It was an early start for all of us - 0730 in the morning for the meeting kick-off!

With no opportunity at that stage to have tucked into any of the breakfast delicacies on offer, even the most ardent branding advocate would have struggled to energetically start talking about branding for small and medium sized companies.

So I took a different approach to get people engaged.

I started with 4 questions posed to the audience. Using an interactive online tool, I had over 30 people eagerly putting their views forward and reading what others thought. That then triggered 90 minutes of voluble debate and insights amongst the group.

By taking time to think through appropriate ways to involve people in the room from the very start, the result was animated conversation, intrigued participants, and plenty of viewpoints shared on our topic.

A great start to any day.