Brain Fever - Assorted Thoughts and Articles

"May the Force be with you!"

Today, the Rise Of Skywalker, the final movie in the Star Wars saga, opens in theatres and boy, does it throw me back to a specific moment when someone gave me the chance to do something radically different...

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A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

Well, 7.5 years ago and in a tiny country called Belgium to be specific, it was time for another Ingram Micro In the Loop, together with Tech Data's Meet IT, it was Belgium's main Tech ecosystem expo.

Every year, Microsoft had the largest booth and every year we made the same stupid mistake: Microsoft has a million department's, so every year the both was divided in a million little pieces to allow every stakeholder their spot to showcase their exciting new solution.

The result: we completely lost the impact our showroom floor real estate could have made.

2012 happened to be the year that Microsoft released a Star Wars game for the handsfree Xbox Kinect and just for fun a special edition R2D2 version of the console was created. At the same time, our games expert in the Consumer Division, Guy Spaey, had just told me about the 501st Legion, a worldwide group of die-hard Star Wars fans who spend their time building set pieces and cosplaying. So when our Distribution Lead (and event owner) Lien Deleenheer asked me for input and to support the upcoming event, my imagination went into hyperdrive.

My plan was simple: let's go all out and build an experience that would make the Microsoft booth the most visited, most talked about, and only one that attendees would remember when they go home. We could promote the game, have a demo station set up for people to play, while all our Sales and Product teams would be able to engage with the partners. I was/am a big Star Wars fan (sorry to all the Trekkies out there), and was banking on the stereotype that the average IT Reseller was a total geek.

In the end, it took some convincing to get Lien on board. And for good reason: first of all, the Commercial Sales team (of which we were both part of) did not get any revenue credit for selling Xbox games. We would have to build indirect ROI. But also: she was potentially staking her reputation with internal leadership and her strategic partners on a 'childish' fanboy plan. Luckily, our Office Business Group lead Erik Pelemans (would be one of the sponsors for the event) happened to walk by as I laid out my ideas. I asked him a simple question: "Can you describe Star Wars in 1 word?"

"Phenomenal!" was his answer.

Some weeks of planning – and more than one internal remark along the lines of "are we really doing this?" or "I have a bad feeling about this!" – later, it was finally time for the event.

The volunteers of the 501st Legion we an absolutely professional and fun band of misfits to work with. Nine men had taken time off from their day jobs to build, ship and assemble parts of the Millennium Falcon and the Death Star in a Belgian conference centre. They even brought an Endor Speeder Bike (they had offered to bring a 35 feet high AT-AT, but it wouldn't fit). The legionnaires dressed up like stormtroopers, Darth Vader, and the evil Emperor. They walked the floor carrying Windows devices, created non-stop photo ops and at the end of the day dissembled and transported everything back to their HQ. For all that they only charged us for the costs they endured (and some copies of the new game naturally). It was the least expensive booth Microsoft had built in years.

But was the booth a success?

Well, what do you think? It exceeded all expectations! It was crowded from the moment the doors opened until the show ended. Our teams got to engage with our partners and after provided feedback they made more meaningful conversations and created more leads than ever before at a show like this. In fact, many exhibitors of the surrounding booths joined in (I specifically remember the Fujitsu team enjoying real life 'spillover effects'). We also had a couple of hundred T-shirts printed with the game's logo on it we handed out for free. The frenzy for those rivaled Black Friday madness.

There are still people who talk to me about that particular event.

Obviously, the lesson is that when you focus on delivering a single message in a way your target audience relate to, you will be successful. And that it pays off to Zig when others Zag (as Kevin Dawson would tell you). And also, that taking a chance to trust someone with a vision and passion can pay off (thank you Lien!), and there's many more lessons here... But the most important one has to be: if you can find a way to incorporate Star Wars into your work life (and het to wear a stormtrooper helmet) you absolutely have to do that!

May the force be with you!