Another item on my Bucket List is about to be played out. A flash mob is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, and artistic expression. Flash mobs are organized via telecommunications, social media, or viral emails.
The term, coined in 2003, is generally not applied to events and performances organized for the purposes of politics (such as protests), commercial advertisement, publicity stunts that involve public relation firms, or paid professionals. In these cases of a planned purpose for the social activity in question, the term smart mobs is often applied instead. (Read more at Wikipedia)
The Microsoft Jumpin’ Jive Orchestra is doing a flash mob (actually a smart mob) for a Microsoft Conference next Tuesday. We are doing it to the song Jump, Jive, and Wail. It has taken a lot of work to choreograph the three minute event. I had no idea it would be so complex. First you have to re-arrange the music to fit the mode where, in this case, we are starting with the drum. Then we bring in the bass, piano, guitar, trombones, trumpets and finally the saxes.
The event planner is strategically placing us so that the conference attendees will come into the Grand Ball Room when they hear the music. Once the smart mob event is over we move to the band stand to prepare for an hour of dinner music.
