Your audience: Alive & Kicking

Day long conferences are fertile grounds for presentation led boredom. When bored, people check their email or take a quick nap. The extra cool air conditioning makes matters worse and induces sleep.

The time that is most vulnerable to a sleepy audience is the post-lunch session. After a good meal in a 5 star hotel, people cannot be blamed for sleeping unless the next presenter is Steve Jobs or Sachin Tendulkar.

I attended the Nielsen Consumer 360 conference in Gurgaon, India sometime back and what they did was noteworthy. Just after lunch, when the audience was susceptible to falling asleep, they brought in...

Watch the pictures and continue reading...

Photos: Nielsen India's FB page

It was remarkable. Not a single person in the audience could sleep. Moreover it was a pleasant surprise. The performer made everyone dance, sing and what not. He played drums, his team danced and the audience was given simple instructions and people moved their hands, moved their bodies and shouted on top of their voices. It woke everyone up and established a very nice connect.

For people who follow cricket, notice that Rahul Dravid is there in one of the pictures.