And in today’s fast moving, information r

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The IKEA Effect – and what it means to you!?

Andrew O'Loughlin

Nov 16, 2020
4 min

The IKEA Effect – and what it means to you!?

I think it’s worthwhile you understand a subtle effect which is actually having a significant influence on your work. This thing is called ‘the IKEA Effect’. And simply put, it means we overvalue what we make. The ‘IKEA’ reference was inspired by Harvard and Yale studies into the ’endowment effect’. The researchers recognised this same effect in the relationship they had with their IKEA furniture! That is, they placed a much greater value on their IKEA creations than what the

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Andrew O'Loughlin

Nov 16, 2020
3 min

A Small Shift, with Massive Impact

Making them active experiences, not passive ones. I spoke about the brand personality of your event the other week, which created some discussion about which characteristics are more valuable to dial up than others. And one that definitely makes the experience more distinctive the more there is, is the level of interaction. I’m sure you have seen this in your events. The more inter-active the experience it is, the more engaged your audience is. But are you really ‘engaging’?

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Get Into A Deeper Relationship With Your Fan’s!

Andrew O'Loughlin

Nov 16, 2020
4 min

Get Into A Deeper Relationship With Your Fan’s!

As event providers we are all trying to engage with our audiences. But sometimes we aren’t speaking to our fans or participants in the right way. And unfortunately as it turns out, we may actually be on a whole different level! The connection between you and your fans Understanding the state of the relationship between your event and your audience is critical. And knowing the level of psychological connection (or ‘engagement’) you have with your fans, can make your relationsh

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Andrew O'Loughlin

Nov 16, 2020
3 min

Events are Everything

Working with some great organisations recently has reinforced 3 things for me, that may be obvious, but are often forgotten. #1. Events bring everyone, and everything together #2. Events showcase everything you do and… #3. Almost everyone is ‘in events’. And what I have seen is that when organisations realise these 3 things, then they see great gains for their events – and – their organisation. #1. Events bring everyone, and everything together Events are the heart beat of yo

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Andrew O'Loughlin

Nov 16, 2020
3 min

Maximising the influence of others

We’ve been talking about the influence of people on what we do. After all, this is pretty fundamental in events, as ultimately we are all just trying to bring a group of people together. We can use the influence of others to get people to come together, and then, we can use the influence when they are together. The influence of people being together Research shows us that as individuals, the ‘Social Facilitation Effect’ means we do things better when other people are watching

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Andrew O'Loughlin

Nov 16, 2020
3 min

Does your place serve your purpose?

To get more people to sign up to your event, and show up again, the environment you promote and place them in, is probably more influential than you realise. Events are about people coming together at a time and place, and we all need to create inspiring and memorable events. So alongside the date, one of the first and most critical things we must do, is to pick our place, our venue. Picking the right places Two things you should have front of mind when you select your venue.

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How Nike won with BREAKING2, and so could you!

Andrew O'Loughlin

Nov 16, 2020
2 min

How Nike won with BREAKING2, and so could you!

One of the most followed sports marketing campaigns in recent years was BREAKING2, the audacious attempt by Nike to run the first ever sub 2 hour marathon. This was a brilliant example of an event-based campaign, playing around with a simple concept, for a powerful effect. The Influence of Time In recent weeks we have been studying the influence of time, on what we do. In BREAKING2, Nike tapped into 2 powerful influences 1. our insatiable interest in stories, especially aroun

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Andrew O'Loughlin

Nov 16, 2020
3 min

Did Your Birthday make you do this??

What happen’s on your birthday? Aside from some treats (I hope), do you make some different decisions? What if it was your 29th, or 39th birthday? would that matter? If you’re looking to get into people’s lives, looking at your fans and participants birthdays may be surprisingly valuable. I’ve mentioned we are studying the influence of important things like time, people and places on what we do. Why? Well the more we can influence things like time, the more we will achieve wi

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Andrew O'Loughlin

Nov 16, 2020
3 min

The Things We Do

We spoke at a conference in Asia recently, on things I’ve learned in events, that people may want to know, but I left one point out. I’m not sure why, probably just because as an event person you take it for granted. That thing is, we do whatever it takes. The Things We Do The more my work connects me with other event people, I’m reminded that we all have a similar attitude to this world. Working in events is, well its a bit different isn’t it? We do all sorts of things, thin

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Events are a ‘weak-link game’. Are you at risk?

Andrew O'Loughlin

Nov 16, 2020
5 min

Events are a ‘weak-link game’. Are you at risk?

I saw the super smart Malcolm Gladwell speak recently and he was at his best, probing us to think deeply about today’s world. An argument Malcolm is making is that we are now living in a ‘weak-link world’, a form of the old ‘your only as strong as your weakest link’ theory. As always he provided compelling evidence and stories to back this up. From US homeland security where he compared the major intelligence breaches of the ‘60’s, in which the most senior FBI Heads were to b

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