I interrupt our series on communicating with intimacy to bring you a long overdue bit of Friday Silliness.
In today’s lesson, Toby Turner – also known as the YouTube personality Tobuscus – demonstrates how tone can completely contradict content. Alliteration aside, it is a useful lesson.
Does your chorus sound like Coldplay?
One of the workshops I provide is about answering questions under fire. Today’s video is an example of what can happen when you are under fire and lose control of where the questions may go.
Enjoy!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGWBjcQDiHo&w=560&h=315]
In order to make up for neglecting to post a ridiculous video for you last Friday (the new parent broken sleep exhaustion is catching up with me), I present you three very silly clips:
#1: Stating things simply is often the best way to present our message. It doesn’t get much simpler than this:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RtEYEwqH2Y&w=560&h=315]
#2: Our children are beaten over the head with the message “It’s what’s inside that counts.” Our outsides, however, cause people to make assumptions about our insides. The cat appears to be very contented, but until it learns to stop frowning, people will assume otherwise. For your viewing pleasure, I present to you “Grumpy Cat”:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INscMGmhmX4&w=560&h=315]
#3: We should ensure that our external appearance matches the message we want to send. Grumpy Cat has a feline soulmate in Colonel Meow, who is in bitter rivalry with Boo the Pomeranian:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgKD-aSsn9U&w=560&h=315]
Old Spice: the bodywash that makes my husband stink like a dog in a swamp but that has one of the best advertising departments ever.
Here’s one of their latest interactive internet ads. I’m not even going to try to cleverly tie this to a communication quip. All I can say is that it made me laugh until I knocked over a laundry basket of carefully folded and ironed laundry. Thanks, Old Spice.
Voice quality is a very, very important thing. A beautifully timbered voice can make the foolish sound clever. A juvenile, chirpy tone can make the experienced professional seem like an vacuous twit.
And a well-placed voice over can turn a touching scene into this:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfAww-6X2Ig&w=420&h=315]
This is an old video, but I laugh myself silly every time I see it.