Just got home from a great seven hour potluck. Started prepping at 10:30 am and this lasted through the afternoon. What made it fun for me was the accessibility of everyone who attended. Accessible in the sense that the guests were open to having a good time. So one of the key ingredients in social event planning is to ensure that your environment is conducive to everyone having a great time - an understanding of your audience's needs, perquisites, topics that will engage them in conversation, etc will need to be well thought out prior to even setting up the room where the event will take place. It does not matter where the event is located so long as the ambiance created will envelope the guests in a sense of joy and the spirit of the event - in this case, the holiday season.
We enjoyed a great meal - everyone brought in meals that were discussion topics in themselves. From cookies with fun designs to regional meals that were natural conversation pieces. I made sure that we had labels for the dishes so it was easily identifiable and we knew who brought what.
When we were at that almost catatonic moment, especially experienced after a hearty meal, we decided to check out the adjoining conference room from where we were having our holiday lunch and found an easel pad. Almost instantenously, we looked at the pad and the marker and a couple of us lit up and said "Pictionary!" [Which afterwards we realized we were the teachers and instructional designers in the room who were quite excited about this find]
Groups were divided, rules were made up and we were off trying to guess our doodles, scribbles, and sometimes out of the blue, we were able to identify the words with just dashes and lines because we were all in the moment.
In the midst of the laughter, it suddenly brought me back to law school when my study group one night was very tired and we were trying to find a way to remember all the legal intricacies of torts law that we decided to play pictionary of the concepts. It was a fun experience that decades later, I could still remember what we've studied about.
Halfway through pictionary we decided to change the theme of the words we were guessing to brands. Any brand - from Gucci to the Gap, from Jamba Juice to Tim Hortons. We cannot use logos because if the brands were properly niche marketed, then we would be able to guess them. So a pineapple graphic would conjure up the Dole brand, a pair of pants would be Levis, teeth would be a toothpaste brand and so forth. It was a great opportunity to understand how marketing works as we've talked about the learning while we were learning it along the way.
I'm sure you've had these games and exercises incorporated in your social events as well. Tell me the learning you gained from these activities?
photo by nat20film
Information about Pictionary
The Game of Quick Draw turns 20, with a brand-new look! 2,800 secret words, plus new 20 card “anniversary” pack. Challenge Die makes you draw with your eyes shut. . . with your “off” hand. . . using only 1 line. . . or draw 2 images on your turn.
