This blog dissects, pontificates and discusses storytelling in the context of business.

Which isn’t the same as being an actual storyteller.

But I’m going to deviate from the script and share a story that falls under the you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up category.

One of my son’s friends will be attending college out of the area.

Figuring he wasn’t cut out for a long-distance relationship with the girlfriend, he concluded the relationship needed to end.

But the idea of ending things all at once seemed too painful.

Instead, he proposed (probably could have found a better verb) a schedule – which kicked off in late May – to his girlfriend to systematically wean (another poor verb choice) each party from the other.

Specifically, the plan dials down the social media connections over a period of time. You can see the game plan below.

Looks like he didn’t want to go too fast with the Skype calls.

Maybe he had a role model that succeeded with the six-week Slim-Fast system.

I’m no Dr. Phil, but I don’t think this story is going to have a happy ending. 

I spoke at the American Chamber of Commerce in Beijing on storytelling a couple weeks ago. The talk triggered interest from a Chinese publication which asked me two questions via e-mail: 

How does storytelling impact today’s traditional media as well as social media? How does storytelling benefit business executives and their respective companies? 

My answers follow.

The media has changed.

I know these four words smack of understatement, but bear with me.

It used to be that the media viewed its mission as to inform and in some cases educate. Today, thanks to the Internet commoditizing all types of information, including news, the media must also entertain as a means to rise above the noise level.

As a proof point, consider the following words that came from a website for journalists:

Don’t limit your inquiry, or your thinking, to the basics of journalism: Who, what, when, where, why, how. Think in terms of story elements: setting, character, plot, conflict, climax, resolution, dialogue, theme. 

This captures the essence of how journalism is striving for a greater entertainment quotient.

Public relations needs to align with this dynamic.

This means public relations professionals should be developing content that encapsulates the elements of storytelling, which in turn enables the journalists to write a narrative. Of course, the journalist doesn’t have 200+ pages to air out a narrative like a novel. But PR professionals can still offer the right pieces – access to executives, quantifying key events, anecdotes – that lend themselves to narrative in business and trade publications.

With that said, we’re proponents of applying the techniques of storytelling to all communications (not just media relations).

Three thoughts on these techniques -

First, communicate in conversational language. I don’t know why reasonable and interesting people put on a business suit and all of the sudden their language becomes stiff and boring language. Keep it conversational.

Also, you can create drama by simply showing the contrast between the old way and the new way. The way I explain this in storytelling workshops is the difference between “what was” and “what is.” The greater the difference, the greater the drama.

And third, the power of anecdotes brings life to any communication. More than entertain, an anecdote shows a certain realness in the communication. There’s a great line from Raymond Mar who’s a professor at York University in Toronto who has researched storytelling: 

Everyone has a natural detector for psychological realism. 

The use of anecdotes helps a communication get through that “natural detector.”

These same techniques absolutely apply to social media.

Look at how 90+ percent of LinkedIn invitations arrive:

So and so has indicated you are a person they’ve done business with at so and so company.

 

I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn. 

I don’t think anyone would confuse these words (template from LinkedIn) as compelling.

At the very least, people should take 60 seconds and personalize the LinkedIn invitation with conversational language. Again, this basic technique alone will cause your communication to stand out.

I’d like to end on this note.

People like it when companies have personalities. It makes them feel like there are actual people on the other side of the communication as opposed to a faceless machine.

This might seems obvious and simplistic.

Yet, you could make an argument that many companies actually put energy into activities that squeeze out their personalities so they come across as generic and blend into the background.

Because they’re communicating the same way the vast majority of companies communicate.

It makes no sense.

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.

People tend to think of companies like Apple when it comes to distinctive personalities, but even little things can shape a personality for companies that don’t sell iPods and iPhones.

Here’s one quick example.

One of our clients called Bumptop was just bought by Google. Bumptop created a 3-D desktop operating system which is somewhat technical, but the company shrewdly developed its personality from the start by having fun with language and storytelling. Its website - which unfortunately is no longer live - showcased this attitude with sections like “Love for Bumtop” instead of using a traditional phrase like “Press Room.”

Now, most companies would be downright scared to use a word like “love,” which you rarely see in business communication. But this type of contrarian approach and belief in storytelling played a major role in differentiating Bumptop and building its brand in a relatively short period of time.

Given a choice, do you gravitate toward entertaining people or dull people?

The same holds true for companies; hence, the reason to embrace storytelling.

I’ve been thinking about the headline of the Scoble post I addressed last week: “What do the freaking tech bloggers want?”

Specifically, does the periodic cuss word (or derivative) enhance storytelling or at the very least command attention?

I think the power of a cuss word can come from the element of surprise. If Martha Stewart drops an f-bomb while she’s baking brownies that’s going to grab your attention.

But the words “freakin” and “freaking” tend to be so overused today that they’ve lost their ability to jar. Rather than depend on gut feel, I turned to the wonders of the Factiva database to chart usage over the past five years.

You can see the two words have been gaining traction to the point that we’re projecting - I know the polls haven’t closed but go with me on this one - 7,122 articles will carry them in 2008. For context, Steve Jobs, who can hold his own with the likes of Britney Spears when it comes to media captivation, won’t show up in as many articles this year at the current pace.

Furthermore, I think it’s fair to say the words enjoy even greater use in the blogosphere. I couldn’t figure out how to search postings employing “freakin” or “freaking” by year, but a quick IceRocket search resulted in 122,923 hits.

Talk about overexposure.

Then again, with the right context the repetition of a cuss word can become a story in itself. For Exhibit A, look at Lee Elia’s meltdown back in 1983 when he was the manager of the Chicago Cubs. His profanity-laced tirade after the Cubs lost another game lives on in infamy thanks to the Internet.

Why?

It was so over the top for a public figure to spew expletive after expletive.

And yes, like all good stories it rang with authenticity.

With the fervor surrounding the Beijing Olympics close to its apex, any story tied to China gains some extra juice.

That’s why you see announcements like the one by IODA (the Independent Online Distribution Alliance) launching the largest digital music store in China timed to lead into the Olympics opening ceremonies on August 8.

Timing aside, IODA paints the classic contrarian story with an angle that never goes out of style, the quest for money.

At a high level, here’s how the IODA story flows:

• China just took the worldwide Internet user mantle, surpassing the U.S. with 253 million Web users at last count. To paraphrase Jed Clampett from The Beverly Hillbillies, “There’s gold in them there hills.
• But piracy has crippled the music industry in China. In fact, the largest search engine in China, Baidu, owes its king-of-the-hill status largely to pointing the Chinese netizen to links for downloading unlicensed music.
• Enter the Wawawa Music Store.
• Now, for roughly three cents per song, the Chinese consumer can download music.
• IODA and its partners generate oodles of yuan in the largest Internet market in the world, and at three cents a crack, I do mean “oodles and oodles.

The Associated Press ran with the story, which in turn drove coverage in the print media and the blogosphere. AP did a decent-enough job telling the story, equating the cost of the monthly subscription service to the price of a burger, fries and soda at McDonald’s

But it missed an opportunity to accentuate the relevance of the story to Americans and others around the world. 

Namely, why can’t anyone download songs at three shekels?

As I understand it, the Wawawawa (just felt like throwing in an extra “wa”) music is not DRM-protected to make downloading as easy as possible. What’s to prevent me from grabbing the latest track from indie band Woodhands?

Or if this isn’t possible, then why isn’t it possible? And how long before some enterprising acne-challenged kid codes a solution for the world at www.everyonecangetsongsforthreecents.com?

That’s the story I expected to read.