Name: The Power of ‘Wow’: Crafting Moments That Matter
Uploaded: 2025-09-23T17:17:53.500Z
Duration: 1 h 20 s
Description: The Power of ‘Wow’: Crafting Moments That Matter

Transcript for "The Power of ‘Wow’: Crafting Moments That Matter": Welcome, everyone, to the power of wow, how communicators can craft moments that matter. My name is Cheggos, founder of ICology, and I'm excited to bring this conversation to all of you today. Suppose I could take my glasses off now. I was reading something early. I need my glasses on. Again, thank you all for joining. I wanna go go into the chat and let us all know where you're joining from today. I do see we've got some, Melissa Taylor fans in the chat. Hello, Denisa. But, yeah, go into the chat and introduce yourself. If you go into the docs area above the chat after you introduce yourself, you go into docs, you'll see some links up there. And one of those is to join us in psychology. And so for this event today, we don't do webinars. We do fun events. For this event today, we've got a special discount code called virtual love, all one word, virtual love. You save 25% off of your first year of psychology. We're a great community focused on the world of internal comms. So please do that. And if you join today, I have a one time special offer. I'm gonna talk about this book today called The Power of Moments. And this is a one of my favorite reads that I think anyone in the workplace should read, but especially those that are in communications, Power of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath. I was at an event last week. I was at the Bright Side event that workshop does, and I saw another fellow communicator carrying this around. And it was all not torn up, but notes and post its and everything were sticking out of it. I was okay. The message is getting out there. So if you join psychology today, use the code virtual love. If you join today, I will send you this book because I think it's something that everybody should have in their arsenal. Why is this book so important? Well, we have moments that happen in our lives every single day. Some become very memorable. Some we forget soon after they've happened. And what this book talks about is why certain moments stick with us. Could be for some very positive reasons. Unfortunately, it could be for some negative reasons. But what I love about their explanation is that to really create a impactful moment, we need to be intentional with those moments. We can craft these experiences that people remember and will be a part of their career journey, personal journey, wherever that might be. So, yeah, join today, power of moments. I'll send you a hard copy of it. I wanna go into the chat and see where we got people coming from. We've got, Baltimore, Salt Lake, Montreal, Sioux Falls, Omaha. Love them as well. It's just in Sioux Falls and Omaha in the last week. Love seeing those in here. Cleveland Rocks. I don't know if you see the Bengals helmets behind me. I might disagree with that a little bit. We got some more Vancouver fans in here. Flower Mound, Texas, I love that. Cary, North Carolina. Marco Island. Philadelphia. More Philly love in there. Chicago. So many great people joining us. Saskatoon. Love seeing the Canadian representation. Alright. As we get started, we're gonna kick off with our very first speaker today. I wanna welcome Melissa Taylor, manager of rental communication communications at C SPAN to this stage. Melissa, come up and join us. Hello, Melissa? Hi. How are you? Good. As we get started, you brought a video for us all to watch to kick off your session. So let me queue up this video and get this playing for you all. Here we go. How did you guys feel about getting to go on the ship that your dad worked? Good. Right. We're welcoming people to the C SPAN open house today. We have a ton of people here, all our friends and family. We're going through and seeing the brand new outfit here, going on to JSS, just having a great time. We're in the Workforce Development Bay, and what we've got everywhere here is different tables with exhibitions of different trades. We have our VR station. We're showing off a visualization of the, polar icebreaker. Yeah. It's been great. We have a lot of interest. People are really enjoying it. I've never been on a, Canadian naval vessel. My son was giving me kind of a blow by blow of where he works and what he does on the ship. We didn't even know that we can actually go onboard, which is pretty cool. And, what does this little guy think of the open house? Oh, he said it's the best open house ever. I've been here for a couple years now and it's fun to get everybody together. I have my folks here today, my sisters here, they're both dressed up as you can see. This is probably one of the most busy open houses I've seen so far today. It's fantastic. The, GSS tours are quite amazing. It was great to bring the kids aboard, show them what we've been working so hard on for the past years here at Seaspan. There's been just a steady stream of employees with their families, and we're having a blast. He loved the ship. He's been talking about it all week, coming to see where his dad works. It is fantastic. Everybody's having a great time. It's really nice to be able to share what we do here at C SPAN with our friends and our family. They don't often get a chance to come in here and see the actual work that we do, and it's so much more than than anyone ever realizes. Thank you for sharing that with us, Melissa. I wanted to share with you, I love when I heard the story of what you and the team did at C SPAN because one of my earliest memories as a kid was my dad was a materials manager at a GM factory in Dayton, Ohio, and they would do an open house every year. And and seeing the pride and seeing how excited those employees were to bring the family in, have people be a part of it, see the work they do every day. Oh, I just love that you all made that investment, in doing that. So thank you for doing that. But let's I wanna send it hand it over to you. Introduce yourself and and kick off into this amazing project you all did. Yeah. I I love hearing that. I think, that really is a testament to those lifelong memories that are made at events like this, and that's ultimately what we're really trying to do here at CSUN. So, let me just set up my screen. I've got some photos that I'll share to kind of illustrate some of the points I'm gonna cover today about what makes this event so special. We'll see if that queues up. So my name is Melissa Taylor, and, I work for CSAN, not to be confused with the CSAN that many of you may be familiar with, as the Public Affairs Network. That does come up quite often. People are like CSAN, and I'm, like, not the one that broadcast government proceedings. We are a ship builder. We are a leader in ship building, ship repair, and marine transportation on Canada's West Coast. So I'm based here in North Vancouver, and I'm the manager of internal communications. I'm based at our North Vancouver shipyard. So here, we're actually building ships for the Canadian Navy and Coast Guard, and C SPAN shipyards has a dedicated workforce of about 4,300 people. So, I've been with the company for about three years now. And as I'm sure many of you can relate to, communicators tend to wear a lot of hats. And one of those hats for me is event planners. So this past year, I assumed the role of event lead, from Janissa, who is on this call, my fabulous mentor and director. So I basically took over the planning and organization for our annual open house event, which you just saw in that video, and we open up our shipyard to employees and their families to really showcase the scale, complexity, and innovation of our operations. This year was our third year actually hosting this event, and we had more than 6,000 guests come through. So it was our biggest event yet. And for the first time ever, our guests actually had the opportunity to go aboard one of the navy vessels that we're building for, form building throughout the yard. So you'll see it in this photo here. This is actually the vessel that they got to tour this year. So, before I get into that, I kinda wanna take you back to the beginning because I think a lot of great events actually start with the question of why. Why do we need to do this? I mean, budget is up there as an important question for sure too, but why is really what I wanna get into today. So this event actually started as an opportunity to bring people together post pandemic, but it's really grown into something a lot bigger. So we have a lot of mix, and I'm sure a lot of you can relate on this call, of employees that are remote or in office, desk space, desk list, for example, our hourly workforce that trades out in the shipyard, and it's really easy to become siloed. So, we kinda wanted to come up with a solution to bring people together, take them out of their bubbles, and really connect them to that bigger picture because, you know, we had some folks who have been here twenty plus years. We have some folks who are brand new, and how are we really tying them to the bigger picture? In our case, that is building shifts. But everyone can relate to sort of what that goal is in their own workplace. And so we saw this as an opportunity to really break down those silos, build stronger relationships across teams, and then show everyone from our, you know, EAs in the office to our electricians out in the yard, to our engineers and interns how their work is actually contributing to our success and the end product, which is these shifts. So we really wanted to connect our purpose, and that ultimately has been the intention that has remained at the heart of all of our open house events, again, this being our third year. So I could spend a lot of time talking about event planning and logistics and safety procedures because that is really the bulk of what goes into this. But, I mean, I also have a great antidote about a debate if Crocs are considered open or toe closed toe shoes. So if you ever want that answer, feel free to send me a note because that was a very long discussion with our safety team. But I'm gonna stick today to sort of how we do it for this event when it comes to making that lasting impact and lifelong memories as Chuck spoke to. Shipbuilding and its nature is incredibly complex. When I say I work for a shipbuilder, people kinda get a funny look on their face thinking if I'm a welder or an engineer of some sort. There are so many different departments and people that come together in this umbrella of shipbuilding that we really wanted to be able to open the yard up and from someone who has no knowledge at all about this industry to someone who is a seasoned veteran, be able to take them on that journey from the first cut of steel to the launch of the vessel. And so for the open house, our employees ultimately become the guides. They leave their guests on a tour through the yard and engage with our volunteers at the stations along the way. They really get that behind the scenes look at the process, which I don't come from a shipbuilding background. When I took this job, I was scared I might be bored. I'm very glad that for years that I was proven wrong. Shipbuilding is fascinating. I've become quite the nerd about it. I was not expecting that at all. So if I can take this interest, I'm sure there are countless other folks who come through the yard and been blown away by just how fascinating it is. So getting that behind the scenes look, I think, is a huge part of that and really the intricacies that go into it, the innovation, all the way through to the latest in safety practices and procedures. So through those live demos and interactive stations, along with really good food and live entertainment, that's key, and great volunteers, I have to shout them out, we're really able to remind ourselves that what we do on a day to day often becomes you know, it's just ordinary to us. We show up every day. We do our jobs. We go home. But I think to a lot of our loved ones that we're able to invite to this event and bring to the yard, they really see it as extraordinary, and it reminds us that it's extraordinary as well. So my favorite part is actually when people come into the event and they sort of round the corner, and they get to see our ships for the first time. I just think it's such a wow moment. Like, the scope of it is impossible to really describe to people until you witness it in, in real life with your own eyes. It's incredible. And so this year, we actually gave folks that opportunity to go aboard one of the joint support ships, which we're building for the Canadian Navy and coast or the Canadian Navy, excuse me. So, yes, we're actually able to tour the deck of the vessel and chat with team members who work on the ship every day, learn more about that process. And we also had members of the Canadian Navy stationed in the hangar of the ship so guests could learn more about what they do and learn about more of the sort of future operations and missions of that vessel. So every activation at this event is really geared towards connection, Whether they're connecting with, you know, their unique role to a different part of the process or they're connecting with a colleague from a department that they've never met before, we really want our employees and their guests leaving with a sense of pride for what we do and feeling that deeper connection to our overall mission. It also doesn't hurt that we send them home with some pretty amazing swag. So we never let our guests leave empty handed, and we do like to get creative with our c span friend of March. So for example, we often describe shipbuilding as giant LEGO blocks coming together sort of piece by piece. So, we really leaned in last year, which coincided with the launch of the offshore oceanographic science vessel for the Canadian Coast Guard. We actually had custom LEGO kits created so guests could go home and create their own mini ship, which you see, in the photo there at the bottom right. So, as you might guess, this is hugely popular. And, again, very on brand when we're talking about connection and, you know, putting things together. So, people still talk about the LEGO. I still get people, I wanna say, every couple weeks swinging by my desk, our little hub that we have here, our comms hub, and people are like, hey. Do you have any LEGO left? It is more popular than anything we may ever do. It was pretty awesome. So I guess the next piece of this is really how do we know that this is landing with folks? How do we know that this is having the impact? Because it's great for our team to think, hey. We did a good job, but we need to actually, you know, hear from people what they like, what they don't like. So we do ask them. We do a post event survey every year, and this year, we kind of have a snapshot of our results. So 94% of respondents really felt that they had a better, stronger sense of pride leaving this event. And I think for us, that's our number one goal, is to make sure that people do feel really proud when they're leaving, proud to show off what they do for their families, proud of the work they're doing here. That is always gonna be our ultimate goal along with safety, of course. No major or minor safety incidents is always a great a great goal to have as well. And then 9494% of respondents also thought it was a valuable use of their time. Now this is actually my favorite question because being a communicator and often asking employees what they think about things, they can be brutally honest. So if they thought this was a waste of their time, I know they would have told me. And I'm very happy that 94% of them thought, hey. This is a great way to spend my Saturday, especially after spending all week here already and working their butts off. I'm really happy that people still wanna show up and show off, what they're doing to their loved ones. I think that says a lot. And then 91% of respondents also thought that it really did showcase the scale, complexity, and innovation of our yard, and that is another top goal, making sure that people really recognize what we're doing here is pretty extraordinary, and we wanna make sure that they, they do feel that when they're leaving. So these were some amazing results this year. We're really, really proud of that as a team. And then other comments too that really have stood out for us. So we also have, like, an open feedback section where people can just just write in their comments. I did not pay anyone to say this. I've considered it in the past, but I did not pay anyone for these comments. These were they were not bribed in any way. But speaking about how their family and friends loved it, how they feel it brings more value to the company. Another piece that stands out to me in this first comment is I feel it shows a bit of recognition for all the work we do. And one thing we really try to do at CSUN is build that culture of recognition. And so to actually have sorry. I muted myself by accident. To have folks say that they, you know, see they feel recognized for what they do and they see what we're doing and they see that folks are leaders are really recognizing that is really, really valuable and really special to hear. And as well, great experience with the family reflected our core value of care, which I think is so important. We have a core value here at CSAM. One of them safety, we have care. To see those reflected in this event is great. The collaboration, it's really great when people respond saying that they see the teamwork and collaboration that goes into this event because it really does take a village, and it's great that they understand that and can recognize that. The comment about instilling pride in our workforce, that's another one where it just ties to that overall goal. I have a couple more comments here. As well, like, it was very well organized. We love the food, the music. Thank you for making this possible to enjoy the yard with our family and friends. It's a unique environment. It's something a lot of people don't get access to. That really stands out, as great feedback too. And then I appreciated that managers and higher ups were there to volunteer. So as part of this event, we do engage with our leaders to make sure that they are out there greeting folks when they arrive. They're there to kind of walk through stations with them, and hearing that it makes them seem more approachable and seem more connected to our frontline workers, I think, is really, really key and something that we've really worked on growing, and it's so nice to see that reflected in these comments. So, yeah, it's a it's an incredible event. I think not just for, obviously, it's great to hear people had a good time, but a lasting impact that it's had and to see how it has each year over the past couple years sort of enhance our culture and really taken a step, a step forward when it comes to people feeling recognized, feeling celebrated, having that sense of pride, I think is really key. And then I don't have a ton of time, so, I just wanna wrap up by, really shouting out our team. This is our comms team here at TSM, my phenomenal team. It would not be possible without them. This event has really grown into more than just an event. It's been a catalyst that has kinda sparked this greater connection from our people to our work to that overall kind of end goal. And so, our team works really hard to kinda carry that momentum through the rest of the year and is really trying to bring, more connect opportunities for connection and collaboration, whether it be through big events, small events, and, yeah, I just have to set up the team. And Stella, our stellar sea lion mascot, she's super popular. And, of course, we have an amazing event planning team that helps with this too, equalmc squared, and then countless folks across the business who really bring our vision to life every year for this. As I I could talk for hours about the logistics, planning, and the safety elements, and all of that. So if you do have any questions, feel free to reach out. I love to talk events, and I have a lot of lessons learned. Like, that could be a whole session in itself. So, don't be a stranger. Yep. Thank you, Melissa. Of course. Thank you, Melissa. We'll we'll bring you back up for questions at the end. But I do wanna point out, though I was not invited to the open house, I was awarded one of your one of your LEGO ships. So this is always right behind me, right here for people to see. They're going international now. I like that. They are. They are. Absolutely. Alright. Well, thank you for joining us, Melissa. We're now gonna welcome up Lexi Barrett from Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System. Lexi is the manager of internal communications there. I've had the privilege of knowing now for several years. Lexi, thank you for joining us. Do you wanna get started with your video contribution, or do you wanna kick things off differently? Yeah. Yeah. I can do a little setup here, and I think we can roll right into, to the video. And so hi, everyone. Chuck said, Lexi Varette. I'm here to talk about our leadership assembly. So it's really a biannual event. I'm actually coming in hot planning for the one we're hosting in two weeks from now and counting. And so, we host it biannually, and, really, it's an investment important role in cultivating a great place to work for us with our team members. And so, really, this is meant to be a development for them to really connect with the mission and the purpose of our organization. And so the video I will share will give a little bit of an insight into our most recent one, which was held in the spring in April. And we it was themed immersive leadership, really kind of had a double meaning in that leaders have to call in all of their senses in leading teams. So they have to listen in unique ways for what's not heard. They have to recognize things that are not apparent, but also kind of the play on they have to really be in it with their team. They have to be immersed in the strategy, in our mission, and really connect the dots, on how we're gonna reach these lofty goals that we have as as a health system. And so, this event really brought together 900 leaders, to develop them, but to inspire them on what's possible when when we lead together. So, Chuck, I don't know if you have the video to play or if you will I'll get that I'll get that queued up for you. But I wanna point out, this is what stood out to me, Lexi, when I first heard this story from your leader, Nicole Hidalgo, when this was planning for back in the spring, was a lot of companies do retreats. A lot of companies do off-site. But it was the intention and the investment in this that I think truly made those that moment for employees that you keep coming back to again and again. But let's get this video queued up for everyone. We will get to the summit, and that's gonna be a really special moment. But I want the journey, the climb to be very special as well. Lexi, let me just share a couple of things that I saw Yeah. In that video. I saw LSU cheerleaders and a mascot. Mhmm. So someone I think I saw someone using a typewriter. Mhmm. I saw my friend, Paulette Ali, who I know spoke at the event with you all. I saw Nuns. Yes. Okay. Well, you'll see that all the time. Yeah. So so talk more about this. What what what was that day like for everyone? Yes. Well, it was a day full of energy. We have really set the stage for this event to be a big picture. It's all about inspiration. We don't cover metrics in this meeting. We don't review, you know, the nitty gritty of initiatives. It's really about the inspiration. What are we how are we getting to this big goal, this big ask that our sisters that you saw, and our CEO has for our health system. And so it's really about inspiring leaders toward that goal. And so, really, I can I have my some pictures I can share just to give a little more context here, but, let me pull that up really quickly, for you? But, really, it it was hosted at LSU, so that was a big part of the impact. We are their championship health partner and so taking advantage of that relationship. But, really, what our event team that we partner with in this does so well is that we really had the opportunity with the event space to pull on the immersion senses. And what they've done so well is any of the moments in between the sessions is how are the participants experiencing that from when they're walking in to when they're leaving to the in between. And so that's some of the photos that you kind of saw all throughout. How are the cheerleaders welcoming people in, really building up the energy? And so really looking for every moment to elevate that we can so that really any opportunity that they are at this event is connecting the dots to the bigger purpose of what we're doing there today, or in that moment. And so you saw the light up bracelets. All of that was pulling from the immersive experience, so it was coordinated color wise with what the speakers were saying on stage. We had snow and cold air blasting when our keynote speaker was talking about when our keynote speaker was talking about summiting Everest. We had music and sounds that we pulled from, and so really allowed us to kind of lean into that theme. And so you mentioned, Chuck, the speakers, and so what our leaders really heard from were, from Poet who told us the importance of connection. We learned about engagement and why it matters and the science behind it from Jeremy Petrosini with Gallup, And then we heard from, the power of really pushing past barriers despite limitations from, Eric Weinheimer, who was the first blind, person to summit Everest. And so, really, really inspirational things that they learned about really motivating things, to really connect the dots there in our goals. And then you saw a little bit of those activators, the typewriter piece of this is in between the sessions to deeper the development that the leaders are getting that day, really giving them the opportunity to immerse themselves and put themselves into the learnings and the big takeaways. So we had them vote on what makes us a great place to work. Not only do we get insight from this, like, what is top of mind for them, but it was really great to see, like, what are the things that they find valuable in their work. A big part of the immersion is visualizing yourself from how am I reaching this goal, visualizing myself, achieving it, what is it gonna feel like, what is it gonna look like, and so we had magazine cover cutouts that leaders could step in. And you can kind of see in this picture on the left, is they got to put themselves in it where it's saying FML Health reached, you know, top decile performance and here's the spotlight of the leaders who helped them get there. So how are we visualizing ourself reaching it? We have virtual headsets where people could virtually climb mountains because, again, taking the steps and moving through the motions of how you're getting there, visualizing that as a big piece of reaching the goal. And then this is where we get into the typewriter piece. We had a wall that said, what's the best feedback you ever received? Our organization sees feedback as a gift, and the value of feedback that leaders have to help get them to where they are or help push them forward is also a gift that they give to their team members as well. And so calling that back, to them. And then with the typewriter piece, we had poets on-site, so kind of connecting to Poet Ellie and connection, but also calling on the power of words. And so the words we use matter in every interaction. And so, the the leaders got to give the poets a word that they could write a quick poem on-site for them for inspiration. And so a lot of leaders took advantage of that and was really inspired. And I guess just to kind of close this up and round it all out is that, really, this is a big investment from our senior leadership, but mostly our CEO who's pictured here front and center with all of our leaders behind him, really to emphasize that leaders are an important part of our our goal of achieving this. They're important in cultivating the team member experience. And so if they're not deeply rooted in our mission, our purpose, and the connection of why we do what we do, we're not gonna move the needle toward our goals. And so that's really why we have this kind of biannual focus of twice a year, we're getting together, having events at the scale for our leaders and really creating a sense of fellowship for them and and adjust for leaders experience in how we we develop them. Yeah. I think that is like I said, a lot of companies do offsites. They do retreats. I have yet to see something at that scale, Lexi. So thank you for sharing that that with us. I am curious. For how many people was that their first time using a typewriter? I wonder. Oh, I don't know. Well, we didn't let them use the typewriter. The poets used it. Oh, okay. Okay. Their that is their I would have loved to see that. I think that would have been really funny. But the poets are right, so they would give them a word. So if I gave the poets the word inspiration, they would write a full poem Oh, amazing. On the spot that the leaders could take away with them as a little keepsake. And so, yeah, that's another great point, as well. The they got that as a takeaway. Then we always gift them with something gear, right, for their journey to have. And so that also makes it a little special something for our leaders, not only to represent our brand and who we are, but to connect back to you need gear for your journey, you need a backpack, you need this to help you kind of as we're we're climbing this mountain. And then I'm not asking you to spill any secrets, though. I don't think anybody attending this is gonna be at the next one. How how how do you build on that? How do you go, like, for the next one? You have to keep reinventing if these are some of the same people. They're coming every six months. Yes. Yeah. Well, I think we always talk about this is how do we tackle that? How do we make it bigger? How do we make it better? And I think that the the way that we do that may not be in do we go more extreme or do we push the boundaries more. It's I think the thoughtfulness even in the small moments is what makes a big difference. And I think also we always survey our leaders after to get more feedback, and really bringing out things that they've said they wanted to see or things that are important to them is the connecting of the dots that make the wow for them as well. Mhmm. And listening to them to say, we've brought this through or we've done this thoughtfully or we're giving you really a road map or inspiration to help you do what's being asked of you in your department or your area. Yeah. Well, thank you, Lexi, for sharing that with us. And I was I was inspired when I heard that your organization, who I've gotten to know over the past couple years, was making that type of investment. And that, I think, that just shows the belief that leadership has in the organization and the people leaders. And we see that time and time again. We get see these industry studies out there that companies aren't investing in managers. They aren't investing in leaders, and it's great to see you all doing that. If you have questions for Lexi, throw them in the q and a. Lexi, thank you for joining us on stage. We're now gonna ask, my friend, Lennyce Williams, to join us on stage. Lennyce Williams is the America's culture and engagement partner for the Siemens Healthineers. And I I wanna be a little transparent on this conversation, Lanice. If if we weren't such good friends, you might not be here today because I sort of nudged you to come in and share this story with us. The re I heard about this story. For those that aren't, ICology members, about monthly, we do a campfire session inside the community where we come together around a theme, around a topic, and we start sharing stories around it. And Lanice sort of flippantly mentioned this one recognition program and event that that team has been. I was like, wait a minute. Time out. We gotta dig deeper into this. So, Lanice, thank you for joining us, here at this event. Thank you for having me. Hello, everyone. As Chuck mentioned, I am Lanice. I am the America's culture and engagement partner. The really quick and dirty way for me to explain to you what I do is my job is to make work suck less. So I come from an internal comms background, but now I'm looking at the full service, employee experience for all of our 20,000 plus employees in The US, Canada, and 10 countries in Latin America. And, yes, Chuck did nudge me because, this event I don't have visuals or anything, but it's one of those things that Chuck has heard me say. I hope I never have to do this again. So at Seamus Health and NEARS, every year, we have our our annual sales meeting. And so that's when we get primarily our customer facing teams together to celebrate sort of what they accomplished in the in the previous fiscal year as well as kind of give them a big picture of where we're gonna go in the upcoming fiscal year. It's always held in the first or second week in November. As part of that, there's always an award ceremony. So, of course, we're doing, like, the major sales awards. So people are what people are, like, waiting to find out if they won the big prize, which is usually a trip somewhere in The Caribbean for a week all on a company's dime for you and, whoever you wanna bring. So people have brought spouses, people have brought parents, whomever. However, in addition to that, we have what we call the special awards, and these are awards that are a little bit more tied into the into specific business areas, so things that they want to sort of, like, highlight. Two of them are named after former employees who passed away while they were still employed with us. So thinking about their characteristics and sort of what what they brought to the organization. I should say that the annual sales meeting has been going on, I know, for at least fifteen years, probably longer. So it's one of those things that get sort of monotonous as people keep going. You kind of we are rotating through the same game lords, and so you're kind of like, is this still gonna be the one at my favorite game lore, which for me is Colorado, the one out in Colorado. And so, you know, we're always thinking how what else can we do to make this event interesting for the people who have been here every year for every single one, but also exciting for people who might be their first or second time. So I'm planning for these special awards and identify who which employees would get these special awards. It was actually one of our leaders who suggested, like, hey. These people are on the road a lot. So if you know anything about sales teams, they're gone four out of five days, during the week. And so they're on the road Monday through Thursday, typically. And so who is holding down the fort while they're off, you know, traveling to customer sites? And so he was like, I'm wondering how we can make this special and really help recognize the people behind the scenes that help make this happen. In my mind, I'm thinking, oh, you wanna recognize comms, finance, all of the other people who get the angry emails from the sales team? And he was like, you know, what if we flew in their spouses? I got this look on my face, and that was, like, immediately, like, I don't wanna do this. And, you know, as he started talking, he started getting buy in from, like, our events team as well, which meant that we were gonna have to do that. And so what we did is for all of the people who we knew were gonna get in the award, we worked with our HR team to try to figure out some personal information about them so we could covertly go stalk, and see, like, who, like, their families were. So the big thing the big risk that I, like, flag for people is what if, like, two people are going through a divorce. Like, right, the last thing you wanna do is flag, hey. You know, John's wife, you know, he's gonna get recognized for this award, and we want you we want to fly you out all expenses paid to our event to surprise him, and then you get a earful about a divorce happening. And so we kind of did some work, and we identified the individuals. We called them. We got their buy in. And so the the day of the event where we're gonna where we were gonna hand out these special awards, we flew in, I think, 10 people, 10 to 15 people. We figured out where to hide them in the hotel. Or, yeah, secret families. That's that's another one. Are you calling the right spouse? You know, and we found a spot in a hotel. We're like, listen. You cannot leave this room. Like, whatever you need, like, we will bring it to you because the last thing we want it is for them to just be trying to hang out by the pool or something, and the person that we're trying to surprise sort of walks by. And so at the that evening at the event, as all of the people were being called, we always, like, have the winner stay on stage as a way to kinda capture the photos and the video. And we asked them to turn around, and at the time of them turning around, that is where they saw that their families was there. I think one guy, his son ended up coming because the wife was like, I can't, but, like, they'll go. And they felt really special about that. They felt really, it was just another thing for them to recognize their achievements and sort of all of the work that goes into them being able to have these customer facing jobs. The reason why I say I never wanna do it again is just logistically, it was a lot to manage. And so that's why I'm like, I don't wanna do this again because I almost felt like part of the time I was a babysitter. You know, having explained to 10 other adults, like, why you can't leave this particular room can get a little bit awkward. And then just also the stuff about whether or not somebody's flight's gonna get in on time and things like that. So I really have to give credit to this leader who had this idea, even though I was against it from day one. Well, Lanice, when you told me this story, and you're just like, I hope we never have to do it again. And I'm like, Lanice, I hope you have to do it every year. I'm getting support in the chat, Lanice, that everyone else is like, nope, Lanice. You're stuck. You're gonna be stuck doing this, every year. I I think what's what I love about it is when I mentioned that opening story when I talked about going to my dad's open house and seeing that side as families rarely get to see sometimes the professional accomplishments that also and also get treated to your point. Like, they're often making the sacrifice because that person is out on the road trying to close business, trying to, you know, do their job. The people at home often have to cover for things. We're not talking about secret families. We're not talking about any of that stuff, covering for things, but extras, you know, rides to school or practice, whatever whatever it is in your life is like, that person at home is having to make those sacrifices as well. So I love that the company recognized the depth of the accomplishment, that it's not just on the surface, that there's other people that are responsible for that, and that then people got to be a part of that celebration. I think too, what a special moment knowing it was a surprise. All the work that you all went into making sure that it was a surprise, what a moment that must have been for that award recipient to turn around. It's almost like you see those videos of the, like, soldiers returning and surprising people. That's sort of what I had in my mind for this. Yeah. At that point, I was backstage loading up slides for the next morning, but I did hear, like, people, like, gasp and clapping and all of that. So it did seem like it, the recipients were very appreciative. And then, again, we still had, I think, another, like, day or two for the event, and so their families were still there. And so, it was a good way for, again, the families to kinda see what it is that their spouse or their father, whomever, does all day in a way that it's not until you go to a sales meeting that you really can experience, like, the impact of a medical device from, like, start to finish. And so I think they really appreciated all of that. But because I'm in a new role, I actually don't have to project manage. If they decide to do it, they go. You're off the hook. So I just feel bad for whoever does. Well, Lanice, thank you for joining us and sharing that story. Again, Melissa, Lexi, and Lanice are all members of ICology. So this is the type of interactions we can have on a daily basis inside the community. Thank you, Lanise. We're now gonna welcome David Title up to the stage. David is a partner at Bravo Media who I've gotten to know over the past, several months and is also an ICology member. And David, talk a little bit more about what Bravo Media does because you guys do some of this stuff every day for companies, but I also wanna get your insights into what you just heard in these three examples and what stood out to you. Sure. So Bravo Media is a at our core, we're an experiential production company, and our focus is on real world, real time experiences that take a lot of different forms. And most applicable to to the folks that, are here with us today, we do a lot of work with, various companies and organizations around both, events of various sizes and also, more and more within the sort of workplace environment, on an ongoing basis. And we come at that from a distinctly sort of technology and and content perspective. So a lot of our team is coming out of either interactive development and programming or out of, animation and design. And then we work together with all these organizations to help, essentially to achieve the goals that are underlying all of these events and all of these, investments that get made in in both the workplace and the workplace experience. And so we have, some of some quick highlights, I guess. We just finished doing a big conference with KPMG, which they host around 350 tax professionals in Miami, and we actually created an entire retro video arcade of classic games reimagined with a lot of inside jokes that only the tax professionals got. And, they were really excited because they got to go go really soon. So we had missed tax man, and we had transfer price, which was Frogger, compliance hunter, and, and a bunch of other fun things. We also do a lot of work along with helping to create really dynamic displays and environments for these, experience to take place in, all with the goal of really working with each each of our clients around what are the underlying reasons for this event or for this, on the corporate environment side we're seeing so much digital display going. Why is this all going in? What is its job? What is its purpose? How are you going to achieve that? Why are you having the sales meeting? Why are you having this gathering? Why are you having this recognition? What are those underlying goals? And then what ways might we be able to help enhance that through various utilizations of new technology? So unsurprisingly, we're doing a bunch of, AI integrations. I saw that great, magazine photo booth that, that, Lexi had shown in her event, and we've we did a similar thing for Capital One and Inc Magazine using AI to let everyone create their own personalized cover of Inc Magazine, in a classic business casual outfit, generated by AI. And, you know, one thing that came up a bunch in in what they're talking about is this is a is a core thing that we have really tried to infuse into our lot a lot of our work, whether it's for corporate or consumer or you know, one thing we always remind ourselves is the same people that are going and, looking for great experiences at, you know, Disney World or the latest immersive attraction are the same people going to your sales meeting, the same people going to your office every day. They're not different people. The same things get us excited and get us engaged. But we have this concept that we've really developed, which is which is we call come, create, share. And it's how do we foster experiences that help us move across that continuum. And because there's a real powerful engagement that happens when you give people an opportunity to be some place unique and special than to participate in in activity or an activation or a process that then results in something that they have been able to participate in that then become shareable in some manner. So I'm I, you know, I love the Lego ship. I love the magazine photo booth, and we're always looking for other ways to do that, to expand the engagement, to give folks a way to, not just have that experience in the moment, but how do we amplify that experience? Can we scale that experience? We've been doing a lot of things even now, with, you know, other ways to bring hybrid elements into, you know, a strong return to, thankfully, in person events. But, you know, how does the hybrid world and what can we do? What technologies can we implement? So, you know, how you know, we're currently working on a, with a group who does a similar to, Lexi's event, but it's a, like, a three or four day retreat. And we're actually developing a custom, app that, in the background of this event has created a whole storytelling game that people can be working on in the background and encourages various moments to meet up and network and share information. And there's sort of a mystery, that's playing out as a sort of undercurrent to the event. And, it's been a really a fun way to infuse, again, that extra level of participation and and and a way to get everybody sort of active and and moving, and doing things. And I think that's really, really important. I love the, you know, the notion of how, you know, in a sense, Melissa has the advantage, you know, a shipyard and what they do is is already very cool. And, I we've done a lot of work in retail and and LEGO. If you run if you're running LEGO, you know, creating experiences is pretty simple. We can start with LEGO. But if you're working in financial services, if you're working in pharmaceuticals, there's less of those tangible things become a little more, conceptual. And so the other thing and that's why the retro arcade for KPMG, how do we help concretize and make visceral some of the more conceptual elements of these businesses and and what moves them and motivates them and drives them and bring them down into these sort of focused moments that are a little more, you know, direct and and and and tangible and and momentary. So, you know, I think that's all, you know, super exciting. And and I also think, you know, it's really important, when we talk about investing in employees and investing in our teams, the the, you know, when we see photos or videos from, you know, retreats or or sales meetings where they haven't made that investment in the environment and they haven't made that investment in the experience, it's not just that it's not that awesome an experience. It's that it it it reflects you know, there's an expectation and it's a growing expectation as employees, as our world becomes more experiential, as as our daily routines become more integrated and more digital and more interactive. We're looking for those experiences in the workplace. We're looking for those experiences at our events. And, you know, the technology is now there and it's so accessible and and scalable. And, you know, we're also looking at at you know, it's great when you do these massive moments, but, you know, what's how do you scale those down into those smaller moments that happen throughout the course of a of a week or a month or a year within those employee environments. So that's that's a lot of what we're trying to figure out. And and, again, we really we're coming at it very much from a direct, you know, what can we make? What can we create? What can we, what can we bring into these experiences that are not just window dressing, that aren't just fun, but help to meet underlying objectives. The other piece about bringing in some of that technology is there's a lot of data that can be collected at these events. All kinds of information that can be really useful, moving forward and creating, activations that help gather that, data in ways that don't feel, either intrusive or, I don't know, unfair or or pushy. But how can we create experiences that then generate more interesting information that can be fed back into the company as well? Yeah. So, David, I put a link to your website with this KPMG examples. People were wanting to see some of those tax knee slappers, I think, that were in there. So they've got Yeah. Yeah. They're And I think what I what I loved about all three examples and the work, David, that you all do is that nobody's stopping short. It there's always an easier way. There's always an easy out. But it's that taking the next step. It's going maybe a bit too far for some as that's what helps make that moment. That's a big part of this Power of Moments book is is taking it to the next level. So thank you, David, for sharing some of that. If I could have Melissa, Alexi, and Lanice, come back on and join us all on stage. Click that, green button there on the bottom right. Can we go into the chat and get a round of applause for, all of our speakers for joining us today? I think, David, people are learning the physics. Being in the Bravo Media office is an experience. Everybody's seeing all the stuff going on going on behind you. But, yes, I think those are all wonderful examples in showing the role that comms can play in helping deliver that moment. We're not responsible always for the moment. We can help deliver the moments, that ultimately make a difference in that employee experience. I did wanna go into the q and a here to sort one, and I'm gonna pull up a question from Rachel Medanek, and I'm gonna I'll start off with Melissa and just again, we've got about five, six minutes left, so we wanna be concise here. But it's always easy to for a leadership team to say no or, oh, that's a big expense, or we need to cut that this year. How do you how did you get the leadership support in saying, not only is this something we wanna do once, but we wanna keep doing time and time again? Yeah. I think there was, like, this was something that from the top down, we had a ton of support for. I think everyone knew coming out of the pandemic there was a need to host this kind of event and a need to bring people together. And so we had a ton of support from leadership from the get go. However, we also thought this may be sort of that one off we do at one time, see how it goes, which can be a blessing and a curse when you do such a great job that they wanna do it again. So it ended up being an it's an annual event now. I'm not sure that we expected that, because leadership has really seen the payoff, if you will, and the impact that this has had, for our workforce. It's something that is an investment and it's budgeted for. However, we see the results, in how it's impacted our culture and impacted people and the stories that come out of it for years to come, I think has been, something that's just reaffirmed their decision that they want to host this event every year and are very supportive of our team doing that. And, Lexi, I'm gonna add a slightly different spin to that question for you for you because this one's specific for you is we're not gonna ask you what the event budget amount was. But I'm a bit curious too, like, where did this budget sit for the event? How was it originally improved? And and has there been any sort of ROI? Everyone's favorite ROI calculation. But has there been those sort of calculations done for the assembly? Yeah. So, to I think I'll mimic what Melissa's saying. It really is a CEO initiative. We did in the past, we've done smaller scale things where it was just our senior leadership team, and he when he joined us a little over a year ago, said, no. This needs to extend to all leaders. Like, that's not a question, and it needs to be twice a year. So him having the value in that, I think, is really with the catalyst for this. This event budget has always really sat with our leadership development and talent acquisition team, and we are a partner to them in that work from the experience piece to the execution of it. And think that his the CEO's backing behind it really helped to grow that budget. And I think we delivered on the first one where, we kind of created an expectation, and he is allowing the budget to be allocated to continue to meet and exceed those expectations as we continue to move forward. I I think just the value recognizing the value that the leader's role plays in culture, experience, engagement, to him, this money is well spent. Yeah. I think it absolutely like I said, if I was the leader there, it sends a message that the company believes I'm worth being invested in. I think that it's not this roll out the show, roll out the chairs, watch a bunch of PowerPoints, have a boxed lunch. Like, it it is an experience. And I think then it has to, I would imagine, build anticipation for the one that you have coming up in a few weeks. Yes. It absolutely does. And I'll add this too is leaders don't get to go to this and then say, okay. It's fun. Right? You get to enjoy this. There is the expectation that they are bringing this back to their team. They're using best practices in communicating with their team, engaging their team. There is a goal that leaders are expected to deliver on, and so it's not just say let's have fun today. Right? And that's it. It it really is with the expectation of that. With ROI, I don't know if we have any, you know, exact metrics that we could tie back, you know, one for one. Right? But all we've moved the needle in all of our kind of camps that we look at quality, financial, engagement, team member experience, and we know a lot of that starts at the direct managers level. And so, maybe not exact, you know, causation, but definitely some correlation in a lot of the things we're activating. I'd also say that these David, I was gonna say you next. Yeah. I got a question for you next. Thirty seconds or less, David. Who who do you typically work with in an organization? Who brings you in from KPMG or one of your clients? What what department does that? So it really I mean, a lot of it depends on how those companies are structured. There are, some of the companies, KPMG is a good example, has a dedicated events group, that we tend to be brought into directly, although KPMG is one of those companies that's very siloed into different groups. So there's a event group for each one of those groups within those groups. And then, a lot of times, it is tied in with marketing. It is tied in with with with internal comms if it's an internal only event, and, marketing gets more involved if it's externally facing in some way. But, to both Melissa and Lexi's point, the events, the the the business corporate events that we're involved in that are the most successful are always always the ones where those the those there is somebody in that c suite that is championing, that is that wants that piece to happen because somebody that has to see and understand the value in it. And because it isn't as directly attributable, though I think it is all kinds of attributable. And I also think those investments, not only is it all those other benefits, it is a positive show of strength for that company to say, we can do this. We are able to do this. And as an employee, you want to be working for companies that are, secure and confident and, and and, ready to make those commitments and those investments. And so it's it works on so many levels. I wanna break into that. I like David. I New York thirty seconds. A New York thirty seconds. Not a not a Georgia thirty seconds. We we are at time. Go into the docs in the top right. Everyone go in there and click. We've got two events coming up this Thursday. I'll be doing our, session on AI video live from Las Vegas. Next week, we're doing one around recognition, around who owns thank you. So please join us for those. And if you click that join at College League, join us today. Use the coupon code virtual love. If you sign up today, I will send you a copy of this, the power of moments book. Again, it's one of my recommendations. Thank you, David, Melissa, and Lexi, and Lanice for joining us today. Thank you all those that joined as attendees. Hoping this has been helpful and has inspired you. And as always, please reach out to any of our speakers today. They would love to connect with you and answer any additional questions. And better yet, join us inside ICology. Thanks, everybody. Thank you.