There. I’ve said it. You can officially classify me as a heretic. My viewpoint started to form in 1983 when I landed my first job at a PR agency. Shortly after, the big boss decided I was ready to support our client Philips at COMDEX — THE computer show at the time (eventually bulldozed by …more
I believe levity is the killer app in business storytelling. Levity lifts the narrative, especially in the B2B tech world where inserting an action verb is considered a win. For the B2B tech companies who say this is too hard, too risky, check out the use of levity by law enforcement agencies, starting with last …more
We know the story is always there. Yet, bringing the story to the surface often requires the right questions. And no one is better at probing and cajoling a source than Terry Gross, the maestro of the NPR podcast “Fresh Air.” She recently interviewed the actor Patricia Arquette. Having done her homework, Gross knows Arquette’s …more
Particularly in Silicon Valley where most executives started their careers on the engineering side. Coming from a technical orientation, they tend to think of anecdotes as inconsequential and yes, a bit fluffy. Yet, the science suggests that PR should be sourcing anecdotal content as part of media outreach. We leaned on a couple interns to …more
By Matt Burrows, Senior Account Executive At first glance, dentistry might seem like the last profession you should address to get thoughts on storytelling, with most conversations with your dentist consisting of them asking questions while your mouth is open to the world. So when Dan Tynan — journalist, communications writer and Thought Follower …more
By Elisa Zallio, Junior Account Executive, Hoffman Europe (London) I’d like to tell you about Emilio Salgari. He is a barely known, Italian writer from the late 19th century; he wrote adventure stories for periodic magazines, usually about fallen noblemen turned pirates to take revenge on their enemies — and, obviously, they’d fall in …more
I’ve written 1,009 posts including this one. I don’t know if my Mom has read all of them — suspect she took a pass on my tirade about the city of Middleton’s proclamation of “Mustard Day” — but she’s been an avid reader of the blog. She claims that the blog is an extension of …more
The public relations function typically constructs media pitches based on the story that the company wants to tell. These stories tend to be pristine narratives — the sun is shining; birds are chirping — that dull the senses. That largely explains why 95%+ of pitches to the business media fail. Instead, we should be thinking …more
Writing feeds my soul, so producing 1,000 blog posts on public relations, storytelling and everything in between hasn’t exactly been combat duty. Still, there’s something about a round number with three zeroes that causes one to pause, to consider what went into this corporate blogging journey. Even though the destination was unknown, my anxiety was …more
