Business communicators can learn from novelists and their storytelling techniques. I’ve always been partial to the Kurt Vonnegut advice: “Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them – in order that the reader may see what they are made of.” It’s never easy for a …more
Every once in a while I’ll get an email or comment from someone calling me out for passing myself off as a storyteller. They’re right. I’m not a storyteller. My passion lies as a student of storytelling and applying the techniques that underpin storytelling in business communications. There’s a huge difference between the two. For …more
Every company is a media company. Tom Foremski, ex Financial Times Silicon Valley bureau head before starting Silicon Valley Watcher, made this statement years ago. Intel has hired journalists to man the Intel Free Press. Cisco has gone down a similar path with an owned media platform called “The Network.” Observing from afar, one might …more
I am an unabashed fan of the anecdote. Not in the sense that when one shows up on the Ed Sullivan show I’m moved to shriek. There’s an intellectual argument for using anecdotes – namely journalists want them. Sam Whitmore – if you’re in the communications business and don’t subscribe to SWMS, you’re missing a …more
I’ve been waiting months to share this exchange with a journalist at a major business publication. I love this example because it shows a journalist’s reaction to the same core content: one based on the typical bulldoze pitch, and the second reflecting storytelling techniques. Here’s the first volley. Me Journalist This was probably my worse …more
The grab bag returns with a trio of takes. Dénouement in Business Storytelling Our workshop on storytelling techniques discusses dénouement, the French word that means to undo or untie the knot. For business storytelling, it’s the time to bring clarity and resolution to the communications at hand. Even though a business story doesn’t always technically …more
The language in most job descriptions is deadly dull. It’s as if 99 percent of companies borrow from the HR playbook, “Vanilla Job Descriptions.” Companies may tout people as their valuable asset, but they pay scant attention to the crafting of job descriptions for recruitment. I have a theory on the disconnect. The best writers …more
It’s hard to beat the TED Conferences when it comes to oral storytelling. It turns out the speakers – or the folks helping the speakers behind the scenes – craft the titles of their talks with the same quest for attention. Ten of my favorites: Do schools kill creativity? Greening the ghetto Designing the Seattle …more
So many companies tout people as their most valuable asset. Logically, this would make the recruitment of people one of their most important undertakings. Yet, companies typically pay scant attention to the writing of a job description. I posted on the value of applying storytelling techniques to job descriptions some time ago. Moving from the …more
