So much to do and so little time to do it! I am a little short on time for my post today but I wanted to direct attention to Eric Ziegenhagen’s TEDxMichiganAve talk, Expertise as Entertainment.
There have only been 74 views so I know you all haven’t seen it yet!
What Ziegenhagen talks about is the increasing prevalence of expertise being valued as an attraction. He focuses a lot on restaurants. It is no longer dinner and a show, dinner is the show. With the increased appreciation of culinary skills of chefs thanks to myriad television shows, people are valuing exposure to that skill as an attraction.
Restaurants in turn are designing the dining experience in response to this interest by providing information about the different components of the meal and providing more opportunities to watch the preparation process.
Ziegenhagen speaks of one restaurant that sells tickets to their seatings essentially intending them to be scalped. They apparently researched the laws governing resale of tickets and designed their reservation process in a way that permitted them to be transferred.
Ziegenhagen references the burgeoning TED lecture franchise as a evidence that people are beginning to value what is basically the pre-show lecture/post show talk back as much, if not more, than the actual show itself.
Looking at them in that context and taking a look at what makes the TED talks so engaging and interesting may provide some insight into how to make pre and post show talks more valuable to your audiences. (Clue: It might mean bringing in someone with no association to your organization at all.)