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I had just settled into my Virgin America seat, getting ready to head to LA, when the safety video came on.
This is not intended as a paean to Virgin Air - though I consistently love my customer experience at Virgin.
I expected to see the same comic-book-style video the airline has shown the last few years.
Well, someone at Virgin decided to mix it up.
What I witnessed, instead, was a safety-protocol-video produced as a tightly choreographed musical video. Song, dance, fierce choreography, subversive humor. Fast-paced. Kinetic. Witty as hell.
I was in awe.
I mean, I was watching a policy-and-procedures video! SAFETY PROCEDURES! COMPLIANCE!!! And I was riveted. Sat there, smiling with a big grin on my face.
This video put me in a fantastic mood for the remainder of the flight.
Such is the power of elevating the mundane.
And this power is available to all of us, every moment, every day. No fancy video required.
How do we do it?
Choose Whimsy: We have all been taught to keep an email short and sweet. I hail short and sweet. But why not sign off with a quirky aside? An unexpected twist? A surprising observation? Virginize your emails.
Choose Irreverence: When you have to give yet another monthly update, pepper it with bold visuals they have never seen, daring colors you have never before used, cartoons that are goofy and giddy and plain irresistible. Experiment. Virginize your updates.
Choose Creativity: I hear it all the time - I'm just not the creative type. I don't buy that anymore. Consider it a limiting belief. Begin to change this belief by noticing the creative stuff in popular culture that stirs your imagination.Ask yourself - how can I appropriate aspects of what I like in popular culture into the way I communicate? How can it inform my style? That's what Virgin does. Virginize your tone.
If Virgin can do it, so can you.
It's a choice.
If your first thought is well, that's just not my style, the coach in me says Try it anyway. It may be the style that puts PLAYFUL back into your mundane.
Whimsy works. Irreverence works. Creativity works.
There's a reason why Virgin is the most beloved airline in the US.
Your tone and my tone contribute to the tone of any event in which we partake. If I attend "the same old boring meeting" (yes, you know the ones I'm talking about ...), I may not be able to control the tone of the entire meeting. But I sure as heck get to choose the tone with which I engage.
So - choose well. Elevate the mundane. Put the playful back into policies and procedures. And do it your way.
Remember - playful is memorable.
Virgin knows.