THE SIXTH STRATEGY: REDIRECT YOUR AUDIENCE
Start the fire in the east; attack in the west.
—Sun Tzu
Scene: This really happened.
Tony Slydini, born Quintino Marucci in Italy in 1900, learned the rudiments of magic from his amateur magician father. The boy was never much interested in grand props and great stages, but focused instead on the proscenium within his own mind. Early on, he mastered a sleight of hand technique founded on precise timing and so-called misdirection. In fact, it was direction that Slydini practiced, honed, and perfected, creating a style of close-up magic that was entirely new.
Traditional effects relied on theatrical conventions, including a certain distance between the magician and the audience. Traditional magicians, accordingly, developed a repertoire of grand, if often stagey, gestures. Not Slydini. His magic invited close inspection. It never sought to evade reality, but to embrace it. Nor did he create about himself a phony aura of wizardly remoteness from his audience. Instead, he welcomed them, inviting them to move in closer and closer. He eschewed rigidly set programs, in which the scale of effects typically rises in a crescendo of you-ain’t-seen-nuthin’-yet showmanship. Instead, he engaged with his audience, apparently following their lead while directing them to inspire the direction of his show.
Read more
Coral Gables, Florida (April 16, 2019): Mango Publishing Group announced today the publication of INNOVATING INNOVATION: Leadership Tools to Make Revolutionary Change Happen for You and Your Business by best-selling author, renowned corporate and political strategist, and keynote speaker David Morey. The book’s foreword was written by Jerry Wind, the Lauder Professor Emeritus at the Wharton School, who calls it: “The new primer for how to win.”
