Help Your Guests Have a Memory Like an Elephant!
Events are like learning experiences. Everyone experiences life in their own way much like their individual learning styles. What does this have to do with events? Everything.
I'll explain. If you are hosting an event, the whole point is to have it be remembered for all the right reasons. Granted, I'm not an expert on elephants, but they're largely known for their excellent memories. More on that a little later.
To make your event memorable, whether it is a social, business, association or community event, you need to use techniques to grab everyone's individual attention.
Don't Assume People Think Like You Do!
As an event planner, I have heard various clients say that no one cared about this or that. Usually is was about decorations. I would remind them that when people recall an event it's in the form of a visual memory. I even heard people planning a wedding ask, "People don't really care about a wedding cake, do they?" To make an impression across the spectrum of people attending an event, you should include things that you personally don't think are important. The odds are not in your favor of people not noticing that something is missing to them. Don't discount ideas that other people have or make assumptions about those ideas. Enjoy expanding the entire thought process of planning an event.
See, Listen, Taste, Touch and Smell
People will experience things through the senses. Think of people when they talk about a subject that is new to them. You'll probably hear one of these responses. "I have to see it first." "I just need to hear it one more time." Perhaps you'll hear someone say "Just let me do it and stop talking to me about it!" Fewer people will notice the smells of something they're learning, but some people might mention that. You'll have others that can't seem to have a conversation without the mention of food. For people who are not Foodies, they can't understand how food can be present on their minds all of the time. We've covered all five senses, but there is one more sense, if you will, that you need to appeal to people's way of experiencing things.
Quiet
Yes, I call the sixth sense, "Quiet". This is for the people who would rather have a place away from the hubbub where they can quietly comprehend things almost to the extent of being by themselves.
If you are planning an event, do yourself a favor and do some role playing of people who are opposite in their way of thinking than you. Think of what you remember about events. Also, try to remember the times when people have talked to you as you both recall an event. There has probably been a time when you've discussed a detail of a party, meeting, special occasion, or community event and someone was surprised that you didn't remember that detail or you remembered it very differently. The fact is, you both might be right...according to how you each experienced things.
We Need to Give the Elephants Some Credit!
So help all of your attendees or guests remember things as well as an elephant would! Did you know that the structure of an elephant's brain has more connections that make their ability to learn and remember things superior to the human brain? Their brains are also proportionately larger for their body size than is the brain of a human and our body size.
