At a recent meeting with a potential client, we discussed his desire to transform himself from a reader of scripts to a creator of experiences.

He said that in the old days, one gave a speech at a business symposium in order to have the text of the speech distributed to the media after the event.

Now, the speech is a video, and it goes on Youtube.  If you’re lucky, it’s interesting enough to get people to watch.  And if it’s really good, you get invited to deliver the talk at many other meetings.

A speech is always an experience for an audience.  After all, they live through it.

But an experience that is not surprising, or unexpected, or emotionally moving, is soon forgotten.  It is a plain vanilla experience, and settles to the bottom of the mind.

An experience for the audience that is novel, exciting, and memorable is what he’s after. He reminded me that we are all in the experience business.

So true.  So simple.  And so “not easy.”