 Good morning. My name is Jennifer Strof and I'm a real live trial attorney. I try real cases in real courts and real people actually use my advice. I also happen to teach improv for lawyers. Now what we're going to talk about today is rethinking the name game. Now most seminars that anyone's been to that deals with improv starts with a traditional name game. One of the ones of course is like jubilant gen and you have to go around the room it's just awful and then we play one at my particular theater called sorry sorry sorry where you walk up someone to go sorry sorry sorry and you put out their hand they tell you their name and you tell them yours. So I began teaching lawyers improv or attempting to with the traditional name games. Let me tell you gen was not jubilant because no one wanted to do that it was ridiculous and then sorry sorry sorry led to five to ten minutes of questions. First of all why did I have to apologize for getting a name because frankly isn't that acceptable within our culture and I'm like I know just say sorry sorry sorry. Well then why do I have to say sorry sorry sorry is one sorry not sufficient to convey that I have a regret for forgetting your name. Why the repetition why three and I'm like because it's the game. So what is the classic name game supposed to do. Well we look at it and it's supposed to teach names but it doesn't primarily just through repetition. It does forced awkward participation. These people were not doing it and while I am going to talk about lawyers today and all of these have been tested on lawyers they are suitable for other human consumption. But what name games are lacking is the missed opportunity to actually have a genuine exchange of information. When a lot of you go out and you'll teach these homogenous type groups like again lawyers at bar conventions doctors at medical conventions they walk up to each other and it's like hi I'm Jen I'm a lawyer hi I'm Susan I'm a lawyer. We really don't get genuine information or anything that creates a conversation because it's all the same. But what if there was a way to make the game different. What if there was a way to actually create something within that game. If we rethink what we want to accomplish with a name game we could actually have something which taught personal information. We could have something that created a genuine bond because knowing that your name is Susan doesn't tell me much I probably forget it five minutes later I definitely don't remember it at the next conference and I'm not going to be networking with you. And to be in any profession nowadays you need the support of your peers you need people to bounce ideas off of. And we could create something through a genuine experience. Enter have you met my friend Ted. Have you met my friend Ted is a name game that I've created. I created it for lawyers and gosh darn it if they don't actually like it. So let's talk about have you met my friend Ted. Starts in a group usually a circle you could be sitting much as you are right now and I tell everyone to partner up you partner with one person that person will then share their name and one true piece of information. So if I was introducing Ted Ted would tell me my name is Ted and I like to travel. I am going to walk around the room with Ted it could be arm and arm it could just be standing next to each other. But as I walk around the room I'm going to introduce Ted he is never going to introduce himself. And when I introduce Ted every time I run into a new pair I'm going to heighten. So have you met my friend Ted he likes to travel have you met my friend Ted he owns an airline have you met my friend Ted he owns Virgin Atlantic have you met my friend Ted he's going to the moon next week and then we come back to the circle and when we come back to the circle I say the biggest most outrageous thing of the night have you met my friend Ted he owns a timeshare on Mars. And then at this point Ted will finally introduce himself to the group. Hi I'm Ted I like to travel. It always gets a laugh not only does it always get a laugh it creates a genuine moment because people remember the ridiculous heightening people will remember where we were going with all this. And people remember when they see that person at the next conference. Oh you're the guy who likes to travel. So we've actually created something. Again this just goes through in the story how have I met your mother or it was a TV show. They always were introducing their friend Ted trying to get him a date and they would start with whatever it was in this case an architect and they just got more and more ridiculous until Ted introduced himself. So what are the skills we would actually learn by doing a name game like this. First of all we learn heightening heightening is a classic improv exercise where you just go bigger bigger bigger bigger. Next you're actually learning teamwork because Ted is relying on you to introduce him. Ted is relying on you to go further. But most importantly in my favorite part of this is we have controlled failure. And what I mean by that is many professionals lawyers included we don't like to fail. By bringing a game at the very beginning the very first time out the gate that includes failure and in fact is dependent on it. If I forgot Ted likes to travel I am going to bullshit my way through the rest of that afternoon until we get back to that circle. And that's where the funny is and that's what makes it good and that's what makes it work. So again by having this controlled failure I have taught my lawyers and other human beings that it's OK in this safe space to fail. So what I want to challenge everyone to do though is to use something like have you met my friend Ted. You can do this again in a circle where you start actually passing around the ridiculous heightening. You can do it in partner groups if you have enough in conferences where I've been dealing with 20 to 50 people it works fantastic because you can go around to a lot of different people. And one of the things I think people should not be afraid of is the time that it takes to play this game. It is not as fast as some of the other name games but it does so much more. Because once you've taught your individuals that it's OK to fail and once you've created that genuine bond for them they're more willing to play. And really at the end of the day that's what we're trying to accomplish as improvisers. We're trying to create that genuine moment that genuine connection superfluous connections surface level connections are not what we need. We need something where people will be able to discuss something later. And there is no greater joy as a facilitator of an improvised session than to see your people go back later that conference and walk up to each other. And while they usually do not remember the names you're the guy who likes to travel. So next time you go to play the name game I encourage you to adopt my game have you met my friend Ted and I encourage you to rethink what you're doing with it because we can make the name game more. We can make it a genuine opportunity for connections and collaboration. Thank you.