I cruised back through my 2009 posts, flagging my personal favorites.

Here’s half the list:

1) AIG Jumps Into Fray with Its Side of the Story

This was my first time getting in touch with my inner smart-ass self:

The power of empathy championed by Oprah and her ilk is not lost on Mr. Liddy. His op-ed kicks off:

The government rescue of American International Group (AIG) and other financial firms has produced a palpable wave of anger on the part of Americans and a rising public demand for accountability from corporate and government leaders. The anger is understandable, and I share it.

Is he saying that he shares our anger or he shares an understanding that we’re angry? I’m not sure. Still, right move to jump on the anger bandwagon.

2) Conversing Like A Real Human Being

One of my soapboxes and the following perspective from Dick Costello (now COO at Twitter) absolutely nails the issue:

People like it when companies have personalities. It makes us feel like there are actual people on the other side of the communication. It’s fun to be the customer of a company with a personality. This seems totally obvious, and yet you too rarely see companies with distinct personalities really grab your attention in the marketplace. Why is this? It’s actually hard to remove personality and character from communications. So, instead of saying that companies don’t take the time to have personalities, it’s probably more accurate to state that companies don’t allow themselves to show their personalities.

3) Making Sure The Cobbler’s Kids Don’t Go Without Shoes

By applying the same storytelling principles to our own brand-building, we’ve enjoyed attention from a range of media properties, including an op-ed in BusinessWeek. I got a kick out of the following line even if the only positive feedback came from my mom (”You never liked carp. I remember when we took you to Lake Mead and …”):

If we learned anything from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) last year—never a good sign when an acronym rhymes with carp—it’s that pumping large sums of money into the banks by itself is not the answer to the credit crunch.

4) The David-Against-Goliath Story Never Goes Out Of Style

Malcom Gladwell has taken non-fiction storytelling to a new level. This post examines one of his New Yorker pieces:

He frames the story with a subplot that anyone can relate to: a youth sports team, in this case a 12-year-old girls basketball team coached by the CEO of software company TIBCO, that demonstrates effort and smarts trumping expertise. Think Bad News Bears in pigtails (although it’s tough to visualize TIBCO CEO Vivek Ranadivé playing Morris Buttermaker instead of Walter Matthau).

5) A Modern Pipeline Story Comes To Life In The Wall Street Journal

Storytelling in the business media benefits from quantification. The numbers add up to one mega project:

Last leg of the pipeline cost $6.7B

Created 10,000 jobs

Used 1.4M tons of steal

Welded 110,814 sections of 42-inch pipe

Negotiated with 6,530 landowners for rights of way

Side note: Can you imagine? I can’t even get my neighbors to trim their avocado tree hanging over our front yard.

Worked 27 million man-hours

I’ll share the remaining five tomorrow.

There’s a reason that the official Google Blog is so well read and shows up on the Techmeme leaderboard.

Beyond dominating search, the Google posts are crafted with a conversational tone and often contrast the old way with a new way.

Take last week’s post “Go thataway: Google Maps India learns to navigate like a local.”

In short, it explains how improved directions in India came from including landmarks (visual cues) that both describe a turn as well as confirm that the person is on the right track.

For the men in India who are not big on asking for directions (and you know who you are), this latest incarnation from Google must be a godsend.

The storytelling kicks in with a screenshot of Google Maps directions in India from 2008:

Not good.

It’s almost like you’re expected to tape measure each leg.

Now look at how map directions in India appear today:

Even if you don’t speak the local language, these directions give you a fighting chance to move from point A to point B.

The contrast is obvious.

Often, companies are reticent to explain the “old way” because they mistakenly feel it comes across as a “negative.”

Yet, this information is vital to putting the “new way” in context.

The movie business provides a window into how people like their stories.

The path for movies can take many forms, but they end on a positive note 99 percent of the time.

That’s the way we like it.

Shrek gets the princess (albeit, with a revised look).

Michael Oher goes on to play offensive tackle for the Baltimore Ravens.

Indiana Jones solves the riddle.

Even in a depressing ending like “Cool Hand Luke,” Paul Newman is there to soften the blow.

Turning to business stories, 2009 will go down as “The Year of the Downer.” The financial carnage has consumed the media in a way that makes coverage of the dot-com meltdown look like amateur hour.

Yet, the niche media property Tonic, which only covers good news like “Ingredients for Peace: The Cookbook” (you too can bake chicken like Desmond Tutu), has seen its readership significantly increase amidst the wreckage.

People still want heroes, obstacles overcome and happy endings.

With this in mind, I believe 2010 will find business media properties more open than ever to positive stories. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of reporters and bloggers don’t find satisfaction in writing for the umpteenth time about another foreclosure in Bakersfield.

Now, that doesn’t mean rev. 3.554 of a product offering or your CEO bowling to raise money for charity will end up in a national daily.

But legitimate business stories, those that build drama articulating the difference between what was and what is, use numbers, and bring anecdotes to the fore have a better chance of getting a listen next year.

The psychological component for business storytelling - now there’s a phrase in which an acronym doesn’t quite work - is what I expect to be a factor in 2010.

Quantifying this, I’ve created what I’m calling the “Cautiously Optimistic Index.” Using the Factiva U.S. database, I’ve captured the number of articles that mention the phrase “cautiously optimistic” cut by month.

Aside from a dip in September - perhaps the one-year anniversary of the Lehman Brothers collapse caused a pang of temporary heartburn - you can see an almost 3X rise since the start of the year.

This bodes well for a positive environment in 2010.

I know, I know, not exactly scientific. But if you want science, go talk to Wall Street.

I was delighted when Steve Farnsworth asked me to contribute a guest post to his blog.

The content follows.

While it’s not exactly focused on storytelling, it still falls under the communications umbrella.

Steve originally approached me to share my perspective on the changing role of internal PR practitioners.

No question, the economic downturn has been one catalyst for change.

I can’t think of one corporate PR department - with the possible exception of the Johnson & Johnson PR folks who support Purell - that hasn’t been asked to do more with less after a reduction in staff or agency budget or both.

Yet, the more I thought on this topic, the more I came to realize the skills and way of thinking that will elevate tomorrow’s corporate PR pro are the very same traits that will enable tomorrow’s agency PR practitioner to succeed.

Don’t get me wrong.

I appreciate there are marked differences between an internal and external role, although my own internal experience was limited to the PR department of a union called the California School Employees Association (CSEA).

The internal demands of serving so many different stakeholders alone require a certain quality that defies definition. At the tactical level, shepherding a news release through the labyrinth innocuously known as the corporate review process requires finesse and patience.

But the same macro issues impact both internal and external professionals - hence, the decision to look at the future of the overall PR professional from a skills perspective.

I’m going to call this PR person of the future “Ruvin” (squished together my parents’ two names; not above looking for ways to one-up my siblings with the holidays around the corner).

Here’s the key.

Ruvin must command interdisciplinary skills.

Time Magazine ran a provocative Q&A last month with Malcolm Gladwell who pontificated that aspiring journalists should skip J-school and study other domains. He stressed that today’s journalist must bring something more to the table than reporting skills. As exhibit A, he pointed to Jonathan Weil from Bloomberg who broke the Enron story thanks to financial acumen as much as reporting expertise.

I’m not ready to say Ruvin should bail on a mass comms degree, but he/she might if the school’s curriculum doesn’t have the flexibility to cut across multiple disciplines.

Because Ruvin needs finance to read a balance sheet like Brother Weil.

Ruvin also needs videography, photography and editing skills that exceed your garden-variety postings on Facebook.

And don’t forget computer sciences, where programming and an affinity for adopting the latest software tools provide the means to “write on the Net.”

It might have been years since Ruvin walked into a traditional library, but he/she better have a background in library science tuned to dig out and correlate information from that big digital library in the sky called the Web.

Aspects of anthropology such as ethnology all have a place in shaping Ruvin’s foundation for a career in PR.

In other words, tomorrow’s PR practitioner must straddle business and science as well as the arts.

Yes, Ruvin should evolve and polish the soft skills too.

The art of persuasion.

The ability to probe a resource to pull out meaningful content.

Knowing how verbal cues and body language can communicate strength of conviction.

Etc.

But with society redefining relationships and what influences those relationships, and the PR profession evolving toward communications that go direct as well as through third parties, the social gadfly + writing formula by itself won’t automatically translate into success down the road.

One of my favorite modern artists is Chuck Close who takes portraits to a different level. His painting and photography talent serve as only the starting point for his pieces.

Close has immersed himself in the printing process ranging from carving linoleum blocks to applying acid to his etching plates. Geometry – the use of a grid to break the face down into incremental units – and even topology also come to play in his art.

This collision of creativity and science produces stunning results not possible with only the “arts.”

That’s how I see the future of public relations.

Only by drawing from science, business and the arts will PR continue to make extraordinary contributions to organizations.

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The typical news release offers less drama than watching Aunt Bee on a rerun of The Andy Griffith Show.  For those under 50 not familiar with the sitcom just listening to the show’s theme song tells you all you need to know.

Of course, I recognize that companies need to announce products and other types of news in which the subject matter doesn’t lend itself to the next Pulitzer Prize.

With that said, story telling has a place in the humble news release.

I’m going to break my rule of discussing Agency work and discuss Agency work.

In support of one of Sony’s consumer electronic products called DVDirect we recently created a news release with the headline: “Dilemma: Home Videos Trapped in Closets, Shoeboxes and Drawers”

Not bad.

By looking at the product through the eyes of the consumer the team crafted a clever kick off with relevance to the target audience. In addition, a microsite was devoted to the story as a boost beyond the news release.

It all made for an effective package that generated pick up in a range of print publications and the blogosphere.