In this video Tom Krieglstein introduces "Blender Events," a low‑cost, attention‑grabbing strategy drawn from his Dance Floor Theory framework designed to move disengaged community members (the 90% lurkers identified by the Wikipedia 99.1 rule and similar Gallup findings) up his six‑level Engagement Pyramid. He explains that the first step is to capture attention (a pattern‑interrupt that shifts people from "meh" to "hmm"), then to build a social connection that can later motivate participation. Four practical rules guide every Blender Event: (1) bring the event to where disengaged people already are, (2) avoid scaring them—confusion is acceptable, (3) host events consistently to keep the pipeline flowing, and (4) keep them inexpensive, relying on creativity rather than budget. Tom shares concrete examples (chalk‑wall messages, clothespin tags, piano‑key stairs) and cites organizations like Fun Theory and SoulPancake that regularly produce such events. The overall aim is to increase attention, connection, and ultimately retention within teams, organizations, and broader communities.
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Today I want to talk to you about an idea called Blender Events. I know for most of you who have never seen my Dance Floor Theory program, you're probably like, what's a Blender event? And now I'm just hungry. Well, in this video I'm going to show you what a Blender event is. I'm going to talk about the goals and the rules of a Blender event so that you can create your own with the end result of increasing the engagement and the retention within your community, your organization and your team. My name is Tom. Let's get into it. Now, before I talk about what a Blender event is, we have to set up some sort of base guidelines and I'm going to quickly share a story about Wikipedia. There was a study done around wikipedia called the 99.1rule. And the 99.1rule states that within Wikipedia, 90% of people are lurkers, 9% are casual editors, and 1% are the heavy active users who do all the editing. That 99. One rule plays out not just at Wikipedia, but in a lot of communities. The research within the higher ed space shows that 60 to 84% of students will never participate in a college sponsored activity. Gallup research finds that 66% of employers are disengaged or actively disengaged within the workplace. So to set up what a Blender event is, we first have to understand that the largest percentage of our population, our community, our group, our organization, are actually down at the bottom in that 90% range. The lurkers according to Wikipedia, the disengaged according to Gallup research. And so how do we then increase engagement? Well, the answer has to do within dance floor theory. We have a thing called the Engagement Pyramid. And in the Engagement pyramid we talk about that there's six levels of engagement within community. Each level thinks in a different way and needs to be interacted with in a different way. Why that's important here is because the activities that you do to engage the three fours and fives on your engagement pyramid are not going to work for the neutrals down at the bottom that disengage people down at the bottom. So we need a strategy to engage that group. Enter Blender events. Blender events are those strategies to engage that group down at the bottom. Because the number one goal to get that group is first we just have attention. And once we have their attention, then we want to build a connection. Which brings me then to the two goals of a Blender event. The first goal of a Blender event is to get as many people to go from meh to hmm as possible, AKA get their attention, AKA have a pattern interrupt in their day. The second goal is to build the connection. Now that we have their attention, now we want to build a connection with them. And that connection is what's going to slowly start to bring them out of that disengaged space space and into our world so we can start building the social connection and move them up the engagement pyramid from a neutral to a 1, a 2, a 3, a 4, and hopefully a 5. And if those are the two goals of all Blender events, here are the four rules that guide all Blender events. The first rule, know that your disengaged people are never going to show up to something, so we have to bring it to them. So the first rule of a blender event is bring it to them wherever they're at. That's where we're going to do the thing that gets them go from Mehta and build a connection. The second rule is we don't want to scare them. I know this sounds strange. I remember I was working with a fraternity one year and I came back the next year and the brothers came up to me and were like, tom, you will not believe this blender event we did on campus. I was like, why do you talk like that? I don't understand. But they opened up their phone and they were showing me this thing they did called a zombie run, where they dressed like a zombie and ran through campus. I was like, oh, okay, okay, I get it. But they took it a step further and they took a gallon of fake blood and dumped it on themselves and then ran through campus. I was like. Because every photo was them having a great time, but everyone on the outside was freaked out. And the last couple photos with the campus police charging at them. So to be clear, we do not want to scare them with our blender events to get them to go from meh. However, scaring is bad, but confusion is good. It's okay to have a blender event that confuses them because that gets them to go from meh to hmm. Alright. Now the third rule. Continue to host those events. Those activities. Do those things that engage your three fours and fives because they'll continue to show up at those bigger events. But in between that space, we want to fill it with as many blender events as possible. The reason is, is because once we get them to pay attention and we build the connection, the next step on the engagement pyramid is to get them to show up. But they're never going to see that flyer that says, free food, free swag, free money. They'll never see that flyer if we don't have their attention, if they're not paying attention in the first place. So the blender events get them to pay attention so that they see that flyer, that ad, that email that says, here's what's going on. And then the last and final one is, it's cheap. It really does not cost a lot of money to host a blender event. It's all about your creativity. It's all about ways to engage them that get them to go from MAD to two of my favorite organizations out there that create blender events on a regular basis. Number one is the fun Theory, and number two is soulpancake. I highly recommend checking out both of those on the Internet. They do amazing job at creating these sort of blender events within communities. And then also we have several ideas we've seen work at other schools and other organizations and other communities. Sometimes they have a chalk wall where everyone can write something on it. Other ones, they did clothespins, and they had on those clothespins that said, tag, you're it. And then they tag people on their clothing without them knowing. Another one, they changed the stairs that walked up into the office, that they changed them and made them into piano keys. So that person who always walks in, who goes from their car to their office desk back to the car, and that's their entire employment experience, they walk up those stairs, and for the first time, instead of just going meh, meh, they actually look up and go. So we get them to go from MAD to hmm. With these blender events, hopefully you've got some inspiration, some ideas that you can go and use within your team, your organization, or on your dance floor to better engage your people, to create that culture connection so that your people feel more welcome, more connected, and more engaged. My name's Tom. I'm here to help you to engage your people. I'll see you in the next video. It.
