Showcasing nice
Showcasing nice
Minnesota Nice was on full display last week when the state hosted Super Bowl 52, and I experienced it first-hand.
Friday evening my family and I took the train to downtown Minneapolis to experience Super Bowl Live on Nicollet Mall. Minnesota Nice was everywhere.
A total of 10,000 volunteers that made up “Crew 52” were stationed across the Metro area. To make them visible, each person was outfitted with aqua blue jackets with hats, gloves, scarves, and credentials, that told visitors and other people from around the state that they were their personal info center.
Nice!
Nicollet Mall had a lot of things to do. These included many photo ops for tourists and people like me from rural Minnesota. Some ops included the giant ice sculptures of “LII” (52) and walk-in snow globes.
While waiting in line at our first photo op, I was wondering how we were going to get our family photo. Which stranger I would approach and trust to take the pic and not steal my phone? This worried me a little since I love my new phone. I figured we would split up the family, take separate photos and really hold up the line.
When we got to the front of the line, a nice blue-jacket volunteer quickly stepped up and asked to take it for us.
Nice!
It turns out that was one of the many stations blue jacket people were placed to be nice and keep the lines moving. (It did!)
Nice!
Another stop in the experience was the Dayton’s Project inside of the old Dayton’s Department Store. This was the location for the Hallmark Channel’s Kitten Bowl, Bridgestone Elite Performance Center, Prince pop-up exhibit, Sleep Number experience and other events.
It was cold, of course, on Friday night, so we were quick-stepped to get into warm buildings and thaw out. After entering through the revolving doors and passing security, more blue-jacket people nicely directed us to all of the events.
When we exited the building, we were left with a cheery, “Thank you for visiting!” with more blue-jacket people holding the door open for us as we left.
Nice!
According to Wikipedia, (Yes! It has a online Wikipedia definition.) Minnesota Nice is the stereotypical behavior of people from Minnesota to be courteous, reserved, very family-focused, and mild-mannered. The cultural characteristics of Minnesota nice include a polite friendliness, an aversion to confrontation, a tendency toward understatement, a disinclination to make a fuss or stand out, emotional restraint, and self-deprecation.
We were Minnesota Nice last week for the Super Bowl. But then again, aren’t we always Minnesota Nice? I think so!
