During our recent chat with Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan on subject of the fifth and final season of the show, he illuminated several storytelling principles that have helped make the series such a success.
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Scooped by Karen Dietz onto Just Story It |
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Karen Dietz's insight:
Here's a quick article that reminds us to craft or keep our stories fresh by using 3 principles:
- Know your characters well
- Make it your mission to surprise
- Embrace curveballs
So what does this mean for busines storytelling?
- The more you know your customers, the better off your storytelling will be -- because you will be connecting with their needs, desires, and aspirations.
- Surprise and novelty are critical to any story -- don't forget to add these elements to keep your audiences engaged or you will end up boring and undifferentiated in the marketplace.
- Embrace curveballs -- well As Gilligan says, being open to change and constant discovery yields results. That's because as you and your customers change, so your stories need to change also.
There are other insights to this short piece for you to enjoy on this Sunday afternoon.
Many thanks to fellow curator Giuseppe Mauriello for sending me this post!
This review was written by Karen Dietz for her curated content on business storytelling atwww.scoop.it/t/just-story-it
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Ask yourself: If you could interview like Walter Cronkite, would you get more value from your meetings? Would your mentors become more valuable?
Karen Dietz's insight:
In the biz story world, storytelling is only half the game. In fact the game DOES NOT start with storytelling, but with 2 other steps before that:
I've curated some really great articles on listening so go grab those when you get a chance (use the Filter tab near the top on the left). I find very few articles however on the Art Of The Question -- which is how to evoke stories in others. Why would you want to evoke stories? For engagement, research, leadership, innovation, etc. Here's a good article about why we need to focus on crafting great questions: http://www.fastcompany.com/3005979/crowdsourcing-your-way-more-effective-leadership In my work with clients, I often spent quite a bit of time training them on the art of the question so they can move their projects forward. What I like about this article on The One Conversational Tool is that it gives us examples of really rotten questions, and how to restate those into really awesome questions. In the practice of evoking stories, we typically fall back on the tried and true: "Tell me about a time when ..." "Tell me what happened ...", etc. But this article comes up with a few other questions to evoke stories that are just as good. Just a quick FYI -- some of the questions posed will gain you flat-out opinions, but could then lead to a story. So craft and practice your story evoking questions. Game on! This review was written by Karen Dietz for her curated content on business storytelling atwww.scoop.it/t/just-story-it 
streetsmartprof's curator insight,
February 28, 9:25 AM
How many of your customer facing people are trained to be able to ask the right questions to get the whole story before we jump in and state our "opinions" of what is going on.
Whether in sales and/or technical support, one of the worst things we can do is "tell" a customer where they are at. We do not know without asking questions first. Remember the saying, "There is more to the story than meets the eye".
NOTE: Read the input from Karen Dietz on how using questions helps to "evoke the customer's story". http://sco.lt/6wO3QP Delete the scoop?
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Over the years, I have used strategic storytelling workshops to help drive key messages, build teams, and enhance communication skills. Today, I share the story of how my interest in that began, and why I frequently use it in my leadership ... LOL -- stories do the work again!! What happens in an organization when a project you've been devoted to comes to a screaching halt? You turn to storytelling. Oh, this author Karen Hurt is not talking about the "Ain't it awful" stories you could tell. She instead shares how she kept the project alive using the power of storytelling. This is a great read and an enjoyable story. And when you get blocked -- start storytelling in healthy and constructive ways. These are fab lessons here for anyone working in organizations, or anyone who gets roadblocked and needs a way around. Stories, story tools and story processes just might be what you need! This review was written by Karen Dietz for her curated content on business storytelling at www.scoop.it/t/just-story-it Delete the scoop?
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Tell me if you’ve heard this one before – you’re on a project that was thrust on your stakeholder groups from high above. They were insufficiently consulted during the problem definition phase, and they are now questioning everything during implementation. These stakeholders can’t get the project to be outright cancelled, but they can cause it to be ultimately unsuccessful if they don’t commit to putting their time and energy into ensuring that the solution being developed is appropriately used. Sound familiar? It sure does to me! So what is a leader, manager, consultant to do? Add stories into the mix. I like this article because it directly addresses the difficulties of project management, enrolling people to your cause, and how stories can be one of the remedies applied. The author includes 3 steps to shift the situation and get your projects back on track. If you are stuck -- read this. And if you consult with others, tuck this list in your back pocket to keep your clients & project on track. Read the full article here: http://www.batimes.com/articles/the-power-of-story-in-business-analysis.html This review was written by Karen Dietz for her curated content on business storytelling at www.scoop.it/t/just-story-it 
Karen Dietz's comment,
June 23, 2012 12:39 PM
Glad you like it Jan! Thanks for the comment. Have a great weekend :)
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Using digital technology to tell stories can help charities with impact assessment, says Kieron Kirkland... Using stories to evaluate results? Quantitatively??!! You bet!! Here is a fabulous article after my quantitative heart. The author Kieron Kirkland talks about how the organization, Nominet Trust, worked with the org story company Cognitive Edge to capture stories and then have the story authors rank what their stories are about on a scale. Once the story was captured, there were several types of scales the storytellers ranked their stories on -- generating big data! See -- storytelling and evaluation can be done effectively if constructed properly. This article goes hand-in-hand with newer qualitative evaluation processes for arts-based techniques (like storytelling) talked about in one of my favorite books, Method Meets Art; Arts-Based Research Practice by Patricia Leavy (2009). If you struggle to connect stories about your projects to quantifiable results, then run to read this article. Having helped organizations articulate measures so they can see progress, the first critical area to tackle are which measures are going to be used that are the most meaningful, given the project's objectives. This article will give you several ideas for how to get started. Enjoy! This review was written by Karen Dietz for her curated content on business storytelling at www.scoop.it/t/just-story-it 
SandraVBarbosa's comment,
November 5, 2012 10:17 PM
I'm Brazilian. I'm English teacher. Follow me. Thanks.
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Learn more about the value of data visualisation. Tableau's Jock Mackinlay explains why data is inert and worthless without the twin practices of visualisation and storytelling. This is a quick piece that makes some valuable points. Frankly, I'm not a hard-core data head. Yet I love looking at spreadsheets, bar charts, line charts and other visual displays of data in order to make meaning of the material and spot trends. There is a whole science to displaying data in meaningful ways (see Edward Tufte's work) that we don't need to go into here. But what I like about this article is that it points to the fact that all the data in the world is meaningless until you can tell the story about what it is saying and what it means. Storytelling and data go hand-in-hand. Truly, those of us in the field of business storytelling need to build our data skills. And data-geeks need to develop their storytelling skills. Sounds like a match made in heaven! Here's another aspect of storytelling that this article alludes to: yes, we all know it takes time to share a story and in this fast-paced world, it is not uncommon to hear "But who has the time?! Just give me the data to share. We've got to get moving!" Ahhhhh -- huge mistake! Taking the time to share a story in the beginning makes projects go much more quickly. That sounds counter-intuitive, but I experience this phenomenon again and again. Read the article for additional points on how the marriage of data and storytelling make for better decision making. They are worth remembering. This review was written by Karen Dietz for her curated content on business storytelling at www.scoop.it/t/just-story-it Via Bas Kooter Delete the scoop?
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Interesting ideas that may even apply to the business environment.