In the spirit of experimentation in communications, our London team has geeked out a podcast studio. I made the guest list when I was in town last month — I’d like to think my title had nothing to do with this honor — to discuss storytelling and specifically our Periodic Table of Storytelling. The photo …more
What does a shovel have to do with storytelling? Everything. Many of our clients come from the B2B tech world where hearts race from inventing a way to increase the spin-torque efficiency of a memory device. While these types of stories hold great importance to the people who use a given technology, they typically aren’t …more
Nothing says storytelling like the “F” word. Point to a movie or book or TV show that captivates, and I’ll show you failure. I’m currently watching “Better Call Saul.” The man goes from untangling drug lords from their legal difficulties to shaping dough at Cinnabon, the classic story arc with the requisite failure. . …more
A corporate feature in a mainstream publication is the PR equivalent of a home run. No question, PR is constantly swinging for the fences. Unfortunately, the success rate for PR is more Duane Kuiper (below) than Babe Ruth. Obviously, a number of variables come into play in determining whether a journalist and the bosses green …more
Since conducting our first storytelling workshop in 2011, the honing of the material has been a never-ending process. To this point, we’ve considered the methodology as our intellectual property. It was part of how we differentiated the Agency, an approach to developing content that recognized that given a choice between dull or interesting, human beings will gravitate …more
The heck with big data, analytics and science. Subjectivity rules in selecting the top 10 posts from the first half of the year. Tuesday’s post captured half of the list. Here’s the second half. 6. Media Squeeze — and Watermelon Explosion — Described by the NY Times Presents an Opportunity for PR The New York Times …more
Failure. Point to a movie or a book that captivates, and I’ll show you failure. Shrek. Absolutely. Something more high-brow, like the best-selling novel “A Little Life.” Again, failure underpins the story. For it’s the failure — something going horribly awry, the more pain the better — that creates the tension in a story. As …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
Every PR agency and internal PR function strives to communicate positive stories about the organizations it supports. When we capture storytelling assets for one of our clients, no one proactively comes forth to share the time that something went horribly wrong. Yet, failure is one of the best techniques to bring tension or even drama …more
