For exciting and impactful end of year events

For many years now, we have helped companies and organisations run Xmas and New Year events that have been a combination of future thinking, team building, and celebration.

People learn best when they are interactively involved and having fun (hence no death by PowerPoint). And team building is most effective when it impacts real work and activities of the colleagues involved. For that reason we construct our events to ensure that all are engaged, and that any “games” are not just abstract exercises.

For instance, we often help organisations – with groups of up to 100 people – to role play their competitors (or suppliers, customers, regulators, donors, beneficiaries…), and to make use of the business intelligence by getting colleagues (some of whom may not be so involved with the “outside world”) to put themselves in the shoes of others who are important to the organisation.

With smaller groups, we have colleagues put themselves in the shoes of other functions of their own company (e.g. marketing becomes finance…) to understand better the constraints and imperatives of others. The methods are always fun, but ensure the play-acting is grounded in reality (on an empathetic, and factual level). Such games require preparation (especially if there is not so much business intelligence available) but can be delivered in half or one day sessions prior to a joint dinner or party.

In other cases, the emphasis has been on designing new services, products, or ways of doing things, especially after having taken account of future challenges. Usually this involves a series of design thinking sessions after the group is immersed in possible future scenarios – and creating tangible models to represent the ideas generated. Again a good session for half a day

For a shorters slot still, we use what Edward de Bono would term “Provocation Operations” – in a gaming environment, having colleagues  think about issues that they would normally not bring together, to create a new idea. Our emphasis is on how certain combinations of future events could provoke a demand for innovation.

Moreover, for geographically  spread teams, who are not able to come together physically for an end of year/hnew year celebration, we have created a few 2,5-D and 3-D experiences, where using the metaverse it is possible to engage in small talk, speed dating, visioning, and experimenting with future challenges. These immersive environments are nothing like MSTeams or Zoom, but not so challenging to organise as Virtual Reality. We employ browser-based environments that can be accessed even through most corporate firewalls, and that can be immersive even on a computer desk top.

And a well-designed end of year virtual party can be rounded off by ensuring that real products (snacks, drinks and presents) are sent to each participant in advance, to then consume really, whilst virtually together…

If you are interested in co-creating an event with us, let us know! Adrian.Taylor@4sing.com