Event: Creating A Mythical Opening

All hail the Olive!

It seems like a new restaurant opens every week in Central Florida. And being in the center of the entertainment and theme park world, for the opening event to stand out, it means having more than food and drinks for a memorable "ribbon cutting". Besides sending out invitations to the VIPs and key media, creating the event flow, planning the menu, and more, I wrote a "blessing" as an attention-getting way to kick off the grand opening night.

After the presentation, a friend asked which book or movie the words came from as they were so mythical and "Disney-esque," they had to come from a Greco-Roman story. He was right about the mythical part, and it was a story only the words and dramatic scene were written from the theater of my "Monte-esque" mind.

For your reading pleasure:

The olive has been held in high esteem since the beginning of time. Myth has it that the Goddess Athena introduced the precious fruit of the olive to the ancient Greeks and they named a city for her.


Homer called the oil of its fruit, “liquid gold.”


Hippocrates, considered the father of modern medicine said, “Let the food be the medicine and the medicine be the food.”


With a multitude of uses – for light, food, and healing – the olive and its oil has been revered for its magical properties, history even deeming it greater than the power and speed of Poseidon’s horse.


I present the olive.


A precious seed
Born forth from this small fruit
Placed with care by hand
Connected to Earth
Enriched by soil
Peppered by rain
This olive doth grow to be
A life-giving tree
The harvest cometh forth
Bountiful and mythical
Most blessed fuel
Oh nourishing food
Hail its healing tenents
Treasure guarded by royalty
And reveled in world religions
Now an Olive tree blossoms in Orlando
So we celebrate nature’s gift tonight
And with this act
We commence a new flame
Of a forever blessed light.


Ladies and gentlemen
Raise your glass and toast to the grand opening of The Black Olive.

Now, here is a peak at the grand opening ceremony:

Ten Tips For An Awfully Unappealing Presentation

Watch paint peel...Slow. Tedious. Messy.

Great presentations require a bit of skill, forethought, a lot of work, and practice (even when doing the same presentation over and over). Giving a poor presentation is easy. Try any or all of the following tips that are guaranteed to be as exciting as watching paint peel off bricks.

1. Misspell words. To for two. Lie for lay. Delete the “i” in Public Affairs. Don’t run spell check! Forget spell check to generate laughter that isn’t a joke.
2. Use too dark or light type on a too dark or light background. Green on blue, red on black, light blue on white or yellow on peach...all are especially difficult to see.
3. Be creative with type. Combine Old English uppercase, Comic Sans italic, Times New Roman bold, Brush Script, add shadows and several underlines for emphasis and several font colors. Make it look pretty. (fyi...the design rule of thumb is no more than two fonts including different styles i.e. bold, italic, condensed of the same font)
4. Use 6 point type. Pretend you are an optometrist! With a free vision test you can say, “This isn’t readable, but here is what it says…”
5. Stttttrrrrreeeetttttcccchhhh logos and photos. This way they fit. Who cares if the circle is now an oval? Or the square is a rectangle?
6. Insert low-resolution logos, photos and graphics. They look fuzzy and faded on your computer screen and even worse when projected or blown up. Be sure to use less than 75 dpi or and smaller than 900 pixels wide by 720 pixels high.
7. Dress down. Wear a shirt “worthy of discussion.” Wear your “holy” jeans. Flip on those flops. If dress down was good enough for the White House a few years ago, it is good enough for anyone.
8. Read every word of every slide, poster, handout. Keep your back to the audience. Then you can't tell who is sleeping.
9. Use free clip art. Why spend $5 for stock images, photos or illustrations when free means kudos for being budget conscious.
10. Don't practice. Don’t rehearse and never arrive to set up early. You don’t want to seem overly polished.

Seen it, heard it or slept through the presentation? If so, may these memorable tips be memorable enough for you to remember not to use them.