Everyone knows headlines rule. The ceaseless bombardment of information has turned the headline into eye candy. Write a good one, and readers stop to give the body copy a chance. If not, the readers’ attention never breaks stride and they’re on to other things in a nanosecond. Perhaps no media property has perfected the art …more
If bands can do it, why not a blog? Only, I’ve defined a “greatest hit” as having “hit” the publish button in 2011 or later. With the housekeeping out of the way for these business storytelling oldies, here are seven that fit the description: My Aha Moment in Storytelling Being raised in the command-and-control era …more
The value of visual storytelling will only increase over time. You don’t need a research grant from the feds to reach this conclusion. There are only so many words a human brain can process before the overload buzzer goes off (unless you’re Stephen Hawking). Which brings us to the infographic. If a picture is worth …more
Andrew Mason’s resignation letter last week reflected the best of storytelling in business communications. With this in mind, I tried to track down Mr. Mason to take us behind the curtain in how the letter came about. Unfortunately, he proved elusive. If Mason had agreed to an interview, I suspect the exchange would have gone …more
It doesn’t matter whether you’re an athlete, singer or executive, the true test of your mettle comes from failure. That’s why I was impressed with Andrew Mason’s farewell note to the Groupon troops. Say what you will about Mr Mason’s performance as a CEO – and every journalist and his brother has – …more
Every company wants a signature win in heavyweight publications like Fast Company, BusinessWeek and Fortune. By signature win, I mean 1,000-plus words devoted to a behind-the-curtain look at the company. Yet, few PR teams cultivate the needed content assets to give themselves a fighting chance for this type of attention. It requires thinking like a …more
There’s a reason the line “a picture is worth a thousand words” became a cliché. To debate whether it’s 1,000 words or 1,055 words misses the point. A visual pulls the reader into the narrative and enhances the storytelling. Photo sites like Flickr make it easy to add photos into your blog posts. You can …more
It’s been almost a year since I attended a leadership training session at an offsite for our Asia Pacific management team. The Center for Creative Leadership headed up the conference, and I kept a journal throughout the session. I refer to its content frequently. Given that I’m still thinking about the lessons, I thought a …more
There’s a certain “cycle of life” in business. Companies are born, struggle, grow … and grow some more. Then the decline sets in, which typically culminates with the company dying, merging or being acquired. This keeps the investment bankers busy, befitting the thousands of transactions that take place each year. This also means thousands of …more
