There’s nothing like contrast to accentuate the telling of a story.

In our “art of storytelling” training I like to discuss the difference between “what was” and “what is.” The greater the delta between these two points the greater the drama in the story.

There’s a terrific example of contrast in Monday’s USA Today profile on Teresa Phillips who heads a new startup venture called Graspr.com.

One doesn’t intuitively associate life on a farm with leading a new video sharing site striving to grab turf from YouTube. That’s exactly why the lead into the story works:

“Since she was a kid hunting and working on a 27-acre farm near the tiny hamlet of Allen, Kan., Teresa Phillips has pushed herself.”

Later, the story revisits Phillips’ farm roots:

“It’s been a whirlwind journey for Phillips, whose family raised horses, cows, mules, chickens, rabbits, hogs and sheep in America’s heartland. Allen (population about 216) is about 40 miles southwest of the state capital, Topeka. When she wasn’t tending to the animals with her six siblings, Phillips doted on her mule, Jack; hunted for rabbits and squirrels with a .22-caliber rifle; and fished.”

It’s all good stuff.

Not only does contrast provide a unique dimension to the story but you gain a sense of who Teresa Phillips is as a person.

It’s also noteworthy that the reporter resists the urge to close with a corny pun around “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore,” a certain willpower obviously not shared by yours truly. 

Businesspeople tend to associate storytelling with fiction.

Yet, the same elements that make a book such as “Moby Dick” a compelling read - good versus evil, care for the characters, humor, etc. - have a place in the business world. Whether it’s a potential customer evaluating your product or a journalist probing your latest news, communicating information in a more entertaining fashion increases your likeability quotient.

And customers, journalists, job candidates and even gadflies gravitate toward companies they like.

Unfortunately, this concept around storytelling is counterintuitive to many business executives, particularly those coming from engineering orientations where science rules the day. I’m not suggesting you need to lose an appendage to a large mammal before anyone will notice you but the ability to build some drama in business communications is a means to capture attention.

That’s the idea behind this blog: To look at the art of storytelling through a business prism.

No doubt, most blog postings will draw from the media world - defining media as any from journalists to an individual with a virtual soapbox since the words are right there in the public domain to scrutinize. But this blog will strive to tackle the bigger challenge of communicating to the outside world in a more entertaining fashion.