music of the 1920s through traditional bluegrass,
to today’s popular stars—as a metaphor for
change in business, and to explain changes in the
security industry. But the creative concept of
using music was only the first step toward
creating a truly new and different meeting event.
“Securitas wanted as many meeting elements as
possible to be different from what they’d done
before,” said Media Matrix President Michael
Olenski. “But they also wanted to emphasize
contrast—between traditional ways of doing
things and new approaches—to emphasize what
change would mean for Securitas and their
industry. Being the market leader means having
the ability to anticipate the evolution of the
industry and know how to react to those
changes.”
music being played by a country music trio. A professional female emcee
introduced the concept of change. The live music continued to be woven into
Changes in the meeting elements began well
the context of the meeting, which also incorporated professional actors demon-
before the meeting even started with the delivery
strating typical sales scenarios followed by speaker presentations and audience
of an electronic Flash invitation created for
quizzes. A wide variety of stage props, musical styles and stagecraft kept the
pre-meeting notification. This was sent to every
audience in tune with the idea of how change would affect their organization.
attendee versus a traditional paper invitation.
The onstage atmosphere continued to change as additional musical performers
Change continued as the attendees arrived in
arrived one-by-one until finally, an eight-piece Nashville country band, complete
Nashville the day before the meeting. They arrived
with two singers, rocked the house.
at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel, a typical meeting
venue; however once there, they were told on the
In the end, the meeting and the music had succeeded completely, creating a
morning of the event that the meeting location
strong link between the changes in country music, the location of the meeting
had been changed, so they immediately boarded
in Nashville and the key idea of Securitas meeting “The Challenge To Change.”
buses for the real meeting site, the Country Music
And once again, Media Matrix had met their own challenge—creating yet
Hall of Fame’s Ford Theatre.
another successful and memorable meeting event.
Once they arrived on-site at the Ford Theater, the
attendees experienced an opening presentation
by the president of Securitas USA. While professional and effective, this opening segment
Media Matrix is a Horsham, PA-based communications company involved in
seemed to be business as usual with traditional
the production and staging of business meetings, webcasts and teleconferences;
PowerPoint slides and statistics to review. But
interactive multi-media development; videotape production and print
once again, appearances were deceiving: At
collateral design.
the very end of his presentation, the last visual
introduced the real theme of the meeting: “The
Challenge To Change.” The attendees were then
sent on a coffee break to wonder what was going
to happen next at this event. When they returned
to the theater, they were welcomed by live walk-in