topics

FRIENDS – the Power of Social Spaces

An interactive workshop for discovery including LAB30, a 1/32 scale modeling tool with LEGO©.

The TV show FRIENDS ran for 250 episodes with 42% of the scenes filmed in two social spaces – a coffee shop and a living room. Ten years after it wrapped, FRIENDS is still a top-watched show worldwide. Central to its success is its story about the value of engagement, and we still find power in this message.

How might we design for FRIENDS? The latest Gallup poll shows that 70% of office workers are disengaged. This majority group shows up but doesn’t feel particularly connected to the organizational goals, or even other people at work. Many are “sleep working.” How might we design the workplace to improve engagement? 

Learning Objectives:

  1. What are the business costs of disengaged employees?
  2. How are disengaged employees identified?
  3. How might the disengaged be impacted by design? 

Shatter! – Break Through and be Remembered

Shatter shares the methods to quickly and dramatically grow sales and loyalty in competitive, “sea of sameness” environments. Shatter! illustrates the Power of Immersion, the Law of 10%, and nine categories of BUZZ Making. This is vastly different than sales techniques or script writing; instead, Shatter is an interactive and immersive approach into how to get your business noticed and remembered.

Shatter! – New Business by Design

Intended for design and creative professionals. Emphasizes Design’s role in new business development.  Improves innovation and creative skills with The Creative Director and Creative Mapping.

Power Tools for Change

Synopsis: In this engaging and immersive seminar, Greg Dekker reveals why the pressure for workplace change is far higher than ever before, illustrates the risks and implications of change, and shares a “greatest hits” collection of change management techniques.  Using innovative tools and materials, participants create the plan for a customer getting ready for some big changes!

Learning Objectives:

  • Pressures causing changes in the workplace
  • Risks and implications of organizational change
  • Best practice tools and techniques of change management

the JETSONS – will George still Commute to work?

Synopsis:  In a future with technology that allows nearly everyone to work from anywhere, do you think people will still travel into offices to work?  In this highly interactive facilitated workshop, you will explore and decide for yourself why – or why not – workers will work together in physical offices. You may be able to work anywhere, but you will need to work somewhere. Where should that somewhere be?

Learning Objectives:

  • What are the HUMAN factors – what drives desire about where to work?
  • What are the TECHNICAL factors – what is feasible regarding where to work?
  • What are the BUSINESS factors – what is viable for organizational objectives?
  • What should your personal workfloMAP© look like?

The FOCUS GAME.  Play it to fix your distracted worklife.

Synopsis: In 2013, the average person checked his mobile device for messages, news or entertainment 110 times per day.  Another study showed 150 times per day. That’s once every 7-9 minutes. Yet, the most common complaint at work is, “my workplace is too distracting.” In The FOCUS GAME by Greg Dekker you will:

  • Discover the causes and costs of distraction
  • Determine the most valuable activities in your life
  • Design a plan to fix your distracted worklife now
PODIUM©
PODIUM© is a professional practice group for learning, practicing and applying advanced customer collaboration.  PODIUM members begin with an immersive, 2-day workshop on a variety of engagement skills – including planning, opening, presenting, facilitating, developing questions, focusing groups, managing dysfunction, using flip charts, creating visuals, closing meetings, using workshop tools like Trash/Treasure, workfloMAP©, and much more.

Say Anything

What do text messages have in common with Apple’s Steve Jobs’ amazing presentations? It’s an irony that as Twitter and texting have taught us to write our thoughts in just 140 characters, powerpoint slides continue to become longer, more boring, and less relevant. With a few simple tools and ideas, you can create insanely great presentations that will help you be more effective and have more fun every time you need to present to others.

BUZZ Making

How to get prospects to ask you, “What is it?” See exactly how conventional advertising and marketing isn’t getting results, while BUZZ is creating sales. Get people talking about you and your brand in this exploration of nine categories of BUZZ. Lots of specific examples, stories and pictures from furniture and related industries. Participants complete a PlaceMap for use at work.

Wallpaper University

How to build a successful sales territory through the effective use of tools, questions, and math. This presentation has been conducted successfully with audiences from six to 1,200.

Iceberg Drilling

The most successful salespeople find and solve pain. With lecture and exercises, participants learn specific questions and techniques to quickly get past surface conversation and find the buyer’s true motivation. Simply effective.

The Creative Director

What techniques do top creative and advertising professionals use to increase innovation and creativity? Learn 7 proven methods. Use found objects and a PlaceMap to start having more and better ideas right now.

Creative Mapping

A group follow-up activity to The Creative Director, this exercise involves participants in a complete new business case study.  Practice how to MAP out ways to get attention, create presentations, and follow-up to win new business.