Mr. Harper, my high school English teacher, beat this mantra into brain: “show, don’t tell.” Often, business communications takes the easy way out, depending on adjectives and adverbs to try to make their point. They “tell.” It’s the storytelling that allows us to “show.” One of my favorite go-to exercises for our storytelling workshop leans …more
And those were some of the more “gentle” recent headlines. Let’s set the stage. Bethany Bongiorno and Imran Chaudhri saw an opportunity to rethink mobile computing, so they founded a company called Humane. They invented a lapel pin that would essentially become your AI-infused digital assistant. This vision and the founder’s Apple pedigree landed $100M …more
Ted Sarandos is co-CEO of Netflix. He’s the one greenlighting Stranger Things, The Queen’s Gambit and Bridgerton. He had better get the concepts of story construction. Does he? For the answer, we turn to his recent interview with the New York Times. Asked about how his interest in TV and movies came about, the 81-second …more
Most companies want to be known as innovative. To bastardize the Wallace Simpson line, “you can never be too rich, too thin or too innovative.” The problem is those same companies often depend on adjectives to tout their breakthroughs. The Wall Street Journal challenged the use of the “i” word over ten years ago: “Businesses …more
We tend to correlate experience with stronger leadership. The common Steve Jobs narrative swings from impetuous youth to lessons learned. It stands to reason that people who have been tested when things didn’t go according to plan expand their leadership game. Yet, there’s a downside to experience when it comes to leadership. We can gain …more
On a charitable day, I would characterize most company videos as dreadful. Consider what happens when you go to an event, meet a new person and that person launches into a soliloquy of “me, me and in case you missed it, here’s more about me.” Right. You walk away. Why would a company video be …more
By Andree Latibeaudiere, Account Director, Hoffman Europe . . We value our relationship with the University of Oregon. More than hire U of O grads, we strive to do our part to give students a window into a PR career as well as working at a consultancy. This can take various forms. We participated in …more
Before jumping into the question at hand, let’s acknowledge that the semiconductor shortage has impacted everyone. Even my mom asked me over Thanksgiving dinner if the lack of chips has hurt our business. Naturally, I reciprocated and questioned my Mom’s technique in making her home-made apple sauce. But I digress … How are the actual …more
Is there a task more mundane than doing laundry? It is the ultimate in dullsville. Yet, a podcast by Malcolm Gladwell called “Laundry Done Right” shows that indeed . I first wrote about Gladwell in 2009 when he told a David vs. Goliath type story that used a 12-year-old girls basketball team as the frame. …more
