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Business Storytelling Cynthia Hartwig, February 4, 2015
| Date post: | 15-Jul-2015 |
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Business Storytelling
Cynthia Hartwig, February 4, 2015
I want to start by telling you
a story…
“Every few minutes, a new buzzword rips
through the business world, skids, gets a few
quick books written on it, and ends up in a pile of
tired terms next to "synergy." Today, one of the
biggest corporate buzzwords is "storytelling."
Marketers are obsessed with storytelling, and
conference panels on the subject lately have
fewer empty seats than a Bieber concert.”
--Shane Snow, Linked In
Class day is roughly divided
MORNING: HOW TO TELL A STORY
TUTORIAL
1. Introductions via story
2. Mechanics of telling a story
3. Group review; then story practice in front of
class
AFTERNOON: STORIES “LITE” IN
BUSINESS SETTINGS
AFTERNOON:
STORIES “LITE” IN BUSINESS SETTINGS
1. Exercise: telling a lightly personal story to set
up a presentation
2. Customer story: how to quickly organize and
whip out a customer story
3. Exercise: “Origin Story” that sets up your
expertise and establishes credibility to new
people
4. How to tell a story with numbers
Kathryn Schulz: Don’t Regret
Regrethttp://www.ted.com/talks/kathryn_schulz_don_t_
regret_regret?language=en
Ed Gavagan: Business Bio• Design/builder of sustainable homes, buildings
& furniture at PraxisNYC
• Work now featured on the cover of Elle Décor,
in Architectural Digest, the NY Times,
Architectural Record, Global Architecture and
books worldwide
• TED Video seen by 600,000 people, Moth
stories by double that
• Business has seen double digit growth since
first Moth appearance.
WRITING PRACTICE 101
1. Keep your hand moving. No stopping.
2. No crossing out, no editing, no
worries about grammar or spelling.
3. This is about thinking on paper.
INTRO EXERCISE
Tell us a story about the best or worst
storytelling you’ve witnessed.
)
Your Brain on Stories
“… the brains of participants were scanned as they read
sentences like “John grasped the object” and “Pablo
kicked the ball.” The scans revealed activity in the motor
cortex, which coordinates the body’s movements. What’s
more, this activity was concentrated in one part of the
motor cortex when the movement … was arm-related
and in another …when the movement concerned the
leg.”
--Veronique Boulenger,
Laboratory of Language
Dynamics
“… a team of researchers from Emory
University reported in Brain & Language
that when subjects in their laboratory
read a metaphor involving texture, the
sensory cortex, responsible for perceiving
texture through touch, became active.”
NY Times: Your Brain on Fiction
What Stories Do to the Brain is Akin to
What Touching Does to Other Parts of
the Body.
Pleasure Centers light up!
When you submit to a story, you submit
cognitively and emotionally.
We allow ourselves to be invaded.
Stories
Make Us
Feel
“We don’t pay attention to boring things.” --John Medina, biologist, author of “Brain Rules
“We don’t learn without emotional thought.”--Antonio Damasio, USC Professor of
Neuroscience,
author of Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human
Brain
Words like “lavender,” “cinnamon”
and “soap,” for example, elicit a
response not only from the
language-processing areas of our
brains, but also those devoted to
dealing with smells.
New York Times: Your Brain on Fiction
Exercise: write for 3
minutes about a
word that “moved”
you in a story you
read or watched.
New York Times: Your Brain on Fiction
The technology of story changes—from
oral tales, to clay tablets, to medieval
codices, to printed books, to movie
screens, iPads, and Kindles. But the
stories themselves don’t ever change.
Jonathan Gottschall, The StoryTelling
Animal
Studies have shown that readers of
fiction are more empathetic, have better
social skills, and are generally more
understanding than their non-fiction
reading counterparts.
Story Hasn’t Diminished.
It’s Morphed.
Average American now reads 20 minutes
a day. We spend 5 hours/day watching
TV or movies.
Story Hasn’t Diminished.
It’s Morphed.
We hear 5 hours per day of music; the
most popular music tells stories.
Story Hasn’t Diminished.
It’s Morphed.
We spend 2 hours night in active dreaming
(story practice while asleep).
Story Hasn’t Diminished.
It’s Morphed. • Daydreaming is the mind’s default
state.
• The avg. day dream is 14 sec. long.
• We have 2000 per day.
• We spend 1/3 of our lives
daydreaming.
Throw out examples of storytelling that is
masquerading as something else:
• Pro Wrestling
• Televised sports i.e. Olympic “backgrounders”
• Television “docudramas”
• ? Your ideas?
This is a universal story where everyone
puts themselves on the time line.
Fiction has always shaped our attitudes,
actions, and values more than we admit.
• Hitler’s fascination with Wagner mythology
influenced his thinking on Aryan purity
• Harriett Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin
drove public opinion against slavery in the US
• E.L. James Fifty Shades of Gray is affecting
mainstream attitudes to S&M and bondage
We love characters. Make up a story about
what is going on here.
Secrets are always powerful.
Write down something you’ve never told
anyone.
Great storytelling comes from the gap
between expectation and result.--Guy Bergstrom
--Charles Baxter, Burning Down the House.
is story-friendly.
Write down a story about yourself.
Tell us something revealing, the more
personal, the better.
The story I absolutely don’t want to
tell is…
The Inverse Rule of Story Pain:
When you tell something painful about
yourself, you look tougher.
Bonus points if the story is
embarrassing, criminal or other-wise
cringe-worthy.
Reading on the page and hearing a story
read out loud are completely different.
This American Life:
Wedding Bells and
Door Bells
Elizabeth Gilbert
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/r
adio-archives/episode/234/say-
anything?act=4
Go back to your personal story and
write about what your story says that’s
universal.
Lunch!
The afternoon session is devoted to techniques
useful for telling “smaller” stories that are not so
emotionally charged and suited for business.
Let’s connect the dots between
business and stories.
1. It’s a myth that business and purchase
decisions are rational. They’re
emotional.
2. Stories play on our emotions.
3. People connect best to personal stories:
most powerful, most convincing.
4. Customer stories, employee stories,
vendor stories, are all good but none
trump the personal story.
GROUP BRAINSTORMING EXERCISE:
Where/how can you use your own
stories?
KAY ALLISON LINKEDIN PROFILE
Make your point.
Then tell the story that reinforces the point.
Make your point.
Then tell the story that reinforces the point.
Exercise: Tell a story (a light one) that sets
up a presentation and connects to the work.
Theoretically, your story should hit
a sweet spot with your audience.
What will resonate?
Making a business case using the hook of
a personal story.
Ways to reveal information:
If people know you and like you,
you can present the recommendation first,
then make the case.
Ways to reveal information:
If people don’t know you or are hostile,
you need to work up to
the recommendation with proof.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLYK9RC1mTw#t=294
An “Origin” Story for SinusBusters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsBuFnAg0nU
Story of Chip Conley, Founder of
joie de vivre Hotels
The
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpG8AVVUehM&fea
ture=share&list=PLxq_lXOUlvQBxUAvW7eXx4lNYMo
AJy7Kt&index=2
Mark Dwight: Micro-Manufacturing
Entrepreneur
Let’s mind-map a variety of customer stories
that have impressed you.
ANATOMY OF A QUICKIE CUSTOMER STORY:
1. Who?
2. What Do They Do?
3. What Makes Them Special or Different?
4. Results That Sum Up Their Success
LIMOR FRIED OF ADAFRUIT
1. Who?
Limor Fried, who earned her masters in electrical
engineering and computer science at MIT, runs
Adafruit industries, which sells do-it-yourself
electronics kits.
2. What Do They Do?
For every kit Adafruit sells, Fried posts design files,
schematics for circuit boards, and any software code
needed.
3. What Makes Them Special or Different?
"People want to see the world become a better place through science and engineering," Fried says. "We're going to need the current and future generations to get inspired.”
LIMOR FRIED OF ADAFRUIT
Forty years of research says that
if you use pictures of people, your audience will remember
your information longer and relate to you better.
Visualization 101:
IN A CUSTOMER STORY, THINK OF “WHO?” & “WHAT DO THEY DO?” AS METAPHORICAL LONG
SHOTS. IT’S A MACRO VIEW OF THE PERSON.
Forty years of research says that
if you use pictures of people, your audience will remember
your information longer and relate to you better.
Visualization 101:
“What Makes Them Different?” is a Close Up.
LIMOR FRIED OF ADAFRUIT
4. Results That Sum Up Their Success
She welcomes people to use the information,
and sees it as a way to foster innovation.
"People want to see the world become a better
place through science and engineering," Fried
says. "We're going to need the current and future
generations to get inspired."
Lizzy O’Leary on “How to Tell a Story with Numbers”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kMydB5l9Ns
Incorporate visuals to illustrate your story.
Visuals double excitement.
You now work for Starbucks. You have been asked
to develop a campaign to sell coffee during the run
up to Halloween.
Think of a story that relates.
You work for Monsanto and you are
introducing a new environmentally sensitive
pesticide that doesn’t hurt the native fruit
bats. Tell us a story about how you were
introduced to nature.
You are marketing for Sharpie. You have been
asked to create a viral (ha!) video showcasing the
best street graffiti artists in Chicago. Tell us a
story about what makes you relate to them?
YOU CAN RUN ANY COMMUNICATION THROUGH
THE PRISM OF STORY
1. Does it tell the story that you are out of touch with
the latest technology? … that you understand
mobile technology?
2. Does it tell the story of professionalism or that
you used a DIY website builder…
3. Does it help you spread the ideas associated with
your products and services or is it just a list of
what you do?
--Robert McKey, author of
STORY
Tan Le’s Immigration Story
Why does this kill us?
http://www.ted.com/talks/tan_le_my_imm
igration_story
THE STRUCTURE & CRAFT OF
STORYTELLING
Change is the one constant in every
story. If everything stays the same,
there’s no story.
CLASSIC STORY STRUCTURE
MIDPOINT (where
something changes that
can’t be reversed)
BEGINNING
CLIMAX
END
(ARISTOTLE’S INCLINE)
EVERY STORY HAS
A BEGINNING,
A MIDDLE
AND AN END.
1. One day, there was ___.
2. Every day, ___.
3. One day ___.
4. Because of that, ___.
5. Because of that, ___.
6. Until finally ___.
--Pixar’s 22 Amazing Story Rules
To lock your story into progressive action,
do these three writes:
1. In the beginning of my story, my
character has to…
2. By the middle of my story, my character
is forced to…
3. By the end of my story, my character
has learned…
DETAILS
The smallest details usually carries the
largest emotional load. Focus on the gum
wrapper on the hall floor versus the
amputee sobbing.
DETAILS
Write about a time that something hurtful
happened to you. Describe just one detail
of the scene where it happened in the
language of sadness.
DETAILS
“Each word is a daub of paint.”
--John Gotschall, Storytelling Animal
METAPHOR
Come up with one metaphor that
amplifies the sadness by making one
thing “become” another.
Write about what you know (or hate)
about yourself as a storyteller.
More Great Stories to Model
Ed Gavagan: Knots & Surgeonshttp://on.ted.com/gavagan
Tan Le: My Immigration Storyhttp://www.ted.com/talks/tan_le_my_immigration
_story?language=en
When My Mommas Fight
Snap Judgmenthttps://www.youtube.com/watc
h?v=-Lug_IxFKo8#t=339
The Man Who Walked
Around the World
Johnny Walker Brand
Storyhttps://www.youtube.com/watc
h?v=MnSIp76CvUI#t=363
Tony Hsieh, CEO of ZAPPOS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CD0PC
nFRFc&feature=share&list=PL041175D98
FDFF815&index=30
