I took in a Chicago Bulls basketball game at the United Center Friday evening (January 20, 2006) and while it was an exciting double overtime lose by the Bulls to the Houston Rockets I was reminded of the simple adage about people the holds true in business, technology and life. The adage I am referring to is that:
"People, no matter how young or old, love to see their name in lights."
This shined through in illuminating lights as the Bulls game programming and marketing staff spent just about every timeout and break in the game action promoting a different fan camera with some sort of familiar jocks jams tune playing in the background for fans to dance to. After watching the game I feel I saw just about every person in the United Center that was willing to stand up and TWIST AND SHOUT, PUMP UP THE JAM or GET THE PARTY STARTED! It was to the point that I started to recognize some of the featured fans on the big screen since I had seen them so much. I found this intriguing but it really just proved as reinforcement to old adage:
"People love their names in lights."
I suggest based on this fact, we create a sporting event called "Fan Cam" where people pile into arenas like to the United Center to watch other people in the stadium on the big screens. There is no need for an actual sporting event, since for most of the fans the game is a distraction then anything as it was the timeouts and the fan cam that make the event. So give people what they want.
In a business environment, as a blogger in the blogosphere, in marketing, product development or in other aspects of life I feel the same lesson holds true. So I guess the best thing to do is what the Chicago Bulls have done leveraging the energy of people's love for their name or in some cases entire dancing body in lights to help promote your product, event or cause.
