Creating Experiences

I recently attended an event that I would call a “Corporate Reunion”.  We’ve all been to various class reunions, and they tend to live up to a pretty standard social expectation.  The event is structured to facilitate connections between people who haven’t seen each other, with enough diversions to fill the awkward gaps that invariably form between people over the years.  We’ve also attended different types of corporate networking events.  They deliver on a different set of social expectations.

But what happens when you are asked to attend a “reunion” event of people who at one time worked together?  Some people still work there, others haven’t in a long time, and everyone else is somewhere in-between.  And what are the social expectations of the event itself?  While the event I attended was a corporate event, the venue was much more like that of a school reunion.  Buffet, drinks, DJ, etc.  But people were mostly there to connect on a professional level. 

Needless to say,  the event didn’t quite match the relationships that it was intended to facilitate.  At one point, the DJ started to crank up the music, and several people told them to tone it down so people could converse more easily.  Several people wondered why it was held on a Saturday night, and not at some more casual location after work on a weeknight.  The attendees consisted of several married people who came without their spouses. 

I didn’t plan the event, and I am happy that it happened as I was able to reconnect with many great people.  But I couldn’t help but think about the meaning of the word “reunion”.  The organizers clearly had an idea of what a “reunion” was, and that’s what they planned.  It seemed to matter less what the nature of the relationships were.