Lounge Act

CORPORATE PRODUCT LAUNCH October 2010, Boston

When a client from the trans- portation industry was planning to launch a cutting-edge product in Boston, it wanted to create an environment that made the event feel like a collaborative effort between the company and its cus- tomers, said Gary Musick, presi- dent of Gary Musick Productions in Nashville. In response, Musick’s company

created a lounge-like atmosphere by decorating the room with couches (complete with fleece throws), lounge chairs, bistro tables, and barstools. Three screens projected video, animated backgrounds, and speaker slides. The reception was fantastic.

“There was tremendous positive feedback from attendees who

liked how comfortable they felt in the setting, as well as the creativ- ity of the environment,” Musick said. “They said it felt unlike any other meeting they had ever been to.”

The changes that the furniture

made to the meeting environment weren’t purely physical. The more intimate seating encouraged audi- ence interaction and made the meeting very “dialogue-centric,” Musick said. “There was a lot of eye contact, and a lot of give-and- take with the audience. For the speakers on stage, you have to be very comfortable with that. It’s almost like theater in the round.” —Barbara Palmer

How I Downsized Myself

A personal weight-loss program offers insight into implementing change at a deep- seated level.

By Bill Taylor

I have lost 32 pounds over the last 22 weeks. It’s a big dealbecause I achieved something I’ve been thinking about for years—getting to the weight I was in college, more than 25 years after I graduated. As I reflect on what I

learned over these last 22 weeks, I keep thinking back to a much-discussed article we published more than five years ago in Fast Company. Called “Change or Die” (www.fast company.com /magazine/94/open _change-or-die.html), it was a bracing reminder of how hard it is for people to make deep-seated changes in their habits, even when they know the price of failure may be death, in the form of a heart attack. “The conventional

wisdom says that crisis is a powerfulmotivator for change,” the article noted. “But severe heart disease is among the most serious of personal crises, and it doesn’t motivate—at least not nearly enough. Nor does giving people accurate analyses and factual infor- mation about their situa- tions. What works? Why, in general, is change so

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