There’s no getting around that, to some extent, every startup makes it up as it goes along. It’s a high wire act. Inevitably, reality doesn’t match up with the theory, which in turn causes changes or even chaos. Yes, this dynamic can also wreak havoc with the budget. But there are many benefits from supporting …more
You want storytelling? How about that Knicks/Mavs game last Sunday? After overcoming racism, Ivy League basketball, not being drafted by an NBA team, getting cut by two teams, relegation to the Reno Bighorns, and pestilence in third-world countries, Jeremy Lin is a legit star. As you would expect, his story has been chronicled down to …more
Business Wire captured its top 20 news releases of 2011 in terms of views. On average, each news release garnered 63K views. More proof that every company has the potential, doesn’t happen automatically, to be a media company. When it comes to applying storytelling techniques to communications and driving popularity, what can we learn from the top …more
Our humble corner now enters unchartered waters with two guest posts in a row (now one guest post away from “Bingo”). Teresa Pham captures the highlights from PRSA’s annual Media Predicts event on Wednesday evening. My two cents — Reed Hastings and Netflix will be the comeback story of the year in 2012. It’s easy …more
“Friday Levity” returns on Thursday (not necessarily back by popular demand). Check out the following photo from a Chinese website selling English language lessons. Always good for models in an advertisement to exude friendliness. The fellow waving “hi” to the reader looks fine. But the girl’s wave is so close to her face it looks like …more
Whether we’re talking an IT director at a Fortune 500 company or an aluminum salesman in Des Moines, people consume visuals with greater ease than words. That’s why communicators of all shapes and sizes should embrace visual storytelling. And there’s more to visual communication than the grandiose infographic. Photos, illustrations and simple graphics can enhance …more
How can you not like a guy who puts in his official bio: As an entrepreneur, he has founded dozens of companies, most of which failed. Seth Godin brings many dimensions to the marketing discipline not the least being levity. A believer in the art of storytelling, he penned the book “All Marketers Are Liars: The Power of …more
Observing the spate of recent public debacles has caused me to revisit what makes for the most effective outbound communications. At the 10K-foot level, it requires the management of a company and the communications function to be on the same page. I’m not talking about being in sync with regards to the pristine messages in a news release. …more
I’ve praised Intel’s communications efforts on this forum. Whether it’s humanizing the company through thought-leadership campaigns that transcend technology or the approach to Intel Free Press, the company does many things right on the comms front. That’s why the news release behind the company’s latest invention, a 3-D transistor, surprised me. It’s very un-Intel like. Filled …more
