Mr. Harper, my high school English teacher, beat this mantra into brain: “show, don’t tell.” Often, business communications takes the easy way out, depending on adjectives and adverbs to try to make their point. They “tell.” It’s the storytelling that allows us to “show.” One of my favorite go-to exercises for our storytelling workshop leans …more
I can’t be the only one thinking about the incongruence of Trump’s inauguration and the celebration of Martin Luther King’s life falling on the same day. I’ll leave the breakdown of Trump’s remarks to the talking heads on cable news. Instead, MLK day serves as a prompt to dust off Dr. King’s “I Have Dream” …more
And those were some of the more “gentle” recent headlines. Let’s set the stage. Bethany Bongiorno and Imran Chaudhri saw an opportunity to rethink mobile computing, so they founded a company called Humane. They invented a lapel pin that would essentially become your AI-infused digital assistant. This vision and the founder’s Apple pedigree landed $100M …more
Ted Sarandos is co-CEO of Netflix. He’s the one greenlighting Stranger Things, The Queen’s Gambit and Bridgerton. He had better get the concepts of story construction. Does he? For the answer, we turn to his recent interview with the New York Times. Asked about how his interest in TV and movies came about, the 81-second …more
Celebrating the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. always prompts me to dust off the “I Have Dream” speech. It’s a revealing exercise to read the text of the speech rather than watch and listen to the speech. To say Dr. King had a gift for narrative falls short in describing his skills in communicating. …more
We are in the throes of bulldozing our website and creating a new site that brings us into the 21st century. I suppose it’s a little like what happens when you buy a car, and all of a sudden you notice that the make and model seem to be everywhere. I’m now noticing copywriting that …more
John Steinbeck’s letter to Marilyn Monroe in 1955 has been making the rounds on social media. And you thought Steinbeck’s writing prowess was on full display in “The Grapes of Wrath” or perhaps “Of Mice and Men.” It turns out that Mr. Steinbeck saved his best for a letter that tin cups for Ms. Monroe’s …more
Celebrating the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. always prompts me to dust off the “I Have Dream” speech. It’s a revealing exercise to read the text of the speech rather than watch and listen to the speech. To say Dr. King had a gift for narrative falls short in describing his skills in communicating. …more
I’ve always viewed Intel as the gold standard when it comes to communications in the electronics sector. They know how to translate technology into narratives that land. They know how to leverage owned media to fling warning shots to the chosen few. And they’re always striving to put a face on the company, whether that’s …more
