Atlanta Magician on USA TODAY “Best in Cruise Entertainment” Team
Atlanta Magician and Speaker Joe M. Turner on Performance Team Named by USA TODAY as “Best in Cruise Entertainment” Remember that cruise I performed on in June as a member of the “Magic Castle at Sea” program on Crystal Cruises? If you’ve followed my Twitter, Facebook, or Google+ pages, you saw some photos from my cruise through Scandinavia. (If not, click here and here.) It was, of course, an amazing experience. Crystal is well-known as a premier luxury cruise line, having won top Conde Nast Traveler awards for many years in a row. You can now add an outstanding magical accolade to that list! Last week, USA TODAY highlighted Crystal Cruises’ “Magic Castle at Sea” program as part of their “Best in Cruise Entertainment” picks. Rich Bloch, the program’s creator, shared the news with all the performers on the team, along with Bret Bullock, Vice President of Entertainment for Crystal, and Dale Hindman, Executive Director of the Magic Castle. The author of the article, Art Sbarsky, had this to say: [gn_quote style=”1″] Crystal: Magic Castle at Sea I love magic shows and Crystal’s new Magic Castle at Sea show is superb. In a small venue that hosts up to 25 guests at a time, professional magicians from the famous Magic Castle in Los Angeles do things with coins, cards and other objects that are simply amazing to witness close up. The magicians rotate through regularly, so even frequent cruisers have little chance of seeing the same performers. The show has been so popular that Crystal has expanded the number of performances per sailing. The best way to enjoy the sleight-of-hand: don’t try to figure it out, just watch and be amazed.[/gn_quote] [gn_spacer size=”20″] I’m already booked for three more cruises next year, and there will probably be more between now and then. Stay tuned!
Five Kinds of Amazing, Part 1: Talent
Five Kinds of Amazing, Part 1: Talent Last time, we discussed the “Five Kinds of Amazing” model for increasing brand engagement. This week, we examine the first category in more detail. Further, we will begin to tie those experiences to business competencies. Within the genre of theatrical magic, there exists a branch of performance related to the open display of skill and dexterity. This style of magic performance is called “manipulation.” (In the magical world that word carries none of the negative connotations sometimes associated with the term in other settings.) Some performers become legends because of their manipulation acts. One such performer was Richard Pitchford, who performed as Cardini. His skill with playing cards, making them appear and disappear even while wearing gloves, made him a figure so revered that his name still tops any list of skillful magicians of the past century. The open display of talent is a fundamental category of amazing performance experiences. We are impressed and astonished when we see an individual perform at a high level, whether they are manipulating magic props, dancing en pointe, or breaking a world record at the Olympics. Jaw-dropping demonstrations of honed talent engage attention, exceed expectations, and may even defy explanation beyond some recognition of the years it took to perfect the skill. Nothing supernatural had to happen to create the astonishment; it was just the experience of seeing someone perform and achieve at a high level. That is the first kind of “amazing.” When it comes to creating an amazing experience for a brand’s audience, the parallel experience to “Talent” is “Expertise.” Amazing brands consistently demonstrate and share a high degree of specialized knowledge. Whether through blogging, social media, traditional marketing, or public relations, amazing brands consistently share interesting, unusual, or practical information. This information usually indicates such a depth of knowledge and command of history in their field that they are instantly positioned as the experts. An interesting facet of this parallel relationships lies in the speed with which expertise is demonstrated. A novelty act on stage knows that he has to come out strong and nail them early in the performance with something that proves not just competence, but mastery. Likewise, the sooner a brand demonstrates mastery when they encounter a new audience, the better positioned they are to establish and defend their claim to “amazing” in that audience’s mind. Talent. Expertise. Have a great opener and differentiate yourself from the rest in the way that you share expert knowledge.
Five Kinds of Amazing – The Framework
Five Kinds of Amazing – The Framework “Five Kinds of Amazing” is a useful model for understanding, evaluating, and increasing audience engagement, typically as it relates to retail or corporate brands and their associated audiences. It has relevance not just for marketing professionals and brand managers, but also for event producers, team or organization leaders, and even individuals. If you make decisions that ultimately have an audience that you’d like to influence and amaze, then this concept can be useful for you. If you’ve heard me speak in the past year, you’ve probably heard me give a version of this presentation. In the next few weeks, I’ll be giving you a thumbnail sketch of each of the concepts. I’m also openly asking for your stories and contributions, as they will be part of the accompanying book that I’m currently writing. For today, though, I’d like to give you a brief overview of the model. This is a map for where this blog will go in the next few weeks. “Five Kinds of Amazing” begins with an analysis of the theatrical magical experience. Magicians and mentalists perform a wide range of entertaining illusions, from making things appear or disappear to apparent feats of mindreading. These experiences share the characteristic of being “impossible,” but they are different in terms of effect; that is, they are different in the characteristics of what rules are being broken or what normal constraints are being overcome. The various “flavors” of impossible experiences have been systematized in many ways over the years. Some magical writers have taken it to truly impressive degrees of granularity, describing dozens of different effects. I have divided the experiences into five broad categories: five kinds of amazing. Talent – Relating to the overt demonstration of exceptional or highly-developed skill. Feats of amazing dexterity fall into this category, along with demonstrations of juggling or complicated magical flourishes. Outside of magic, many other fields fall into this category including performing arts, sports, and many crafts. Science – Relating to an unexpected consequence of a natural law. Some magic tricks work because natural physical laws sometimes lead to unusual results. Creators such as Martin Gardner and Stewart James are well known to magicians for their insights that fall into this category. Optical illusions, science demonstrations, and unusual natural events such as eclipses would also fall here. Mystery – Relating to the apparent contradiction of a natural law. Most traditional magic falls here – people are cut in half and put back together, or birds appear from nowhere. Even a signed card vanishing and reappearing in a wallet fits here. This is an enormous category but the characteristic of all the effects is that physics is being visibly contradicted. Contact – Relating to apparent mental interaction or influence. Mentalism consists in large part of the apparent ability to read minds. This category involves all apparent thought-reading or thought-sharing, including tricks relating to contacting spirits. Essentially, if there are two minds involved then the effect belongs in this category. Hypersight – Relating to apparent knowledge at a distance, either physically or temporally. I’ve used an unusual term to describe a combination of clairvoyant effects (i.e., seeing something at a great physical distance) and precognition effects (i.e., seeing something that happens in the future). This category includes effects that involve a single mind – a “receiver” only, not a “sender” – and a separation of either distance or time. As we explore these concepts, I’ll explain how each of these concepts can be applied to the decisions you make relating to your own brand and your own audience. Stay tuned!
Recent Press Hits in Alabama and Georgia
Just a quick update this time. I had two recent press hits, one relating to an entertainment opportunity in Alabama, and one regarding a speaking engagement on small business branding in metro-Atlanta. Cherokee County Herald 5-15-2013 (PDF file) The entertainment event was for the Cherokee County (AL) Chamber of Commerce. Even in the entertainment setting, though, I couldn’t help but share some of my thoughts on the business and community impact of such organizations. The event received a full page of coverage in the Cherokee County Herald. [gn_spacer size=”30″] Douglas County Sentinel 5-15-2013 (PDF file) The speaking engagement was for the Rotary Club of Douglas County, Georgia. Although I’m not a Rotarian myself, my grandfather was a District Governor and a Paul Harris Fellow. He took me to Rotary meetings when I was a child, and I think I knew the 4 Way Test before I knew my multiplication tables! I have a soft spot when invited to speak to Rotary Clubs. I spoke on small business branding and got a front page article and photo in the Douglas County Sentinel. Interestingly, both press hits appeared on the same day!
Keeping It SIMPLE: Magical Presentation Tips
Keeping It SIMPLE: Magical Presentation Tips I’ve been performing magic for a long time. I’ve made my fulltime living with magic and speaking presentations for nearly 13 years, and I’ve been performing for fun for most of my life. Besides performing and speaking in Atlanta, this amazing art has taken me across America and all over the world. As you can imagine, I’ve seen a lot of magic and a lot of magicians in my travels. If I had to offer a bit of advice to those performers who are trying to improve the impact of their magic presentations, I’d tell them the same thing I’m still telling myself: keep it simple. I intend this not just in the technical and theatrical senses, but also in the following ways: Surprising – Does your performance lead to a genuine surprise? Or are people yawning, distracted, and simply giving you a polite golf clap at the end? Have you telegraphed or spoiled the ending through poor scripting, overacting, or trite performance? Impossible – This should go without saying, but at some point in your magic or mentalism presentation, make sure to focus attention on the impossible nature of the experience. Take every opportunity to push your performance away from merely presenting puzzling moments to creating truly impossible experiences. Meaningful – Your audience wants to care about what you’re doing, but you still have to tell them why they should. Why are you doing this? Are you presenting a metaphor? Teaching a skill? Offering a warning? Relating a fable? What is the purpose for sharing this experience? Remember: “The desire to communicate is the only sane reason to ever get on any stage – ever.” — Judy Carter, Stand-Up Comedy, The Book Practiced – Don’t put anything into your performance or presentation that you wouldn’t want to share as a representation of your brand. You know better. Your audience doesn’t have time to watch junk and you will only damage your standing in their memories. Logical – Don’t spoil the internal logic of your performance by layering effects or adding multiple kickers. A flourishy production of a royal flush at the end of a two-card transposition may be something well within your skills, but it does not relate to the effect. If you are performing mentalism and have read a spectator’s mind, do not immediately open a prediction showing that you supposedly knew their thought before you started. One power, one effect, one impossibility at a time. Engaging – All the technical skill in the world will not overcome the inability to present your material in a way that the audience can understand and relate to. Is your appearance inviting and professional? Is your speech warm and understandable? Is your presentation intriguing? Would most people want to spend time with you right now whether you performed an illusion or not? Become a more interesting and likeable person, and the impact of your magic will similarly increase. Keep it simple, and keep it S.I.M.P.L.E. See you next week.
Culture-Building vs. Team-Building
So, Your Teambuilding Failed? Last week we discussed the uncomfortable subject of failed teambuilding. Turns out, quite a large number of groups that subject themselves to “teambuilding events” aren’t even teams in the first place. No wonder the results so rarely live up to either expectations or the vendor’s hype! Companies invest in “teambuilding” and wonder why their group’s performance doesn’t improve. That’s a lot like thinking you’re buying fantastic new tires and wondering later why the roads are still so bumpy. Let me give you a new way to think about the conference slot where you’ve been putting what you thought “teambuilding” activities. Instead of tires, let’s go get some asphalt. Culturebuilding French novelist and art theorist Andre Malraux said that “Culture is the sum of all the forms of art, of love, and of thought, which, in the course of centuries, have enabled man to be less enslaved.” While he wasn’t referring to corporate cultures, the underlying idea – with some modification – can be applied as a definition for any organization’s culture. Art :: Expression This is analagous to all forms of expression in an organization. How do people speak, write, email, telephone, whisper, or otherwise communicate? How are people addressed? How are the organization’s stories shared and preserved? Love :: Relationships This applies to the way people relate to and interact with each other. How hierarchical is the organization? Do people from different divisions and levels of the organization interact? Is that interaction required? Natural? Forced? Tense? Relaxed? Thought :: Processes This relates to the practical and analytical activities that occur within the organization. This may span everything from work habits to clarity of mission to the choice of hardware and software used in attempting the mission. (There are good and not-so-good things to be said about both Macs and PCs, but there is no doubt that the choice of technology platform can affect an organization’s culture!) Of course I’d never suggest that we are enslaved, but the sum of these things can allow us to be more engaged, enthusiastic, and productive in our work. We aren’t throwing off shackles of enslavement, but rather those of drudgery. Do you see? All those concepts you learned about culture in drama, art, music, or language arts classes in school aren’t limited to the academic or artistic realm. Your organization can benefit from your ability to see parallels in the way culture is built and strengthened in the community and the way corporate culture affects your business model and your workplace relationships. Culturebuilding Objectives Now that you understand the distinction between teambuilding and culturebuilding, how does that change the way you engage in activities in the future? Here are some ideas. Instead of teambuilding, look at the group activity as an opportunity to have a shared experience that contributes to strengthening the culture of your organization. Save your ‘high performing teams’ management-book-of-the-month for groups that are actually teams. Measuring a group on the basis of characteristics of teams is doomed to create unneeded stress and no useful insight. How does the activity support one or more of the three overarching principles? Measure that, not whether a group of people who won’t interact again until next quarter or next year are now performing as a “team.” (If you need a refresher on what teams are, see last week’s post.) Create objectives for your group activities based on how they relate to the three overarching themes of culture. For example: Does this activity provide the opportunity for people to share our organization’s stories with our newer people? Does it provide the opportunity to create new ones? Does this event encourage people to interact across functional divisions in our organization? Does it encourage interaction across hierarchical levels? Back at the office, will people be encouraged or restricted from communicating with the people they interact with during this activity? Why or why not? Will this activity be used to communicate and emphasize our core values? Does this activity provide an opportunity to emphasize our mission and vision? Etc. What Do You Think? As I’ve written the last two blog posts, I have been struck with the idea that these ideas might form the basis of a new keynote. What do you think? Do you think HR managers, meeting & event planners, and other audiences might find value in understanding the distinction between teambuilding and culturebuilding? Am I complete off-base in drawing that distinction? Your comments are not only welcome – I’m actively soliciting them! Please share this article and let’s get a conversation going.
Why Your Teambuilding Failed
A Teambuilding (Mis)Adventure Leaders – how many of you have experienced the following? You realized you had a problem in the way your people worked together. You decided to invest in a teambuilding activity at your next meeting. Your people engaged in the process, some willingly and some grudgingly. You went back to work. There was practically no change in the way your people worked with each other afterward. What happened? Why isn’t teambuilding improving performance in my company? Some people said, “That was great!” Others said, “That was a waste of money.” Unfortunately it turned out that both groups were right. There are many reasons why teambuilding exercises, activities, and investments may not work. Most common among them, in my experience, is that you were not really a team to begin with. You Aren’t Really A Team Don’t panic – the fact that your group isn’t a team is not a criticism! It’s simply a matter of a word being misapplied by many people over many years. The real meaning of the word has gradually been forgotten. Here’s the thing: a company is not a team. A division is not a team. A group of people working in the same building or on the same floor is not a team. A group of people doing similar tasks across an enterprise is not a team. A group of people who like each other is not a team. Here’s the thing: a company is not a team. That’s not a bad thing. But if you’re not a team, then no amount of teambuilding is really going to improve your group’s performance in the long term. Your group isn’t a team if it doesn’t have certain characteristics, such as complementary and adaptable skills; a specific, meaningful, common purpose beyond some mere managerial mandate; and shared authority and accountability to each other and to any outside audience. (Refer to Harvard Business Review for more.) If your group is a collection of people doing related jobs in cities across America, your group probably isn’t really a team. In my consulting days, I had hundreds of colleagues whose paychecks came from the same place, who shared my job title, and who had similar and often complementary skills. We all wanted our company to be successful. But we were working in different places, on different projects, for different purposes, and with different people. We were not in any real sense “a team.” Many if not most companies who host large meetings or conferences and schedule “teambuilding” activities are not actually building or strengthening teams. If they expect performance improvements, they will probably come away disappointed. So What? “That’s all well and good,” I hear you saying. “But what do I do about it? Just skip teambuilding altogether?” The short answer? No. But I will suggest a couple of things to think about: Rethink your terminology. Don’t use the word “team” loosely – make sure you are applying it to groups that really have the characteristics of teams. Rethink your activities. Fun is fine, but make a point up front of setting clear objectives for the activities. (Remember – if your group isn’t a team, these objectives may not be what you read in your management book about high performing teams!) Rethink your expectations. The group activities you are investing in actually have value. They just aren’t really addressing what you – and the activity vendors – think they are addressing! Next week: Find out what you’ve really been doing when you thought you were teambuilding!
Meeting and Event Planner Personality Types: The Exorcists
This week we wrap up our exploration of meeting and event planner personality types. Last week we discussed the Expanders. Today: The Exorcists! Exorcists like to ask the question, “How can I just end this and avoid another horrible experience?” An unfortunate third possibility is that a client has worked with another provider in the past who delivered a low-quality program that did not inspire confidence in future use of mystery entertainment at all. They are the “Exorcists,” and they are actively excluding magic from consideration in their events. It’s not quite casting out demons, but this client has been burned by a bad experience and understandably wishes to avoid that in the future. Strangely, after a planner has a bad experience with a caterer or vocalist, he or she will not swear off caterers and singers forever. With magic, though, the fact is that a poor performer creates an obstacle that can be difficult for other providers to overcome, regardless of quality. While it can be a challenge to get in the door, these clients can become some of your most vocal cheerleaders when you deliver a successful new experience to overshadow the old. In future articles I will discuss a variety of creative ideas for incorporating magic and mentalism entertainment into different corporate environments. Planners who fall into each of the categories above will find ideas and insights that can help them use corporate magic, mentalism, and (sometimes) message-driven entertainment to ensure the success and lasting impact of their events.
Meeting and Event Planner Personality Types: The Expanders
This week we continue our exploration of meeting and event planner personality types. Last week we discussed the Explorers. Next up: The Expanders! Expanders like to ask the question, “Where else can I use this idea?” Another possibility is that a client has worked with a magician or mentalist on a previous event, but the client is only familiar with that single aspect of how mystery entertainment can be integrated into multiple parts of an event. The previous entertainer may have delivered a quality show for one venue, but did not indicate a level of versatility or creativity in providing a broader range of experiences. These planners are “Expanders,” ready to expand their understanding of what magic performance can bring to their events. Expanders are often enthusiastic about magic, and are excited to hear different ways that they can create exciting, high-impact experiences for their audiences. These clients are anxious to hear success stories about how a different approach worked at other events, and if you have a creative twist on that idea for them, so much the better! The risk, of course, is that given the open mind of an Expander, the over-enthusiastic provider will conclude that he has a hammer and the event is comprised of nothing but nails. Sometimes the Expander gets in on this game and also wants to add magic to every single element of the event. Experienced planners and providers will resist this temptation. Less is often more. Next week: Exorcists!
Meeting and Event Planner Personality Types: The Explorers
Event Planner Personality Types: The Explorers When meeting and event planners are considering magical entertainment or magic-enhanced keynote speaking as a possible addition to their event, they are often venturing into unfamiliar territory. Though every situation is different, my experience is that most event or meeting planners who are considering a magical speaker or entertainer fall into one of the following three categories: Explorers, Expanders, and Exorcists. Each group is asking a different kind of question. Explorers like to ask the question, “What new thing can I find?” The first group of clients are those who have never have worked with a professional magical entertainer in any venue. Many times, these people have either devised a magic theme themselves, or they have been presented with an event theme (“The Magic of…” or “Vegas Night,” etc.) decided upon by their team or another event planner. In the case of un-themed events or events without a specific magic theme, the use of a magician, mentalist, or magical keynote speaker has usually been recommended by another planner. (And if you ever wanted a short summary of my business model, that’s it.) I find that these Explorers – companies, groups, and planners – are usually wide open on the creative side of applying magic to multiple events during a conference, though almost always with a careful eye to budget constraints. These clients value experience, creativity, and cost-consciousness. It’s a new world for them, and as a performer I appreciate the trust that these clients place in me to be their guide and navigator. Being the initial experience for an “Explorer” is also a big responsibility, because the result of this experience will transform this client into one of the other two types – either an Expander or an Exorcist. It’s important to dream big and deliver for these Explorers, but it’s equally important to be realistic about what you can really do well and where your expertise lies. Stretch your skills, not the truth. Next week: The Expanders!
