Many business professionals today accept storytelling as an effective means for communicating … in theory. Whether they actually embrace the act is a different story (retaining my reputation for bad puns). Of course, many books promise to recast you with Ira Glass’s gift for narrative and Jimmy Kimmel’s wit. I wrote about one such a …more
The grab bag returns with three vignettes from the wacky world of communications. Financial Times Rejects Business Storytelling The job description for columnists always includes the verb, provoke. In this regard, I suppose the column by FT’s Lucy Kellaway, “Stories Are Best for the Bible and In Novels” works. After all, I’m taking the …more
Journalists, particularly journalists at business and mainstream publications, show the way when it comes to applying storytelling techniques to business communications. Pick out a story in media properties such as The Atlantic or The New Yorker. Reverse-engineering the content and studying the construction of the story will surface lessons that can be applied in business. …more
I’m a big believer in visual storytelling. This can be a tough one for PR professionals who come from the world of words. Yet, between assignments overlapping into owned media and the increasing use of mobile devices to access content, visual storytelling takes on greater importance. With this in mind, my blog — which doubles …more
There’s no question that 2016 delivered plenty of fodder for storytelling. Thursday’s post included half of the list capturing the top posts from this year. Here’s the rest of the list. 6. Five Storytelling Techniques to Give Business Communications Storytelling is the new “black” when it comes to business communications. But here’s the pachyderm in the …more
I suppose there’s a reason that “time flies” became a cliché. It does. I think 2015 saw a better product from Ishmael’s Corner. It certainly looks better, finally bulldozing the original design and bringing the “look and feel’ into the 21st century. And with Ron Howard resurrecting the “Moby Dick” narrative, a new audience learns …more
Look at the construction of any major feature story in Fortune, Bloomberg Businessweek, The Atlantic, Wired, take your pick. What element is likely to underscore the narrative? Here’s a hint. It starts with an “F.” Failure (if you guessed frickinmess, you were in the ballpark). Something going terribly wrong — the bigger the “train wreck,” …more
I continued to collect potential vignettes for the grab bag during my “assignment” in the South of the France. In fact, one of today’s vignettes takes a look at the use of English in France. Here goes … English in France If there’s one country that rejects all things American, it’s France. Yet, you can …more
After publishing my book “On storytelling, leadership and the power of connection,” I started the project www.hetverhaalvandeleider.be. What encouraged me to do this was an incident at my book’s publication event. An economic weekly magazine offered two key leaders from the Belgian economic community to speak at the affair, but they were ultimately offered nothing …more
