Tip #189: Favorite Give-Aways #6

Flashing star bouncing balls are colorful rubber star-shaped balls that are approximately 1 1/2 inch in diameter. Red, blue, yellow, green, they flash when they’re bounced- and even when they are squeezed! Although they cost almost twice as much as any of the other give-aways and prizes that we’ve discussed previously, I think that these flashing stars are particularly wonderful. Participants are always delighted to receive them.

The problem I’ve found is that often only six out of the dozen actually flash. As a result, I only used them a few times and then stopped purchasing them. I don’t know if something happens to them in transit from the Oriental Trading Company or after I’ve packed them to fly to the training location.- or if whatever causes them to flash is just erratic and very fragile. I have never brought the duds back with me after a training session, so I can’t tell you if there is any difficulty with returning them. If any of you have had some experience with these flashing stars, please let me know. If I knew that most of the dozen balls would light up, I would start buying them again in a flash!

This concludes our discussion of my participants’ favorite give-aways and prizes.

Next week, we will discuss using a pen tablet to make it possible to add participant feedback to PowerPoint presentations during a training session.