Are we really at the midway point of 2010?

In honor of the milestone, I’ve captured my personal eight - lucky in Chinese numerology - favorites from the first half of the year.

1) Communicating with Fresh and Compelling Language

This was my first edition of “Moes Takes,” a vehicle to call out clever quotes in stories and show how they would have looked in dulled-down form. For example, Meir Statman, finance professor at Santa Clara University, offered this ditty in The Wall Street Journal:

“The market may be crazy, but that doesn’t make you a psychiatrist.”

The juxtaposition of crazy and psychiatrist makes for great wit.

Dulled-down version:

“The markets are erratic so it’s extremely difficult for the average person to understand.”

2) Open Letter to Toyota Customers Hits Pothole

It’s amazing how the BP tragedy has put the Toyota recall into the distant memory category.

But Toyota dominated the business headlines for several weeks and could never seem to hit the right communications note to diffuse the crisis.

Its open letter to customers set a tone that I dissected in this post.

The second line can only be described as Clintonesque:

I am truly sorry for the concern our recalls have caused, and want you to know we’re doing everything we can – as fast as we can – to make things right.

Notice that Toyota stays away from apologizing for an accelerator that seems to have a mind of its own. Instead, they’re sorry — no, make that “truly sorry” — that they caused heartburn from implementing the recall.

This type of language gamesmanship causes the customer to check out before getting to the part that matters– that Toyota is going “to make things right.”

3) Storytelling 140 Characters at a Time … Not

Intrigued by the concept of microstorytelling, I conducted an experiment reworking the first graph of Ernest Hemingway’s “Old Man and the Sea” into a tweet stream. Here’s an excerpt:

If it’s pathetic, it’s not functional. If it’s functional, it’s not pathetic. That’s my deep sea thinking for the day

I saw the sail … pathetic #tiger.

I agree with @ernest- saw the boy help carry the gaff and harpoon and even the sail furled around the mast.

Pathetic but functional #rachelray.

“Long seperated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.”

On one hand, you shouldn’t feel like you’re taking the SAT to figure out a love story. On the other hand, the ambiguity pulls you in because you can’t be 100 percent sure when the lovers will actually collide.

5) The Wall Street Journal Prints Lame Name-calling Article

Every once in a while I’m inspired to go down the original reporting path.

The Journal deemed Google poaching a Sun employee who had criticized Apple in his personal blog as worthy of an article.

This prompted my own digging. 

“It’s a sterile Disney-fied walled garden surrounded by sharp-toothed lawyers,” Mr. Bray wrote on his personal Web site. “I hate it.”

Perhaps with Madoff fading into the background, The Journal has a surplus of investigative bandwidth.

Can you imagine?

A company criticizing a competitor.

6) Storytelling in Warren Buffet Shareholder Letter

Among Warren Buffett’s many gifts, he’s a master storytelling.

His latest shareholder letter provided the fodder for this post:  

Long ago, Charlie laid out his strongest ambition: “All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there.” That bit of wisdom was inspired by Jacobi, the great Prussian mathematician, who counseled “Invert, always invert” as an aid to solving difficult problems. (I can report as well that this inversion approach works on a less lofty level: Sing a country song in reverse, and you will quickly recover your car, house and wife.)

I just tried this with a Merle Haggard tune and it works, a sad reminder that no matter how many times I played the Beatles song “I Am The Walrus” backwards, I could never make out “Paul is dead.”

He’s right.

7) Storytelling in Social Media and Traditional Media

If we were playing American Idol, this post won the popular vote.

After speaking at the American Chamber of Commerce in Beijing on storytelling, a Chinese magazine interviewed me on the topic. This post encapsulates my answers.

The vast majority of people have been programmed to think business is serious so their communication must be dry and boring and, yes, serious.

On the positive side, if you can create a personality, it literally becomes a differentiator in this sea of sameness … which is where storytelling comes in.

Storytelling can become a powerful tool in creating a company’s personality.

8) Pogue Wraps Product Review in Allegory

It’s not easy to entertain in product reviews.

David Pogue goes one step further, bringing dry humor to product features and functionality.

I had some fun reverse-engineering this particular review on digital cameras.

The review goes old school with the lead ‘graph:

Centuries ago, a young boy in Japan was preparing for a long journey. “You will need much drinking water,” said his master. “Construct a barrel that will catch the rain.”

You can almost sense David Carradine flashing back to his Grasshopper days, an allusion that keeps as the story unwind.    

I got the SlideShare religion because the platform simplifies the blending of words and visuals in storytelling.

But there are a number of ways to bring visuals to the fore, such as the infographic.

I was particularly impressed with the savvy displayed from a company called Infegy in creating an infographic on the vuvuzela, those pesky horns providing the “lovely background music” for World Cup matches.

Adam Coomes, Infegy’s president, came up with the idea after watching the World Cup and seeing how the humble horn had garnered such attention in the news, blogs and tweets.

“That’s when I realized that it would be a good idea to get some official numbers about what people actually think about the vuvuzela,” explained Coomes. “Someone with no prior knowledge could spend five minutes reading the infographic and have a general idea of what a vivuzela is and its impact within the social media realm.”

No question, Infegy gets it right on multiple fronts:

• Storytelling brings together history, numbers and anecdotes
• Pursued a topic with a public profile that has spiked.
• Professional-grade design thanks to Ben Stock Design.
• Delivers levity; i.e., averages 127 decibels, that’s seven times more intense than a chainsaw (not to mention the difficulty of getting a chainsaw through security).

Plus, the company recognized that building an infographic solely around numbers from monitoring social media would come across as too self-serving and lack the verve of a multi-faceted edition.

The reward came in the form of pick-up by various online media properties, including Mashable.

One final point -

You might have noticed the infographic highlights that the data came from socialradar (product), not Infegy (company). It’s hard enough for a startup venture to build one brand, much less two, but we’ll save this story for another time.

We’ve talked about the star power of the anecdote in storytelling.

Here’s yet another example.

Sarah Needleman at The Wall Street Journal sent out the following query on HARO:

I’m seeking small-business owners who struggle or used to struggle with reprimanding employees for poor performance or bad behavior. But I need more than just someone who can speak generally — I need an owner who can offer an anecdote that illustrates this problem. Maybe an owner was uncomfortable giving a stern talking to an employee who chronically came in late and then other employees started coming in late. Maybe an owner didn’t want to take sides between two fighting employees and one ended up quitting, resulting in a sudden staff shortage. The anecdote doesn’t need to be earth-shattering, just a real example of how hard it can be to be the tough guy or gal in a small work environment.

In short, she wants to ensure her story comes across as real through ”an owner who can offer an anecdote that illustrates the problem.”

Fast-forward to the actual article “Tough Love Isn’t Easy to Give” and those anecdotes come in the form of five companies:

• Just Salad: Didn’t confront a poor performer who eventually got the ax
• America By Mail: Too soft on a single dad who wasn’t doing the job
• 2 Hound Design: Ignored a micro-manager who spied on employees
• Tyler Barnett PR: Employee kept calling the big boss “buddy” and “pal”
• Trye & Associates: Receptionist continued to break rule eating at her desk

It’s revealing to look at Needleman’s original query that zeroes in on business owners “who struggle.”

That’s what creates the mini drama.

Personally, I’d like to hear more about the receptionist who preferred to dine in during ALL office hours.

Was she sneaking in a couple Bonus Jacks in her purse to nibble on throughout the day?

Did she offer snacks to her colleagues (perhaps reducing the company’s take from the vending machines)?

How did she respond when scolded that she shouldn’t pick up the phone with her mouth full?

And how the heck does a receptionist end up spilling coffee on the guts of a phone system, ruining it beyond repair?

I suspect there’s another good story waiting to be told. 

The Innovation Journalism (InJo) Conference at Stanford kicked off yesterday.

Gathering 100+ journalists, academics and the like to scrutinize the telling of the innovation story makes for a lively dialog.

The opening session featured David Nordfors, founder of InJo, interviewing Krishna Bharat, the creator of Google News. Dubbed a “fireside chat,” I’m pleased to report both participants passed on the cardigan sweater (and no one lit the Duraflame log).

Quite frankly, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

Putting Google on this stage struck me akin to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao keynoting an ACLU dinner.

But everyone was cordial if not downright polite.

Bharat started by sharing how the 9/11 tragedy served as the catalyst for Google News. He realized it took considerable effort and time to gather a cross-section of stories on the attack. That backdrop gave rise to Google News.

Nordfors tried to nudge Bharat out of his comfort zone and Timothy Dickinson from Rolling Stone probed about Google’s responsibility to the business of journalism. While Bharat stayed on script for the most part, I thought there were a few comments that offered hints on where Google is taking the platform.

One quick caveat - I did not record the session and my note-taking is not industrial grade. I’ve done my best to capture Bharat’s words.

Bharat: Journalists should worry about creating content and leave it to others to get the content to the audience.

My Take: By leave it to others, I wasn’t sure if he meant a publication’s businesspeople or companies like Google. Regardless, journalists do worry about this issue since the online distribution of their content has undermined revenue generation and pink-slipped so many of their compadres.

One element that doesn’t get a lot of discussion is the more experienced journalists end up in the line of fire because of their higher salaries. During my morning workshop, Peter Lewis who many may remember from his Fortune days but is now a Knight Fellow in Journalism at Stanford, mentioned that CNN cut their entire science staff. As a result, the media property is forced to cover a crisis like the BP oil spill with generalists.

Bharat: Once you intersperse hard news with everything else, it’s tough for a publication to distinguish itself.

My Take: Google believes the hard news biz will go the way of auto manufacturing; i.e., a few deep-pocketed publishers with scale will own the space. I got the sense that Google anticipates the bulk of consolidation in the publishing industry has yet to occur. Now there’s a sobering thought.

Bharat: The process for purchasing journalism needs to become easier and simpler.

My Take: This one perplexed me. I’ve never been stumped by a publication’s subscription form, this from a person called “mechanically declined” by his brother. On the other hand, I got the vibe that Google aspires to become the PayPal for digital content.

If you’re interested in a deeper look, Mark Glaser interviewed Bharat back in February in the MediaShift story “Google News to Publishers: Let’s Make Love Not War.”

You can track the conference through Wednesday on Twitter at #injo7.  

One last point to share on Day 1 of the conference -

Nordfors explained that his program has been renamed the Stanford Center of Innovation and Communication.

The name change recognizes that the ecosystem surrounding innovation and communicating to the outside world encompasses a range of players, including PR.

After the dust settles from the conference, I hope to get time with Nordfors for an interview on his program and the general topic of storytelling.

The typical product review has a happy ending.

By that, I mean the end of a review usually calls out one product as the best choice.

In spite of the “happily every after” - at least for one company - you don’t associate the product review genre with storytelling.

Instead, these articles strive to clinically attach a value to different features and functions with the objective of helping potential buyers make their decisions.

That’s why a recent review by David Pogue in The New York Times caught my attention.

Anyone who touches the consumer electronics space knows Pogue and his gift for humor. His comparison of Windows Vista to the Mac OS back in 2006 - “I’m going to prove that Microsoft did not steal ideas from Mac OS 10″ - remains a classic and must-watch video:

But it’s interesting to see his quest for levity play out in a print product review called “Big Sensor, Tiny Camera, Nice Results” (don’t think Pogue wrote the headline; perhaps a byproduct of the SEO jockeys).

The review goes old school with the lead ‘graph:

Centuries ago, a young boy in Japan was preparing for a long journey. “You will need much drinking water,” said his master. “Construct a barrel that will catch the rain.”

You can almost sense David Carradine flashing back to his Grasshopper days, an allusion that keeps as the story unwinds:

After a quick run to his local Pagoda Depot for supplies, the boy built a large barrel, open at the top. When it rained, the barrel filled quickly.

“Good,” said the master. “Now pack it up.”

“But master,” the boy protested. “This barrel is much too big and heavy to take on my journey — it might not even qualify as carry-on! I need a much smaller, lighter container!”

Nice turn of a phrase, “Pagoda Depot.”

Sensing that an allegory is taking shape:

“A wise observation,” said the master.

“And yet,” said the boy, “a smaller container means a smaller opening, and it won’t catch nearly as much rain.”

And now, the payoff with Pogue intersecting Grasshopper with today’s digital dilemma:

The master nodded again. “Excellent, my son,” he said. “Now you understand the trade-off between digital S.L.R. cameras and pocket cameras. The S.L.R. is big and heavy, but it has a huge sensor that collects much light; you can get sharp photos even at twilight. The pocket camera has a tiny sensor that’s blurry in low light, but at least you won’t slip a disk trying to carry it around.”

The rest of the review offers the obligatory compare and contrast of several cameras.

Of course, every story must have an end.

Naturally, Pogue ties back to the drinking water quandary:

In the end, the boy began to cross Japan with only a tiny water flask on his back.

The master was aghast. “But you will die of thirst, my son!”

The boy smiled as he continued walking. “I’m not too worried about it, old man. Technology has a way of making all things possible.

Right. There’s no way a Japanese boy is going to call Kwai Chang Caine an “old man.”

But the boy saying “please don’t worry master” doesn’t quite have the same verve.

Like all master storytellers, Pogue expects us to suspend belief.

I’m OK with this for a product review that shakes up the status quo.