A wonderful fable from childhood goes a little something like this:
“Goldilocks climbed upstairs to the bedroom. There she saw three beds all in a row. “Oh,” she said, yawning, “I am feeling sleepy.”
So she pulled down the covers and climbed into Papa Bear’s Great Big Bed. But she quickly jumped down. “That bed is MUCH too hard!” she said.
Then she tried Mamma Bear’s Medium size bed. But it was too soft.
So she climbed into Baby Bear’s Tiny Little Bed. It was JUST right. Soon Goldilocks was fast asleep!”
Imagine if Baby Bear’s bed didn’t exist. Goldilocks tried the two extremes, but they were, well…extreme. It wasn’t until she found Baby Bear’s bed – a solution in-between the two extremes – that she found a place that was just right for her.
But we’re not always given a hybrid choice. In his TED talk, Graham Hill, the founder of Treehugger, discussed his conundrum. On the one hand he loves meat. But on the other, he recognizes the heath, environmental and ethical issues with consuming it. But unfortunately he was provided with a binary solution: become a vegetarian or be a meat eater. Instead of choosing from these two extremes, he carved out his own Baby Bear solution and became a weekday vegetarian. This ensured he didn’t have to give up the occasionally hamburger indulgence and he could also feel as if he was making a moral impact.
We’ve seen success with this concept in events. Not everyone can make it out to an event in person. And, for a while, the topic of virtual events was on everyone’s lips. Fear spread throughout the community: “Will virtual events replace face to face”? Then along came hybrid events. A wonderful mashup of face to face and virtual attendance.
In-between ideas can often give us the best of both worlds. They’re not scary because they don’t require you to choose between two extremes. They allow us a taste of both.
Think about how your business can create an in-between experience. Is there a trend, affecting your business, that people are talking about? Can you create a taste of that trend without requiring people to leave their comfort zone?
Lara,
After your Event Camp Twin Cities presentation, I have been much more aware of the use of stories to make my points more memorable. Thank you for that!
I have used this same story of the three bears as a soccer coach with young players, to help them understand how hard to kick the ball. Kick Baby Bear passes — not too hard so it goes past their teammate, not so soft it gets intercepted, but just right so it gets to their teammate at a speed they can handle.
Nice, Mike!
I used to be a lifeguard and swimming instructor. When I was teaching people to swim for the first time, even the simplest tasks needed a story.
I remember one day I tried for a half of an hour to get this man to put his head under water and blow bubbles. He couldn’t get the concept of lowering his head, holding his breath, then releasing the air. So I told him a story about how one day I took an elevator down to a parking lot and couldn’t find my car. I asked him if he could help me to look for my car – and he looked at me like I was crazy. I told him to lower his head like an elevator down to the parking lot, blow bubbles to release the people and open his eyes to look for the car.
It may sound crazy, but that little story got him to understand the process. He did it. All it took was a story 🙂
[on READY2SPARK] Baby Bears, Hybrid Events & Binary Solutions – http://www.ready2spark.com/2010/10/baby-… #eventprofs