There is a monster with huge teeth and an open mouth, devouring airplanes and the skyline as we speak, while witches look on across the way and trees grow out of the concrete. Just a typical Monday morning, you know.
The team at Swift Kick works out of a space called LMHQ in the Financial District of Manhattan. The best feature of this space, in my opinion, are the dry-erase board walls. Seriously, most of the walls are dry-erase paint, and it’s AWESOME. In the front of the space, they have a permanent mural right on the dry erase wall of the buildings of our surrounding neighborhood.
Today, there is an artist at the space who is using the dry-erase markers to create the spooky scene I described above. It’s the kind of impressive display that makes you stop and just stare. It was hard to focus at our daily meeting because the intricate lines all over the walls are mesmerizing. We even got a chance to tell the artist how great it looks so far because he caught us staring wide-eyed.
This is the perfect example of a blender event, particularly the kind talked about in the following Dance Floor Theory Tip.
Events like these, where the artist’s impression sticks around long after he leaves, build awesome community moments. These are the kinds of actions that lead total strangers to stop and have a conversation as they share their amazement of what they are looking at. Everyone who walks in this space thinks about how cool it is that they are a member of a place that has monsters on the wall for October. This shared excitement is palpable and creates bonds between community members. This is especially effective when there’s an exciting holiday or event coming up that everyone knows about, like Halloween. That is the power of shared interests.
Here are some things to think about as you brainstorm ideas to create awesome blender events on your campus:
1. Is there a holiday or campus event coming up that everyone already knows about? How can you capture that excitement even more?
2. What space on your campus does everyone walk through? What area would have the most impact?
3. What type of mark could you leave (without vandalizing) that would make a student’s jaw drop in surprise? You know, like monsters eating the skyline.
The possibilities are endless, you need only to think outside the box. Share in the comments if your campus has done a similar event to the one at our office!
