"Here Comes Everybody"

Hugh, The Maze Master

Hugh's Reviews

Each week Hugh reviews something, anything really, that has provoked a thoughtful insight.


In the book "Here Comes Everybody", Clay Shirky proposes that the social networking tools available today make "spontaneous group forming" easy and free.

These spontaneously formed groups are creating content, sharing ideas, and forming around subjects of a common interest. The key for business is to create the opportunity for these groups to form around your business.

The great experiment in using social media has begun at our farm. There are plenty of options but we are focusing on third-party reviews and facebook.com. Our facebook.com page.

A Facebook.com strategy is the focus of our efforts. Merely having the Facebook pages isn't enough, so we're developing a program by which our guests use our page to entertain each other.

Sound dangerous? It is. Mr. Shirky explains that groups will, and probably are already, communicating about your business on blogs and through email without your knowledge. To grow positive word of mouth, you need to purposely facilitate this conversation.

What's the mega-trend we're plugging our strategy into? We are going to encourage people to form a group around our business by rewarding them with fame.

Disclaimer: the plan is in its formative stages. We are targeting the Facebook crowd by connecting our TextPlay game to our Facebook page.

If you complete our TextPlay challenges, you earn the right to be officially posted with your group in a video on our site.

Our theory is that guests will go home to view and promote their Maize Quest/Facebook performance to friends and family in order to win a prize and gain local recognition.

Why are we working on this? Is this trend "ahead of its time"? Mr. Shirky would answer definitively, "No." The statistics are undeniable.

Facebook.com Size  
More than 175 million active users.

More than half of Facebook users are outside of college.

The fastest growing demographic is people 30 years old and older.

Applications
More than 850 million photos uploaded to the site each month.

More than 5 million videos uploaded each month.

More than 24 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) shared each month.

More than 2 million events created each month.

More than 20 million active user groups exist on the site.

We, as an industry, need to try hard to figure out how to turn this powerful market to our advantage. As traditional media costs rise, we need to use our customer base as a marketing tool.

Shift some resources from your traditional media campaign to social media. The cost of one print ad would pay for a year of Facebook development.

Creating and managing the space for individuals to form a group around our businesses is nearly free, but requires focused effort to be done effectively.

Anyone out there doing it right? Have feedback for me?

Call Hugh anytime at:

1-866-935-6738 ext 102
hughmc@mazecatalog.com

PS We are working with one of our clever operators to create a starter Facebook marketing package for farms. If you have interest, please email me or stay tuned for more.

What's your "Audio Agenda"?

What's your "Audio Agenda"?

I just returned from a family vacation to Walt Disney World and, oh my, what I've learned. (Few things strike fear into the hearts of Maize Quest employees like Hugh's return from a big resort with a deluge of ideas.)

Obviously Disney has a budget that exceeds yours and mine by a few zeros, but the concepts upon which the Magic Kingdom was built are fundamental. The trip will probably take a few emails to fully debrief with you, but one of the most magical (and pervasive) concepts was the purposeful control of audio.

Disney is the king of audio. I'll share with you first a list of some of the amazing feats of audio control I witnessed, then we'll return to the real world and I'll discuss how you can take the basic principals and create an "Audio Agenda" for your farm this season.

Hugh's list of Amazing Disney Audio:

1. Syncronized audio. As the parade comes down "Main Street, USA" the parade float music matches the music in the shops, which matches the music coming from street level.
2. Hidden Speakers. In Epcot, music comes from walls, stones, plants, benches, light poles, and vending carts. They never display the speakers, yet you are never without music.
3. Zoned music by "worlds". As you exit the tribal beats of Adventure World and cross the bridge to the majestic music of the Castle Plaza, there is a space no wider than 15 feet in which you can simultaneously hear the two different zones' music. It is  extraordinary.
4. Mobile music continues the experience. Exit the parks, hop on the  bus and the music continues. Each bus has music themed to the destination to which it's traveling, and has a message-triggering device to play the correct informational announcement as the bus nears it's destination. (Example: On the way to Port Orleans French Quarter, you hear New Orleans jazz and a Port Orleans-specific  messsage.)
5. High-fidelity. The sound quality you hear walking through the Disney parks is better than the sound in my living room.

How you can do quality audio engineering on your budget:

1. Have an audio plan. Radio advertising guru Roy Williams says, "Audio is the media you can't turn off." You can look away from the TV. You can miss a page of newspaper ads. However, especially when people are at your business, they can't turn off their ears. You have them trapped in your audio environment. Make sure you have a plan for what they will hear, because they are going to hear something.
2. Hidden, quality speakers. You can find speakers locally to suit these two qualifications. The difference in price is not much. (F.Y.I. Our audio boxes put out digital audio for quality transmission.)
3. Zoned music. As farmers, we may not think we have "worlds" to deliniate with different audio, but your farm may divide easier than you think. The farm market, the kiddie play area, the corn maze, the peddle kart track are all potential zones. Our Wireless PA Systems permit zoned broadcasts or location specific music.
4. Mobile music continues the experience. Mobile music at high quality on a farmer's budget is here. Our Hayride Audio boxes enable you to add mobile music and tour information to any wagon ride.

Disney is closer than you think: The tools to make some of Disney's amazing audio adventures come true exist today. The first thing to do is evaluate your site and plan your audio program for the year. If you need help, give us a call. Make some time this week to plan your Audio Agenda.

"The Drunkard's Walk"

Hugh, The Maze Master

Hugh's Reviews

Each week Hugh reviews something, anything really, that has provoked a thoughtful insight.

In the book "The Drunkard's Walk" Leonard Mlodinow proposes that the "randomness of life" and it's innumerable variables makes predicting the future based on past experiences impossible.

Therefore, Mlodinow suggests we should spend our time preparing for a broad spectrum of contingencies, so that we are ready to react effectively to whatever the future brings.

Basically, strategic planning should focus on preparing for contingencies, not refining a single, predicted outcome.

Right. Much of our strategic planning consists of "hoping for good weather" or the nebulous "Getting the word out". I know we, at our home farm, have never taken a hard look at contingency planning for our entertainment business.

What would a contingency plan look like for an entertainment farm? The best starting place is the time-honored planning tool: S.W.A.T (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis.

After completing your S.W.A.T. lists, focus on the "Threats" and your reactions to them. The key is to WRITE DOWN your reaction plans.

Ex. If it's raining on Wednesday and predicted to rain through the weekend, we will... Cancel advertising contracts for the week, email our customers with modified hours, call groups to reschedule, and update the web site.

Having a plan isn't going to make the rainy weekend more pleasant, but it may control your costs and mitigate your risk. It will certainly make your reaction to the circumstances more effective.

Now let's keep things positive. What would you do if you were facing the most beautiful October Saturday on record?

Planning for contingencies can be fun! Larry Barnaby says, “You can make a good day great, but you can’t make a bad day good.” How would you make a good day great?

Mlodinow's theory of "Randomness in our lives" is a call to prepare. We must prepare ourselves to meet a spectrum of contingencies all of which have a chance of becoming reality.

Each of those chances is an opportunity, and, as Louis Pastuer said, "Chance favors the prepared mind."

Call Hugh anytime at:

1-866-935-6738 ext 102

The "Innovation Mandate"

The "Innovation Mandate"

"What's new this year?" Your guests are going to ask you. Group leaders may ask you before they confirm their booking. Just how will you reply?

Guests are demanding. They want new stuff every year! What is this insatiable desire for newness? It is the "Innovation Mandate".

Here are some ideas for meeting this annual call to action:

1. Move things around. Routine brings boredom. Simply by moving  activities to new locations on the farm creates the perception of "newness". Modify and clarify your activities by type or by guest age. For example, cruise lines create "Neighborhoods" of activities based on guest categories. (This keeps young children from ruining a couple's romantic dinner.)
2. Change things on the inside. You may have attractions that have remained the same on the outside for years, such as a maze or hayride. Don't give up on that attraction, change what's on the inside. As entertainment farms mature in the marketplace, changing the guest activities becomes the way to innovate. Our corn maze games can be added to any maze regardles of your provider. Maybe it's time to freshen up your maze experience with our professional designs. Maybe it's time to reroute your hayride, add music, or new content.
3. Add something unexpected. Your guests may expect you to add another hay wagon, but text messaging?! Sure, I'm partial to games we invent, but that's because they work. Novelty is still the most effective tool for answering the Innovation Mandate.
4. Innovate your staff training. At both IAAPA and NAFDMA conferences an inordinate amount of time was spent on the importance of staff training. Chick-Fil-A scripts how guests are greeted and thanked. It's all to create an experience guests remember and value. Training is cost-effective as well. Simply spend those first slow weekends walking around to each station coaching your staff!

Conclusion: You have to have an answer to the Innovation Mandate. Plan ahead to move things around, change on the inside, add something unexpected, and work with your staff to make this year great. When they ask you, "What's new this year?" be ready with a compelling answer.

"The Whole Mind"

Hugh, The Maze Master

Hugh's Reviews

Each week Hugh reviews something, anything really, that has provoked a thoughtful insight.

In his latest book "The Whole Mind" Daniel Pink proposes that in an age of outsourcing, creative people, or "right-brainers", will become increasingly important as sources of "value creation".

The book is an interesting look at our world in which we outsource an ever-increasing number of jobs overseas.

Even white-collar jobs, such as computer programming, financial analysis, etc. are being sent overseas as it gets easier to communicate via the Internet.

It is, as all as farmers have seen in agricultural markets, a commoditization of not just products, but white-collar service work. (Just to be clear I mean a commodity in the pure sense of the word– Corn is Corn. It's completely transferrable, interchangable, and identical to everybody else's corn.)

One of the reasons we attend conferences and look around for new ideas for our entertainment operations is so we can avoid the commoditization of our entertainment businesses.

Our Fun Park guests are always asking what we've done new for them this year. Sometimes I feel like saying, "You don't remember how to solve the Bamboo Maze, so it's practically new to you!" But, that's not a very good, long-term customer service strategy.

The point from "The Whole Mind" that struck me is the importance of "right-brained" innovation in agritourism. Don't let your entertainment attractions become commodities. Even when "borrowing" ideas from other operations, don't settle for doing the same exact thing.

Innovate! Be Creative! The public, upon sensing a commodity, will immediately start bargaining on price, and price alone. Mr. Pink infers that our guests will view their entertainment experience as readily transferrable to anyone else's farm, and leave you in a heartbeat for less than a dollar.

What are you doing to make sure that you aren't a commodity? In this economy, shopping for the cheapest identical option is very popular.

This season, make sure your business isn't a commodity, but a one-of-a-kind, high-value experience that can't be easily replicated or transferred. Use your "right-brain" creativity to make something truly special for you guests.

If you need help, hire our brain-power as your own.

Call Hugh anytime at:

1-866-935-6738 ext 102

NAFDMA 2009 Idea Report

NAFDMA Convention Yields Ideas Galore!

Our annual participation in the North American Farmers Direct Marketing Association yielded a tremendous response for our TextPlay System, Finger Fortune Games, and our Corn Maze Franchise Program and/or Game Paks.

In this season of uncertainty having the best quailty, most operationally efficient maze REALLY matters. Learn more about why corn mazes are not just commodities from Designer Dave in his article below.

Here are some ideas and debates that surfaced at NAFDMA:

1. School Tour Automation vs. Teacher-Led Tours. Jan Vala and I chaired this season, one of the most spirited debates I've had in a while. I posed the argument that teachers and employees in general are unreliable and that machines and prerecorded audio is the way to go. Jan, after wacking me on the head (to the delight of the crowd, hmm...), felt strongly that personal instruction is better. Many in the crowd ran a hybrid system with some automation and some personal instruction.
2. Social Media is the way to reach young families...Maybe. The key in our discussions was to find the one social media outlet that works for you and your business. Find your "Voice" and the style that fits you. Do not mix business and personal editions (i.e. if you use your facebook.com page to post pictures of your weekend parties, it's probably not the place to promote your business).
3. Landscaping Superiority. On the bus tour (P1 being the best bus of course), I noticed that the #1 determining factor of a business' ability to "Wow" us was how it looked in the first 60-seconds. It really reinforced to me the importance of what Harold Lloyd calls "Landscaping Superiority". Some of the easiest, cost effective changes come from simply making your place look nicer. I know we could stand to focus on such details at our Fun Park.
4. Laugh yourself silly. Yes, on Bus P1, we laughed ourselves silly and had a great time. Carol Grace Anderson affirmed that laughter is the best preventive medicine. It's easy to be serious, but it's crucial to have a good time with your family,  your employees, and especially your guests. I haven't had a week that full of laughter all winter. (A special shout out to my Tennessee crew and the surprise birthday gang for all the fun.)

Conclusion: NAFMDA is a super way to connect with like-minded people. The part I like is that you can sit down at any table at any time with people you don't know and strike up a conversation– we're all people-people! If you haven't gone to a NAFDMA convention don't miss 2010 in Lancaster County. Plus, you'll get to see the Maize Quest Maze Fun Park at our home farm on the tour!

You can’t beat the weatherman.

Confirmation is in: You can’t beat the weatherman. We’re in the outdoor entertainment business, and we’re open for more than just one special event. Which is great, since one bad day can’t shut down our business. It’s lousy because there is no incentive for guests to ‘tough it out’ in less than perfect weather.

It’s a factor of time, really. If there is the potential of, in this most recent case, the HOT weather impacting your day of fun, you simply don’t go. You have options, such as stay at home in the A/C, watch a movie in the A/C, shop inside in the A/C, go to an air-conditioned bar; knowing full well that Maize Quest will be open another weekend, if you get to it.

Makes for a long boring day for us, makes no difference to most of our guests. We could have spent $100,000 on advertising the Peach Fest and if the weatherman says it’s going to ‘feel like’ 107 degrees, you ain’t comin’. Rainy weather works the same way. (My frustration is being vented on the weatherman, but he didn’t make the weather, he just whipped you into a fenzy of panic about your safety.)

In all fairness, it was a real burner this weekend, and I didn’t want to be at the Peach Fest either. The real trick is discovering what the real need people have, in which season they have it, how the weather affects their decision-making processes, and how to combine all those variables with advertising and marketing to meet the need of the guests at the right moment with the right attraction.

The Wizard of Ads, Roy Williams, says that, “The more salient your message, the less you need to say it.” Saliency here refers to my outline above: Are you meeting a guest need with the attraction you are offering? This is why attraction design begins with the needs of guests, then moves to solutions, then budget, then materials, then implementation. What Roy neglects is that if you get rained out, it really doesn’t matter how great your message was.

How do you combat the weather? Be open more often, with different choices by season. Move something inside so you can be open in any weather. Co-op the weather by making too hot or too cold or too wet, something fun (we’re still working on that one.) But the true answer is: if you know it’s coming, and bad weather always comes sometime, innovate a solution, so you aren’t left all wet.

“If you build it, they will come” is Hollywood. If they need it and want it and the weather is nice, you won’t be able to stop them from coming is more accurate. If you miss any of these three criteria, you likely to ‘get burned’.

Maize Quest designs corn mazes and attractions for entertainment farms and operations around the world. Learn more at http://www.MazeCatalog.com.