A Virgin Blue employee has become an overnight media whore after he created a board game criticising the decision making process at the Brisbane based airline. The story was originally published on the Brisbane Times website and has since made its way onto countless other websites, blogs and forums.
Torsten Koerting attached the ’snakes-and-ladders’ type board game in PDF format to a farewell e-mail to his colleagues – and it was never intended for public dissemination. My Koerting clearly underestimated his comedic charm and obvious talent because the email was quickly circulated around the web and made its way into the grubby hands of traditional media outlets. Brisbane Times clearly didn’t have all the facts, and published a creative story based on the very limited information that was made available to them. Mr Koerting has posted corrections to the article on his own website.
Players begin the game in the “hangar” and work towards a final decision – 49 squares away. Between the start and finish squares are hazards, including slides and ladders, as well as action cards which carry either a bonus or penalty and appear to be modeled on Virginesque-type decision-making processes. In the email that Koerting originally circulated, he apparently compares the game to real-life situations while he was in the employ of the airline.
Virgin Blue 'NextGen' Board Game
The decision making processes that Koerting refers to aren’t unique to Virgin Blue – they’re something that any large company deals with. The game could probably be quickly rebranded to fit in with any large organisation.
Virgin has a unique culture and they’re often known to ‘employ for personality’ (and train to competency). The blend of motivated and enthusiastic individuals are part of the makeup of the brand and I believe it would be fair to say that Koerting’s creative effort serves to illustrate the good humored, talent and nature of its employees (and ex-employees).
If any of the concerns raised in the board game were legitimate, I would hope that the company treated them as a serious criticism (even forming part of the employee’s departure interview) and addressed each concern accordingly.
The way in which the information became public also serves to highlight the need to formulate various clauses in employee contracts and IT policies. Even though the game was likely made as a comedic farewell gesture to fellow colleagues, the information can easily be distorted by traditional media to paint a picture that isn’t entirely correct – potentially causing damage to a brand.
Koerting has written a number of follow-up blogs on his website detailing how he dealt with his transient fame:
Part 1 – What has happened – a timeline
Part 2 – Putting things into the right perspective
Part 3 – What does media attention do to you?
Part 4 – Lessons learnt and the experience
Marty is a Grade 1 multi-engine/IFR flight instructor. He's spent most of his flying life to date in various turboprop types but is currently a Boeing 777 First Officer. Marty is also a programmer and operates a number of non-aviation businesses. You can read Marty's posts here or follow him on Twitter.
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Marty holds an airline transport (fixed-wing) licence, commercial (helicopter) licence and has also indulged in hang gliding, gliding and skydiving. He is a grade one flight instructor and holds instrument/multi engine training approvals. Marty is currently a Boeing 777 First Officer and CRM facilitator. 
Ken flew the Boeing 747-400 with Cathay Pacific, Airbus 310 with Emirates, and flew the Boeing 777 200/300 with Emirates for 10 years as a training captain. Ken is now a Check and Training on the Boeing 777-300ER with V Australia.
