I was honored that Kathy Hansen invited me to participate in her Q&A series. She asked me to share one piece of advice or wisdom on storytelling. My response – The story is always there. I truly believe this. Every company has something compelling to say. But like discovery in the legal sphere, it can …more
Virtually every blog strives for reader interaction. Beyond posted comments, I’m hoping Ishmael’s Corner can evolve into a platform for anyone who has a “story” on this form of communications called storytelling. Toward this end, today brings our third guest post – the first one came from Michael Margolis and the second from Julia Sinykin …more
Everyone left the news release for dead years ago. Then Enron imploded, Sarbanes-Oxley arrived and the need for public disclosure resurrected this humble servant. That’s why you saw Berkshire scooping up Business Wire some years ago. It was a form of “forget mining for gold, let’s sell the pans and sluice boxes.” But not even …more
Back in October, I resurrected the “Iron Reporter” to compare how two different publications covered Siemens’ high-speed train in Russia. It was interesting to see the two reporters, Andrew E. Kramer from The New York Times and Paul Glader from The Wall Street Journal, take distinctly different paths in their storytelling. Both pieces reflected the …more
The typical product review has a happy ending. By that, I mean the end of a review usually calls out one product as the best choice. In spite of the “happily every after” – at least for one company – you don’t associate the product review genre with storytelling. Instead, these articles strive to clinically attach a value to …more
Any company would prize 20 column inches plus a photo on the front of The Journal’s Marketplace section. That’s exactly what UPS enjoyed in the article titled “UPS Thinks Outside the Box on Driver Training.” The piece makes for a good mini case study on the type of storytelling that plays in the business media. Note …more
The title says it all, “Storytelling and Your Quest for Business Success.” It’s rare for a magazine to examine the power of storytelling in business. This particular article comes compliments of the trade book One +, which caters to more than 30,000 meeting planners. Before you scoff, consider the plight of meeting planners in …more
Alexandre Bilodeau winning Canada’s first gold medal in the men’s freestyle moguls on Sunday got me thinking. Every Olympics reveals terrific human interest stories such as Bilodeau and his inspiration coming from his disabled older brother. You certainly don’t need a media kit to write up Team U.S.A.’s historic beat-down of the Russian hockey team …more
The power of storytelling is now being deployed in medicine. The Irish Times writes on the topic “Keeping the Narrative Going,” kicking off with the question: Why settle for role of tragic victim when you could have that of courageous survivor? It makes sense. If storytelling offers the means for more effective communications in life …more
