| Humor at Work |
ISSUE 688 - July 19, 2017 |
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Keeping it Simple |
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"Deja moo" is that weird, eerie feeling you've heard this bull before. If you want to avoid deja moo and be more effective with your communication, speak human! Keep your communication conversational, fun, and simple.
The on-line bank Simple, in keeping with their name, gets it. The bank is known for its quirky, personal communication style with its customers. So when they are required to send out or post a boring financial policy update, they offer a "translation" alongside the jargon-laced, federally-required legalese policy, for example:
Translation: There might actually be rare cases when you have to write us a letter to officially document fraudulent activity on your account. A real letter, like, on paper! If this happens, it will probably be the first letter we've received at Simple. Exciting! To commemorate the occasion, we promise to write those first 50 letter-writers back, by hand, using our fluffiest feather quill.
That translation earned them a ton of enthusiastic feedback from their customers. Simple. Human. Fun.
You can apply this idea to other areas - to add some humor to a presentation, e-mail or business report, translate your safety regulations to make them more meaningful, or to add some humor to your meetings by "translating" action items in a humorous way.
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Mike's Fun at Work Tip |
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Create some fun meeting awards to dole out at the end of meetings. There could be an award for Best Meeting Quip or Comeback, Best Use of an Obscure Word, Best Use of a Metaphor to Explain a Difficult Situation, or The Cat Herder Award for the participant who best herded everyone back on topic.
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Deep Thought of the Week |
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"A holiday is something that far too often turns someone who is tired...into someone who is completely exhausted. Anonymous
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It's a Wacky World |
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Since vacation season is upon us, here's a few of my favorite Rocky Mountain tourist questions from my book, When Do You Let the Animals Out? A Field Guide to Rocky Mountain Humour:
- At what elevation does an elk become a moose?
- How do the elk know to cross at the elk crossing signs?
- Can you show us something we haven't seen yet?
- To escape a bear do you have to climb a tree that's the same width as your head?
- How many undiscovered lakes are there around here?
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Cost-Savings to Bring Mike in to Speak
Kelowna or Penticton, B.C.: October 26 or 27
Montreal: August 31 or September 5
Toronto: Sept. 7-12
Cleveland: Sept. 25
Montreal: Nov. 23 or 25
New Zealand: Feb. 15 - 20, 2018
Back From Vacation? Mike is quoted in the Business Insider article: 8 Things Successful People Do When They Return From Vacation
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Copyright © 2017 Humor at Work. All Rights Reserved.
mike@mikekerr.com
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