There is no doubt that we are living in a remarkably interesting time. The pandemic that’s been going on for more than a year has changed so many things in the lives of all the people around the world. Some changes have been huge, and they are obvious, while others might go under the radar. One of them is the way we watch new movies.
Streaming services have been around for quite some time now and they have seen an increase in subscribers during the pandemic. But now, we don’t just watch TV shows on there, we are actually swapping the experience of going to the movie theatre for the comfort of our couch. An excellent example is a new movie Black Widow. It has been offered to the viewers in theatres and on Disney+. What do you think brought more money?
After Disney released their opening weekend, we saw that the 80 million dollars came from the box office. However, 60 million dollars was generated from Disney+ purchases. Those are numbers that we couldn’t even imagine two or three years back.
Many found this interesting so there was a lot of talk about it on LinkedIn. What sparked my interest from the Emotional Intelligence and DISC Method standpoint was a post by Brad Krueger who said:
Disney made 60 million this weekend of people who decided they would rather watch Black Widow in the comfort of their own homes. That’s 3 million households. And Disney+ isn’t even available worldwide and it doesn’t include a monthly fee for the service itself. So, the families decided that the “experience” of going to the theatre wasn’t worth the time and expense and opted for the digital experience. So, do you think people will start making the same choices with events? If so, in what percentage?
This is a great question in terms of events. More so, in terms of Emotional Intelligence.
One of the comments on the mentioned post said that events are all about the people. I will confirm this through my 20 plus years of experience speaking at different conferences. What people taught me a long time ago is: the magic of conferences happens in the hallways. It’s all about the relationships you make between meetings.
To be more exact, everything we do in life is about people. It is almost impossible to do any kind of work and not be involved with others. However, we don’t all enjoy it equally.
I and S personality styles are all about human connection and interaction. They find their energy in others and love to share hugs, food, drinks and memories that are very specific to in-person events. On the other hand, D and C personality styles love the virtual atmosphere since they are task-oriented. The ability to get tasks done without having to engage with other people after the work is done makes them thrive.
So the answer to the question about whether the situation that we have right now where 3 million households decided to avoid human interaction and watch the movie with Scarlet Johansson as a star in the comfort of their couch is here to stay is this: it depends on which side of the fence you are. Are you on the left side of the DISC model graph or you are leaning towards the right? And this is something that has to be kept in mind for business in the future as well.
We have all switched to online, remote work. And we have seen that it is doable. However, it is crucial to check with your employees how they feel about it before making decisions about hosting events or weekends in a virtual world. If you are working with D’s and C’s they will be more than happy to perform the task from their home and after it’s done get back to their families or any other offline activity they enjoy. However, your I’s and S’s will miss the chit-chat at the office and the ability to be in the same room with other people.
The most important thing to remember is: ask yourself where do people get their energy from? Are they task-oriented or people-oriented? Everyone assumes that everyone wants to go back to live and in-person events, but that is not necessarily the case. If it was, those 60 million dollars from the beginning would have never happened. Set the correct atmosphere for them and you will have a happy, successful and world-class team on your hands.
To create a world-class team in your personal life with your partner, keep an eye on this space! The beginning of August brings a free webinar: Three Steps To Better Communication With Your Partner.
