Give customers the bragging rights that spur them to tell others about their experience at your place or event.  I wondered. Was it the butterscotch-colored walls, light coconut scent wafting through the door as I opened it or the cushy island of deep blue carpet under my feet as I stepped into the boutique hotel?

I don’t know yet I instinctively sighed with relief. And that was before I saw the the smiling doorman walking towards me, saying, “We’re glad that you’re safely out of that storm. Let me help you with your coat, if you like, and your bag.”

The lobby was light with the soft, full-spectrum lights that store make-up counters have, making us all look and feel our best.

Hint: Positive sensory cues multiple their emotional effect when we feel more than one at once or in quick succession.

In fact, without my knowing it at the time, that doorman looked more handsome and caring than I would have experienced him if the entry to that hotel had shiny metal railings, an elaborately patterned carpet and/or a dark colored wall. Further, since the “closing scene” when I left the hotel the next morning was as a positive as the opening scene, I tended to forget the slow room service or  cramped bathroom, according to research on the power of the sequence of events within an experience – from a vacation to a colonscopy.

That’s why it behooves anyone who wants their guests, customers, conferenceattendees or families at home to feel welcome, brag about their experience and act nicely to storyboard the sequence of multi-sensory experiences that those they serve or love experience in their “place.”

Even apparently small physical experiences make a big emotional and even learning difference. Adapt these multi-sensory cues to emotionally engage with others:

1. Children “are better at math when using their hands while thinking,” found to Josh Ackerman, a MIT psychologist. Further, the weight, texture and hardness of objects we touch affects our opinion of the people and the situation.

2. Actors recall lines better when moving and we remember more when walking, gesturing, eating or physically working on something.

3. “People are more generous after holding a warm cup of coffee and more callous after hold a cold drink,” discovered Yale University psychologist John Bargh.

4. Patterns, whether on the walls or floor or upper part of one’s clothing, break up the observers’ attention span and, like ambient noise in a room from the heating or air conditioning system, make us more agitated and inclined to become irritated by each other’s behavior.

5. Scent is the most directly emotional sense and thus a two-edge sword. If the evoked memory is positive it hits deeply and, if not….well, we are more likely to project bad characteristics on the scene and individuals around us.

6. Enable people to engage in the scenes or objects around them and gain bragging rights as a consequence. Have a “What’s next for you?” sign on a large bowl of positive sayings or fortunes near places where they must wait or pause, such as check-in areas.  Staff can encourage them to read theirs aloud. (The more actions we take on behalf of something the more deeply they believe in it, identify with it and will share it with others.)

7. Encourage colleagues to stand and walk side-by-side with those you serve this “sidling” is more likely to evoke a convivial  “us” feeling.

8. Create a story about your region, place, interactive object or monument or event, hopefully involving humorous, heroic or otherwise emotional incidents andindividuals, where you can invite those you serve to become a part of that story, asPeter Gruber suggests.

They may become a part  of “our” story when they can participate your custom ritual, receive your souvenir as a gift, eat the snack that’s part of the story or you take a photo of them in front of the scene on the wall that represents a highlight of our story – and email it to them after they leave.

9. Continue to keep them involved with “our story.” Use geosocial apps that enable them to connect with each other – and your staff – as they walk through your store, hotel, hospital, sports arena or event. That’s what DoubleDutch did for TED conference attendees. And use augmented reality apps, as in Tuscany, yet to enable people to discover more about your area, place or meeting.

What multi-sensory cues have you used to involve people in your place, event or other experience?  Also share your favorite cues to bring us closer via Twitter. I am @kareanderson.

Dog lovers, civic-minded coders, Civil War buffs and cyclists have two things in common.

They are ardent about their special interest and thus they are more likely to be active in an online community.

They want to share their experiences and know-how with others who feel as passionate as they do about their special interest.

Some want more.  They’d like to lead like-mind folks or to team-up around shared experiences and/or accomplish something greater related to their interest.

Like hosting the hottest party everyone wants to attend, why not start the most popular online community that best serves the people who share your passionate interest? Like you, they are intrinsically motivated to meet, demonstrate expertise, learn from each other and belong to a tribe around their hot interest.  In hosting an online community you can accelerate your learning and friendships  — with others.

1.  Delight members in ways that attract funding from company sponsors

A. Such sponsors could, instead of providing traditional advertising, make special offers of free products “available to members-only” to those who are willing to give feedback on those products.

B. Company sponsors can also provide eCoupon-based prizes for winners of members-only contests.

For example, start an online community for kayakers where they vote, each month for their favorite, member-contributed tips related to themed contests such as best dinner-by-the-river meals. All members get a set number of votes. The top ten most popular contributors in each contest might get eCoupon prizes from REI, Trader Joe’s and others.

Providing eCoupons as prize providers is one of the most compelling, credible and cost-effective ways for companies to be visible in key niche markets and to pull winners through their doors, perhaps getting something else they see, as they redeem their coupons.

Such contests serve you as community host because they:

•  Attract new members

• Keep members engaged

• Inspire members to contribute high-quality, relevant tips

• Attract bloggers and your kind of media coverage as contests announcements are inherent news hooks

• Increase the total prize value over time as more members participate, creating a virtuous circle of ever larger membership and prize value.

2. Make your community top-of-mind in your niche

Here’ are four ways to become the go-to place for the people you want to attract and involve in your community.

Make your community the:

1. Only group serving your kind of interest, and/or
2. Biggest
3. Most exclusive
4. Best at something such as hosting a conference, fair, tradeshow, speed consulting or other kind of event.

Alternatively your community might be designed to offer and attract the best content or unique and valued service.

Here’s two examples:

1. Some fractional ownership sites morph into communities as individuals become acquainted via sharing. People may share rarely-used tools or other objects at DIYFractional. The natural next step is for those local communities to get networked, creating, for example, NeighborhoodGoods.

Others meet online to share specific, big ticket items including second homes, luxury cars or motorcycles, and even jets. Common interests and conversation beget community. See how you can adapt one kind of community design or purpose to serve another?

2. SheSpeaks provides a community of women with free samples of products that interest them in exchange for providing candid, specific feedback to the makers of those products.

Of course it helps to be the best at several things – for the people in your community.  Be the best place to:

•  Get answers, referral and/or recommendations

•  Buy and sell

•  Collectively advocate

•  Start a smaller special group within the larger community

•  Collaborate in some specific way that is facilitated in the community:

-       Cross-consult

-        Co-create a tip sheet, fundraiser, for-members-only service, product to sell, etc.

-        Crowdsource your niche

Can you imagine hosting an online gathering place related to your interest? It could be pro bono work, as your service to that community. Alternatively it could be your self-organized moonlighting job, perhaps in partnership with others — or it might morph into a full-time calling or job.

If you’d like to explore these possibilities,  here’s some places to learn more about cultivating an active, online community. For interviews, tips and strategies about community management for all kinds of communities, visit The Community Roundtable hosted by Rachel Happe and Jim Storer. For pithy, practical tips see Rich Milligan at Feverbee, Managing Communities’ author Patrick O’Keefe and community strategist Angela Connor. If your interest relates to a cause or non-profit there’s  no better place to start than at Beth Kanter’s blog. If you want your online community boost your company ties to key stakeholders, see Connie Bensen.

And, since community-building is all about specific, apt ways to collaborate see this  collaboration daily paper curated from over 100 experts — and create your own community-centered paper.

Also peruse these lists of collaboration-related resources and books and tools, where you can add your own favorites — and create your own community-attracting list. For non-profit communities Beth Kanter’s blog is a great place to start. Connie Benson has insights about company-centered community management.

See Validation or The Chase and get inspired by the innovative ways talented “amateurs” get paid for their co-created video vignettes.

You, too, can gather the team for your video story. Media agencies can provide the sponsoring companies that want to be associated, by name, with a positively captivating vignette or story that can be seen, for free online or on our new TV/computer.

With the proliferation of screens, we will get used to watching video most anywhere:

• The appetite for engrossing, increasingly well-done, short-form and long-form “movies” will explode – and so will the need for content.

• The power of the video story and word-of-mouth will attract viewers rather than a TV ad campaign.

• The clusters of people who prove they can create audience-attracting content will attract sponsors; soon they may not need the middleman, the media agency to get paid.

• Different teams of talent will form, including  “amateur” actors and editors.

• Individuals will make money teaching others how to create the videos.

• Many teams will create for the niche they know best – people like them. Those “markets” may range from college students to church-goers, from labradoodle lovers to locavores. And they may get paid by the companies that want to reach that market.

• The cream will rise to the top. Some teams of video co-creators won’t last as individuals re-group into more permanent groups of most-talented individuals. Some individuals may get involved in more than one group as their interests change or their talents develop.

•  Like the already disrupted worlds of movie creation and distribution, we, as video storytellers will continue to morph in the ways we co-create, get paid and get our work seen on screens. But this shift will increasingly benefit the adept collectives of storytellers.

Why? Because, in this increasingly connected world:

1. Ideas and stories that pull us in are more valuable than advertising that is pushed at us.

2. It will keep getting easier for talented individuals with a shared interest to find each other and cheaper to co-create stories.

3. Increasingly businesses will pay to be associated with content, including video stories, that reinforces the personality and differentiating value of their brand.

4. The need for middlemen melts as as the number of direct distribution channels (online, smart phone, tablet etc.) increases.

5. The ability for an unknown group to build a loyal, growing and sometimes collaborative following for their stories increases as #4 increases.

6. As the power  continues to shift for consumer-serving companies, from sellers to buyers, buyers gain a bigger voice in what they want to watch so the makers of their favorite videos gain clout and capacity monetize their work. Plus those video storytellers can get real time feedback via their own site, Twitter, Facebook and other social media so they can use that input in their future creations.

• Within a year you’ll probably see a crowdsourcing-style web site where companies can call for the kind of stories they’d like to have created for them.

More excitingly:

- Individuals will recruit others to join them on a specific video project.

- Teams will seek businesses to pay for their concept or completed video.

What video role would you like to play in this next chapter of your life adventure? Writer, actor, videographer, multi-media mash-up editor, location spotter, scenes or costume creator, or?

Whether you’re on a project team, party-planning or seeking customers’ input to improve your product you have more chance of success with the right collaborative tools.

Often, the trouble is finding the best methods or tools when you need them. Here’s a shareable list to which you can add your favorites. It’s exciting and overwhelming to see the flood of inventive software, apps and more that pop up every day to help us.

Here are some of the tools and ways they can be used to accomplish more with others:

• Brainstorm and plan together, drawing your ideas on the wall. Turn any smooth surface into a “dry erase” place using IdeaPaint.

• Your team can stay on task and be accountable to each other using AtTask.

• Start a learning community where peers, fellow enthusiasts, employees, customers or fans teach each other, using Bloomfire.

• Enable all club or association members or business employees to participate in suggesting innovations and growing great ideas from fuzzy inceptions to solid, actionable projects, with Brainbank.

• Teammates can quickly and dynamically create and refine charts, allowing other users to be invited in to review, comment on, and update a diagram in a matter of minutes without having to go through the process of saving a copy of a file, attempting to email it, making sure the recipient has the same program, and waiting for a reply, using Creately.

• Find out what your employees really know about your business and thus crowdsource innovation, tapping the “wisdom of crowds” to improve what you sell and how you sell it, using Crowdcast.

• For crowdsourcing funding for creative projects try Kickstarter.

• Just as Cisco, with its popular I-Prize, involved BrightIdea and Spigit in crowdsourcing innovative ideas you can use a crowdsourcing tool to tap the wisdom of the crowd. That way you can efficiently filter out best ideas and recognize and reward those who submit them as Ireland did. Jive offers another robust approach to crowdsourcing.

• For your group, start a Wordpress blog-like social network that enables everyone in your company, school, sports team or niche community to contribute ideas, using BuddyPress.

• Co-create maps for that you can share via your mobile phones, using CloudMade.

• In real-time, meet with colleagues around the world, using dimdim to participate in real-time meetings. You can collaborate by sharing their desktops, slides, and other materials with each other. Meeting participants can also chat and speak to each other, as well as broadcast themselves via webcams. Or up to ten people can meet for free online, and share screens and co-draw items using Mikogo.

• Spot a pothole or graffiti when out doing errands? Use CitySourced on your cell phone to report them to city hall for quick resolution. This is an opportunity for government to use technology to save money and improve accountability to those they govern, using CitySourced.

• Effortlessly group text your committee, team or group of close friends with GroupMe. It works on every phone.

• If several of you are planning an event, trip or project and want to easily share and track expenses, use WePay.

What other tools have helped you in collaborating?

Please add them to this list of 97 tools.

Then you might want to peruse this list of collaboration-related books and sites – and add your own favorites, of course, in the spirit of sharing and collaboration.

“The bottom-up world is to be the great theme of this century.” ~ Matt Ridley

Nobody can know everything, nor do everything well.

Yet you can know someone who does – or know somebody who knows somebody who does.

And that may be the secret to staying sought-after in this increasingly complex and connected world.

In fact, next to honing your top talent your most vital trait to strengthen is probably your capacity to collaborate – especially with those extremely unlike you.  Seven of the ten trends in how we work involve being adept collaborators.

“Collaboration is the new competition.” ~ Pamela Slim and Michele Woodward

The next trick is understanding exactly how to connect so others want to collaborate with you. It starts with speaking to the sweet spot of mutual benefit.

“A radically different order of society based on open access, decentralized creativity, collaborative intelligence, and cheap and easy sharing is ascendant.” ~ David Bollier

For a project on which I am collaborating on with the remarkable Kris Schaeffer, ably assisted by Steven Toy (expect an announcement in December) here’s some books that helped me discover why and how to collaborate:

Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age by Clay Shirky, Collaboration: How Leaders Avoid the Traps, Create Unity and Reap Big Results by Morten T. Hansen,  Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives by Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler, The Culture of Collaboration by Evan Rosen, Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers, and Copycats are Hijacking the Global Economy by Moises Naim, The Power of Pull: How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion by John Hagel III, John Seely Brown and Lang Davison, What’s Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption by Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers, The Firefly Effect: Build Teams that Capture Creativity and Catapult Results by Kimberly Douglas, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni and Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams.

“Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they sprung up.” ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

See other books on collaboration that I recommend at Listiki and please add your favorites. After all its a collaborative list.  I also tweet about  examples of collaboration here.

“Collaborations are strengthened through appreciative relationships.  You know you’ve got it right when you find yourself in a relationship in which you are listened to, dream together, choose to contribute, act with support, and are positive.” ~ Ben Ziegler

There’s a simple, satisfying way to attract those who share your interests or seek your kind of product.  It enables you to demonstrate your expertise and it doesn’t take much time nor cost anything.

Sharing helpful tips with those who want them is more appreciated – and credibility-building – than self-promotion. In a time-starved world, the best way for people read your tips may be in a list they find online or via their smart phone. It helps people find you – and it’s a quick read.

The more specific the list the greater your chance of attracting the people you most want to reach.

Hint: Top Dog Breeds for People with Allergies. (I have yet to take my own advice here).

Your list can be a “best of” something such as books and sites on a topic or a David Letterman-style Top Ten countdown of relevant advice, or…?

For example, four of my interests are collaboration, connective conversation, human behavior and, as a paid speaker, conferences so I created a Twitter list of favorite people and organizations for each interest.

The bottom line is your list should catch the interest of the people you seek to reach.  They may be your peers, possible customers, or individuals who share your hobby, medical condition, belief, profession, industry or other interest.

Your list enables others to quickly:

•  Get ideas on a subject that interests them.

•  Know who you respect.

•  Understand a bit about your perspective and priorities.

•  Identify possible sweet spots of mutual interest.

•  Find you.

Once you’ve created your list you can share and update it online at several popular places where friends, kindred spirits and strangers are likely to find it:

• Your blog and/or web site.

• Twitter List – create several for the different parts of your life and find others who share your interests.

• Listiki – where you can invite others to add to your list.

• List of Bests – Make a list in one of three categories, personal, definitive or award.

• Posterous – where you can share your list without creating a blog.

• Facebook group page – see examples, Shareable and my Etsy where you can link to your list, first explaining why it is relevant to them.

• Linkedin group of people who have something in common – you can join or start a group, linking to your list as you would for your Facebook group.

• Ta-da – create and share “to do” lists for everything from organizations you respect to meeting agendas or famous quotes you don’t want to forget.

Q. Want to live faster or slower?  A: Yes.

Want to savor food (or fashion) slowly  but grow your career or business faster? Try a Speed Coaching event. From Hong Kong to Anaheim, this wildly popular format is being adopted to serve diverse crowds quickly.  They range from those who got pink slips to food and beverage folks,  non-profit staffers, journalists, executives, students, government staffers, indie business owners and, well, even coaches. It may be your next business – or way to attract clients.

• Picture the scene. People “are lined up outside an exhibit hall in a Manhattan hotel. The doors open, and they rush to tables set up around the room. They grab a number for each of the experts they wish to consult.

When it is their turn, they get five minutes to blurt out their questions above the din. A small digital clock on each table tracks the fleeting minutes.” Speed Coaching session times can vary from five to 20 or 30 minutes. Depending on your coach, that will seem too brief or too long, of course.  And when time is short coaches can be blunt (I mean direct).

Another format has “you and a group move one at a time through the coaching stations.”

Some Speed coaching events are free, others include keynoters, workshops and meals for up to $350.

• At the Samuel Adams Brewery in Boston, sixty microentrepreurs “jumped on the opportunity to rotate through 20-minute  discipline specific stations with 26 coaches — many of them Sam Adams employees — to get advice in business consulting, marketing, sales, people management, financing, legal advice and more.”

“Some brought their food, others came with logos and package concepts, yet others had a specific business problem they needed help solving,” said marketing expert, Risa Sherman who coached on behalf of her client, Sam Adams.

Thinking of hosting a Speed Coaching event? Involve sponsors and coaches that serve the same niche

This Speed Coaching event, part of the American Dream program, targeted entrepreneurs in the food, beverage and hospitality business.  Thus the lead sponsor, The Boston Beer Company partnered with a non-profit that trains microentrepreurs - ACCION USA.

To spotlight Boston Beer, founder Jim Koch gave a talk as did the president of another sponsor, Carol Coutrier, with the Massachusetts Specialty Foods Association. The danger is if keynoters are boring and sour attendees on the event. In this case, coach Risa Sherman wrote, “for many, the highlight of the event was listening to their talks.”

Sherman dubbed this approach by Sam Adams as “strategic skills based volunteerism.” Another participant, Erika labeled it “engaged philanthropy.”  Whatever you call these partner-based Speed Coaching events, they can leverage value and efficiency for all participants.

That’s a good thing in a bad economy. (The format proved so popular that the partners chose to host another in Providence.)

• And on the west coast over 200 entrepreneurs showed up last month in Anaheim (it was free) for the “Small Business Speed Coaching Test Drive.”  It’s part of a cross-country tour co-sponsored by SCORE (experienced, often retired business folks) and American Express’ Open Forum group dedicating to supporting small business.

Their format includes, not only 30-minute speed coaching sessions, but a keynoter, panel discussions, workshops and a mixer. Topics include strategic business planning, marketing and business finances.

• Women’s Leadership Exchange promotes their popular Speed Coaching events as an opportunity to have private coaching from experts, “many of their coaching services typically run as much as $500 per hour.” (That might be a stretch.)

• Here’s still another format. “A Speed Coaching & Networking Lunch.” Just $27. Aspiring local government leaders in Northern California can connect one-on-one with senior managers from cities, counties and special districts this month.

• To help their women students learn how to brand themselves (and to build the sponsors’ brand visibility) Wharton forged a partnership with their alumnae group and others S.F. Bay area partners -  Financial Women’s Association and Ascend - to jointly offer a Speed Coaching day. Deloitte, Clorox and other supporting organizations recruited volunteer coaches.

As you consider the role you might want to play in Speed  Coaching, consider the benefits to participants in this event. It managed to:

- Raise the positive, public visibility of all sponsoring organizations.

- Enable students and alumni to get to know each other and, in some cases form friendships and mentoring relationships.

-  Strengthened ties with alumni involved, which can payoff in future fund raising other volunteer needs.

- Help the college forge local corporate partnerships “with organizations that share values like development and diversity”  - and, of course, raise Wharton brand visibility and credibility.

- Provide sponsoring companies with a first-hand look at rising stars as potential employees.

• Software firm, Siveco, is such a fan of Speed Coaching it supports its customer/users by providing them in two-hour sessions.  Could your company or membership-based club or association offer it as a service?   If you did, your organization might enjoy …

-  Better, happier customer/member performance.

-  Loyalty to your firm or other organization.

-  Appreciation from participants because you facilitated their collaboration  with each other after meeting at your Speed Coaching event.

• What next?  Virtual Speech Coaching. That seems to dilute the purpose of getting fast but in-person advice.

Some hints if you choose to attend a Speed Coaching event:

• Carefully review the list of experts, if provided in advance, to choose your top two to meet.

• Use old-fashioned 3×5 cards to write your questions out ahead of time, one set per coach.  On the backside of the card or in a notebook take notes on the answers you get.

Diane Cuniff, for example, of cageless doggy daycare The Bone Adventure, wanted advice on whether to buy or lease property for a second location. And Monica Herrera and Ronald Brown are starting a biofuels project so they want to know how to get government contracts.

• Take a digital recorder, say an Olympus and, with their permission, tape sessions.

• Later, thank every coach with whom you met –  preferably by email. It’s the polite thing to do.  Plus your coach and/or the sponsoring groups may use your well-crafted “thank you” as a testimonial – thus boosting your visibility.

What If …

• Your group hosted a Speed Coaching event? Some member-based groups, like National Tour Association are ideal for speedcoaching at their annual meeting – or as a pre-conference afternoon.

After I spoke at NTA I was fascinated watching the long rows of tables at which locale promoters leaned forward over their photo-filled spiral notebooks, alert and ready for the precious ten minutes to show each bus tour operator why he should stop at their sight to see. In my Sausalito, whenever I see tour buses open and tourists spill onto our main street I wonder. What was the pitch that sealed the deal to drop them off here?

• You organized a Speed Coaching event for your profession or industry – as a service and/or to make money? You know, first-hand, the issues and opportunities your peers experience. What experts have the skill, interest and credibility to coach them? How would you make it worth their while to volunteer?

Beyond the obvious joy in sharing knowledge with people who really want it, how does the way you design the event, its promotion and online visibility afterwards help them attract clients or boost their career in their corporation?

What companies and associations also want exposure to that niche?  They could be sponsors, recruit coaches and other volunteers  - or survey attendees where the results would be helpful to them, the respondents and other people like them.

• You offered to recruit volunteers to cover a Speed Coaching event? Other than the private coaching, be sure that other parts of the day are videoed so that the learning and visibility for all participants continues.

Volunteer citizen reporters can use a Flip to video:

1.  Sessions: keynote(s), panel(s) and workshop(s) if you have them

2.  Coaches, and those in #1 in short two to three minute interviews:

“What are two of your best tips for these attendees?”

“What one or two books do you recommend for our attendees and why?

3.  Attendees, also in brief interviews, roving the event, asking:

“What is your favorite bit of advice so far – from whom?”

“What will you do differently after today?”

See more at Elevate your Value and Visibility by Jointly Offering a Speed Coaching Event

If a hotel can become famous for leading ducks across their lobby at 11:00 then certainly your business can become more well-known for some simple ritual that customers like to photograph and tell others about and reporters love to cover.

In fact it’s surprising that so few businesses and other organizations see the power of memory-making rituals that we keep talking about the few that do. And instead of creating a new ritual a sister hotel simply imitated the duck walk. You can do better.

1. Think quirky

As all actors know, a cute kid or animal almost always steals the show.  For example the annual ritual that raised $120,000 this year in a town of just 2,404 is the weiner dog race.  That’s right. Long, cute dogs. People and their pets came from all over the country for the chance to compete.

2. Create community around your ritual

The race is a great example of what the beneficiary of the race, the Lions Club calls a “core belief – community is what we make it.” It has been an annual tradition around which dog owners (and their families and friends) meet to compare notes and catch-up. Hint: the more fervent the community the more valuable your participation can be for your organization.

3. Offer the unexpected

Instead of “just” offering a loaner car like the one you are getting serviced a British Volvo dealership also offers bikes as loaners. The dealership enjoys two benefits  – deepening the loyalty of its eco-minded customers and attracting worldwide media coverage.

4. Reduce your cost of providing that ritual by partnering

Volvo’s ritual was then topped by Fiat in Spain. By partnering with electric bicycle maker Trek it could make the same offer yet without the cost of buying and maintaining the bikes. Trek benefits by getting a warmed-up introduction to possible customers.

The bonus benefits are that many of the people who saw the cyclists heard also saw the message on the bike and many of the cyclists told their friends about their experience.

5. Give a souvenir sample whenever people have to wait – or even pause

For a client years ago I set up an experiment in which those waiting in a movie theater line were greeted by smiling, good-looking college students and offered a free ice cream bon bon on a silver tray. One each. The students simply walked down the line, saying, “Like a tasty bon bon while you’re waiting? If you like it there are more inside.”

The results of that study were so positive the theater chain intermittently continued the practice. (Intermittent rewards create more happiness, perhaps because of the hedonic treadmill effect yet we crave the certainty of constancy – “the ducks will walk across at 11″). When bon bons are offered movie theatre snacks go up an average of 26 percent.

For the owner of seven upscale restaurants in London we did a similar experiment with wine.  Per customer sales went up as average of 23 percent.

Then we suggested that the restauranteur approach his wine distributers to offer them the opportunity to provide their wine, at cost.  Several agreed so he could rotate the kinds of wine he gave waiting guests.

For this sampling ritual, the wait staff, while offering the tray with the glasses of wine, showed the bottle and said the vinter’s name.   That was so successful that wine makers now vie for the opportunity to give their wine for such samplings. They also began offering samplings to delighted diners during their meal.

That way more customers get free wine and often wind up ordering more wine.

The participating vintners get their wines introduced in a relaxed, convivial atmosphere.

Cost-saving Hint: Make your ritual so popular that you can attract partners that want to participate in it.  That way you can offer your customers that ritual more often yet at a lower cost to you.

Conclusion

Most any consumer-serving place can create a small, simple-to-execute ritual that:

• Gives an unexpected experience to customers, one they can brag about – and others can see them enjoying.

• Increases sales.

• Attracts media coverage.

• Demonstrates the value of partners participating so the cost of offering that ritual go down.

See more ways to profitably partner and then create your own, unique, customer-attracting ritual – with the right partners.

Want to be in the book, The Obama Time Capsule: World History in the Making?

Any of us could be a co-author, thanks to a partnership between fellow Sausalitan, photographer and editor of “Day in the Life of…” big theme books Rick Smolan and Hewlett-Packard and Amazon.

Together they enable you to place yourself (your photo, writing, video) in a point in history.  More plainly in a book of photos, maps, election results and essays from Joe Klein, Colin Powell and other notables. I like the collective approach, think the product is pricey and believe we’ll see imaginative variations of this approach, perhaps instigated by you.

At a much more humble level I partnered with three women CEOs in India who inserted their examples, quotes and advice in my book, Resolving Conflict Sooner, thus becoming co-authors in that book published in India, promoted by them, giving each a new facet to their public face, enabling me to learn from them and providing us all with a new profit center.

As an expert on something (you certainly are!) you, too, could turn your content into an online multimedia book or scrapbook, providing places where complementary experts could insert their relevant tips, video and audio to:

• Increase the value of the collectively-created book.

• Generate more visibility as all contributors tell their friends and clients about it.

• Enable co-authors to learn from each other via their blended contribution.

Via social media you can spur involvement.

Start simple by creating a Scrapblog covering your favorite subject or event, then invite convivial colleagues to contribute their words, images and photos, then tell the world of people who care about that topic.  With each new contributor “our” scrapbook can become more interesting, valuable and talked about.

Or, even simpler, start a group at Posterous, set the stage with your narrative of text, photos and video.

“We live in the age of interdependence. Borders don’t count for much or stop much, good or bad, anymore ~ Bill Clinton

One person didn’t cause it. Like most great events Independence Day happened because people came together around an idea greater than any single individual. Within that revolutionary declaration of how these united states should be governed are “firsts” that inspire us today.

“Problems can become opportunities when the right people come together.” ~ Robert South

When some of us believe that a freedom or responsibility in this noble experiment is being ignored fierce – and open –  debate ensues amongst many of us.

“My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular. ~ Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.

Our greatest weakness comes not from without but from within. Each time we do not vote or speak up in civil debate or take action, we dilute our collective strength. In celebrating this day of independence let’s recall it happened because people came together to accomplish something greater than they could alone.

“Ideas are a capital that bears interest only in the hands of talent.” ~ Antoine de Rivarol

That is the inherent Me2We opportunity for Americans. Wherever you live the possibility of peace and freedom burn bright only when people rise up together. It may not be the way yet it is the most likely way.

In celebration of this day, here are some Me2We thoughts (what are your favorites?)…..

“It is not in numbers, but in unity, that our great strength lies.” ~ Tom Paine

“A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.” ~ John Lennon  

 “Perhaps we are not here to see each other but to see each other through.” ~ anonymous

“The three hardest tasks in the world are neither physical feats nor intellectual achievement, but moral acts: to return love for hate, to include the excluded, and to say, I was wrong.” ~ Sydney J. Harris

“A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.” ~ Henrik Ibsen  

“Step into the strong currents of history and shape your country’s future. Your own story and the American story are not separate, they are shared. And they will both be enriched if together, we answer a new call to service.” ~ Barack Obama

“To get others to come into our ways of thinking, we must go over to theirs; and it is necessary to follow, in order to lead.” ~ William Hazlitt

“There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, that is an idea whose time has come.” ~ Victor Hugo

“The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is beside the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech.” ~ Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kenney

“Things can fall apart, or threaten to, for many reasons, and then there’s got to be a leap of faith. Ultimately, when you’re at the edge, you have to go forward or backward; if you go forward, you have to jump together.” ~ Yo Yo Ma

“A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

“We judge others by their acts, but ourselves by our intentions.” ~ American proverb

 “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

“Human beings are essentially here for two purposes – to learn about and express love, and to create.  We learn about love in all our relationships.” ~ Angeles Arrrien

“The best way that we can begin to produce positive change is to make peace with what is in ourselves and others, and then work to move forward and make life even better.”?~ Marshall Goldsmith?

“From the depth of need and despair, people can work together, can organize themselves to solve their own problems and fill their own needs with dignity and strength.” ~ Cesar Chavez 

“I think a major act of leadership right now, call it a radical act, is to create the places and processes so people can actually learn together, using our experiences.”  ~ Margaret J. Wheatley  

“Conversation means being able to disagree and still continue the discussion.” ~ Dwight Macdonald

“Man does not weave this web of life. He is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.” ~ Chief Seattle

“War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children.” ~ Jimmy Carter  

“Peace is the result of the small stitchery of everyday actions, most of them unconnected to any of the others.  Each carried out in a long train of other.” ~ Will Kirkland

“Those who are at war with others are not at peace with themselves.” ~ William Hazlitt

“We didn’t come over on the same ship, but were all in the same boat.” ~ Bernard M. Baruch

 “We take different paths in life, but no matter where we go, we take a little of each other everywhere.” ~ Tim McGraw

“We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”  ~ Benjamin Franklin 

“I am becoming the people I love.” ~ Carlos Santana