Lessons from Terminus’ Break Shit Online Conference

I had an absolute blast speaking for Terminus’ “Break Shit” online conference, hosted by my friend Jay Baer and featuring amazing speakers like Andrew Davis and Tatiana Holyfield. It was such an irreverent, out of the box, and engaging webinar event. And what I love best is that the Terminus team wrote up an awesome recap with lessons, so be sure to click here to read their blog post, “How We Break Virtual Events.”

2,545 people signed up to take part in this event and 1,003 of them showed up to participate live. And at the time of posting this blog post, another 1,042 people have watched the recordings of the event. Below is an outline of exactly how we pulled this event off. But first, the event’s host, Jay Baer, gives the most succinct TL;DR.

“Break Shit was exceedingly popular because it took all the elements of typical webinars and virtual events and…broke them. Five key variables were incorporated. First, 100% outstanding speakers. Second, by giving speakers only 14 minutes each it kept the ideas flowing fast and the pace exciting. Third, explicitly giving the speakers no direction other than asking them to answer ONE question. This gave them the opportunity to take risks with their material, and their production. Fourth, the voting mechanism, which made the audience an integral and important part of the event. And finally, smooth jazz performances by a dude in the woods wearing a Bigfoot costume provides a very noteworthy intermission.” – Jay Baer (Founder of Convince & Convert and host of Break Sh!t)