Have you ever noticed that the more famous a person becomes, the less accessible he or she becomes? Marsha Collier is an exception to this theorem (and I thought I would never use my high school algebra). As a leading expert on customer service, small-biz guru and best-selling author, she still lends a helping hand …more
I must confess to feeling a gravitation pull to old-school POVs. While storytelling in business might be the new black, the fundamentals of communications still hold true. That’s why the following guest post from friend and colleague James Strohecker resonated with me. BTW, I now know how to get to Carnegie Hall. By James Strohecker …more
Notice I said “levity,” not “funny” which is a much higher bar. Still, it often takes guts as much as creativity to bring levity to a brand’s storytelling. And if you can tap into a recent happenstance, you’ve got the makings for a story to reach the masses. I’ve come to call this “improv marketing” …more
Some of the best storytellers on the planet are novelists. Past posts have borrowed from novelists. This one comes at the genre from a different angle. I asked five communicators from varied worlds to share their favorite novel for advancing storytelling acuity from a business context. The end result is a mix of reading deserving …more
Huawei’s PR quest to be perceived as “just another telecom equipment maker doing its part to connect the world” took another hit when ex-CIA chief Michael Hayden said Huawei spied for the Chinese government. In an interview with The Australian Financial Review (AFR) published last Friday, Hayden also mentioned that Huawei tried to recruit him …more
Virtually every great story encompasses failure or at least a crisis. Apple flirted with bankruptcy. J.K. Rowling lived on welfare before Harry Potter came to the rescue. Everyone told Freddie Patek he was too short to play professional baseball (naturally a favorite). As Fortune Journalist Patricia Sellers noted in discussing storytelling in business, “If failure …more
In a time of gnat-like attention spans, few publications still practice long-form journalism. Fortune is one exception, and Patricia Sellers is one exceptional storyteller. If you recognize the name, it’s likely because Sellers took Fortune’s annual feature, “The Most Powerful Women in Business,” and transformed it into franchise with its own brand cachet. The Stanford …more
Every company wants a signature win in heavyweight publications like Fast Company, BusinessWeek and Fortune. By signature win, I mean 1,000-plus words devoted to a behind-the-curtain look at the company. Yet, few PR teams cultivate the needed content assets to give themselves a fighting chance for this type of attention. It requires thinking like a …more
Our infographic that contrasted storytelling with corporate speak seemed to resonate with the outside world. People recognize that gluing together facts and figures makes for dull information. Since publishing the infographic, we’ve seen talk – and chatter in social media channels – evangelizing the value of storytelling in business accelerate. Dare I say, storytelling has …more
