What Kind of Trivia is best for Corporate Team Building Events?

As the owner of a professional trivia company in New York City, it’s my job to ensure that the questions asked at our events perfectly fit an incredibly diverse range of corporate cultures. But when it comes to using trivia as a team building activity, what kind of questions should be asked? After all, with so many different groups coming from different industries, there can’t possibly be a one-size-fits-all batch of trivia questions, can there?

The answer is no – to a degree. While some types of trivia questions are best suited for certain audiences (plenty of history and geography for the marketing/PR crowd, sports for the salesmen and bankers, multiple choice & current events for law firms) there are indeed some questions which are more versatile – mainly pop culture, such as TV, movies, fads, celebrity news etc. When tailored for specific groups based on age, gender, nationality and other factors, these kind of “evergreen” trivia questions will work in just about any group bonding scenario.

However, times appear to be changing, and people’s trivia tastes are changing right along with it. I read a very interesting article in The Economist this week, which used a comparison of the very first edition of the Guinness Book of World Records (circa 1955) to the current edition to illustrate peoples’ changing tastes in trivia knowledge. Whereas readers of Guinness used to absorb intellectually stimulating facts and feats, nowadays it seems reflect our preference for being amused by “eccentric, often pointless tasks” (they use as an example a guy who tripped 40 mousetraps in one minute- with his tongue).  Is this really trivia? And is it appropriate for team building?

Professional workplaces are also continually being infused with young people, and as time goes on fewer and fewer employees will know older pop culture references – rendering loads of perfectly good trivia completely worthless for them. Does this mean that pop culture questions used at corporate events all have to be contemporary in nature? Do we have to replace Webster with Snooki to make an event meaningful and impactful?

My hunch is that, like most creative event entertainment, there is a happy middle ground somewhere. Trivia can evolve and adapt to successfully meet the needs of corporate groups who seek to use it as a means of boosting morale, improving teamwork, fostering collaboration and raising brand awareness, yet still hold on to the good nostalgic stuff from pop culture eras past.

And besides – trivia will always be fun, no matter what form it’s in. That I can guarantee.

Enjoy your weekend! I’ll see you again next week.