Steinbeck Writing Tips for PR, Visual Storytelling at the Opera and Silicon Valley Satire

Here’s my second grab bag this year.

I use these posts to cobble together three takes that don’t have enough depth to stand on their own.

Steinbeck Writing Tips for Business Communications

While John Steinbeck offers six tips to assist aspiring novelists, there were a couple worth highlighting for communicators:

Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on.

Definitely truth in the line that rewriting can be used as a crutch.

Even if your writing periodically steers off the road, it’s better to purge yourself in one go before you start the reconstructive process.

If you are using dialogue – say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.

This triggered an idea for a video.

We gather a random sampling of news releases, pull out the quotes and have actors recite the quotes doing their best to sound believable.

If PR actually listened to what the quotes sound like before committing them to paper, we would greatly reduce the number quotes that have the stiffness of plywood.

Visual Storytelling at the Opera

Venues like opera, ballet and even museums can be pretentious, if not downright intimidating.

It’s refreshing to find the Estonian National Opera not taking itself so seriously (h/t to @hlintu).

This is the first time I’ve seen visual storytelling make its way into the parking lot.

I’m guessing the password is “maestro.”

BTW, good to see Subway thriving in Estonia: “Hey Hon, have you seen my cummerbund and the 50 kroon foot-long coupon?”

Hollywood’s Take on Silicon Valley

HBO is bringing Silicon Valley into America’s living room through a 30-minute sitcom called, drum roll please, “Silicon Valley.”

After watching the early episodes, I say forget the meek. It’s the geek who shall inherit the earth.

Do programmers really toil in the kitchens of their sugar daddies – who were toiling in their kitchens of their sugar daddies until selling their product for $6 million and change – while turning to beef jerky and Red Bull for nourishment?

Sure. These are the same guys who were wearing “math is fun” buttons in high school.

But the more important question –

Is the storytelling entertaining?

I think so with funny dialogue and the “we’re going to change the world” theme taken to such an extreme to reflect the absurdity as we look at this wonderful bubble from the outside.

I believe it was F. Scott Fitzgerald who said, “Let me tell you about Coders. They’re different than you and me.”