If you asked 1,000 people which profession is more creative, advertising or PR, I suspect 997 would say advertising (figuring the outlier dynamic at .003 percent). After all, advertising delivers those 30-second TV commercials that tug at the heartstrings or prompt laughter. They sell beer by teasing out a classic story arc depicting a horse …more
Business communicators can take lessons away from all forms of storytelling. One of my favorite go-to exercises for our storytelling workshop leans on the movie, “500 Days of Summer.” A voice with James Earl Jones-like command delivers a narration that sets the stage for the movie and what proved to be Zooey Deschanel’s coming out …more
After conducting our storytelling workshop over the years, a certain theme has emerged. By the close of the workshop, participants buy into the concepts. They then jump back into their jobs with renewed determination to communicate with conversational language and a show-don’t-tell attitude only to run into that visible force called stakeholder approval. We continually …more
I rarely address fiction in this blog. While many of the same concepts apply to storytelling in business, there’s still a gulf between the two disciplines. But Sarah Lafferty pointed me to a book of Kurt Vonnegut short stories published after his death. The introduction includes what Vonnegut calls “Creative Writing 101,” which offers sound …more
