Stories - an experience for your audience -

Omar Kattan: "This excellent video by Story Worldwide has been featured on Brand Stories for a while now. Not sure if you’ve seen it? If you haven’t, it’s definitely worth your time" ...

Via The Digital Rocking Chair

This is a Change This PDF that you can view here:

http://changethis.com/manifesto/98.01.StoryWars/pdf/98.01.StoryWars.pdf ;

 

I'm curating this because I like it and I don't like it -- and it is worth taking a look at the assumptions going on in this piece so we can get really smart.

 

This piece was put together by Jonathan Sachs, author of Winning The Story Wars. Sachs comes from the world of marketing and branding and this is reflected in his point of view.

 

Let's get what I don't like out of the way so I can chat about what I do like. Here is what puts my teeth on edge:

1. Sachs states that "we live in a world that has lost its connection to traditional myths and we are now trying to find new ones..." Welllllllll, if your slice of reality is the Hollywood, advertising, and branding world it is easy to get sucked into this notion. But we know from Jung, other psychologists, Folklorists, Anthroplogists, and neuroscience how this is not true. There is great irony in this "myth" that Sachs is perpetuating.

2. We are engaged in a war. Hmmmmm. Well, for millenium people have wanted to gain the attention of other people -- so nothing new there. Is this a war?  Could be. But if we are wanting to employ the power of storytelling to find solutions and create change as Sachs advocates, then war does not speak to the greater good but instead speaks to winners and losers where ongoing resentment is inherently built in. That sounds like the perpetuation of war -- same old same old. 

 

3. Sach's relationship to storytelling is still at the transactional level -- I'll tell you a story and you'll do what I want. While what he really wants it seems is storytelling at the transformational level. That requires a different mind-set and different story skills -- deep listening, engagement, story sharing, etc. And he completely ignores the relational level of storytelling.

4. Reliance on the Hero's Journey as the only story archetype to follow. Well, that's a narrow slice of reality and one geared towards youth. Yet other story archetypes are desperately needed: King/Queen, Trickster, Magician for example in order to affect change.

 

5. As a result, his 10 simple strategies stay at the transactional level with a few geared towards transformation (figure out what you stand for, declare your moral, reveal the moral). Now any great professional storyteller will tell you these that I've mentioned are essential for any compelling storytelling session. So they land in both worlds of transactional and transformational storytelling.

OK -- on to what I do like!

If you want to be heard, you'd better learn to tell better stories. The solutions to our significant problems these days depends on our ability to tell great stories and inspire people to think differently. Storytelling does not take long to learn, but it does take a lifetime to master, Know what a story is and is not Our abilitiy to disseminate stories is greater now than in the past -- because of technology. That is just a reminder to expend your use of different channels in sharing your stories that are now available to us.

 

Enough! Go read this piece yourself and decide what you think about it. It's a quick read.

 

This review was written by Karen Dietz for her curated content on business storytelling at www.scoop.it/t/just-story-it ;

Via Karen Dietz

"STORY" IS THE NEW "CONTENT." As buzzwords go, story isn’t entirely bad -- for years I’ve pushed clients to be storytellers. I’ve berated the descent of story into a furtive sea of “content,” stripping all emotion from human pursuits.

 

I love this post and its irreverent attitude. It is quite refreshing in this day and age when 'storytelling', 'branding', and 'content' are such pervasive buzzwords and hyped as the cure-all for everything.

 

There are great reminders in this article that great business stories are not sanitized, and that there is danger in always crafting a happy ending.  Only sharing your 'success' stories eventually undercuts your believability. We know there have been mistakes, trials, and tribulations along the way and we want to hear about those too.

 

Why? Because it makes you human. As the author Gary Goldhammer says, storytelling is about people. Brands aren't about Hollywood actors, and "companies are not logos. There are human beings behind them all."

 

There are more insights here in this quick post -- reading it is almost like hitting the 'reset' button when we forget the fundamentals of storytelling after getting caught up in the hyped-up excitement about story branding, social media, content creation, and technology.

Via Karen Dietz

"We use a comprehensive campaign approach, which we’ve coined 360° Storyweaving. An optimum 360° Storyweaving Campaign includes three distinct phases:

 

The Creation Phase, where we create and design the storyworld and story components around an original concept;

The Immersion Phase, where we design and plan strategy on how to immerse the audience further into the storyworld through thematic merchandising and media blurring;

The Community Phase, where we build communities through online engagement and interactivity as well as implement social outreach, which springs from the original purpose and theme of the project.

 

For us, the actual construction of the storyworld takes place in the Creation Phase, so that’s what we’ll focus on in this obnoxiously long blog entry. Here are the four most important rules we follow" ...

Via The Digital Rocking Chair

This is a Change This PDF that you can view here:

http://changethis.com/manifesto/98.01.StoryWars/pdf/98.01.StoryWars.pdf ;

 

I'm curating this because I like it and I don't like it -- and it is worth taking a look at the assumptions going on in this piece so we can get really smart.

 

This piece was put together by Jonathan Sachs, author of Winning The Story Wars. Sachs comes from the world of marketing and branding and this is reflected in his point of view.

 

Let's get what I don't like out of the way so I can chat about what I do like. Here is what puts my teeth on edge:

1. Sachs states that "we live in a world that has lost its connection to traditional myths and we are now trying to find new ones..." Welllllllll, if your slice of reality is the Hollywood, advertising, and branding world it is easy to get sucked into this notion. But we know from Jung, other psychologists, Folklorists, Anthroplogists, and neuroscience how this is not true. There is great irony in this "myth" that Sachs is perpetuating.

 

2. We are engaged in a war. Hmmmmm. Well, for millenium people have wanted to gain the attention of other people -- so nothing new there. Is this a war?  Could be. But if we are wanting to employ the power of storytelling to find solutions and create change as Sachs advocates, then war does not speak to the greater good but instead speaks to winners and losers where ongoing resentment is inherently built in. That sounds like the perpetuation of war -- same old same old. 

 

3. Sach's relationship to storytelling is still at the transactional level -- I'll tell you a story and you'll do what I want. While what he really wants it seems is storytelling at the transformational level. That requires a different mind-set and different story skills -- deep listening, engagement, story sharing, etc. And he completely ignores the relational level of storytelling.

 

4. Reliance on the Hero's Journey as the only story archetype to follow. Well, that's a narrow slice of reality and one geared towards youth. Yet other story archetypes are desperately needed: King/Queen, Trickster, Magician for example in order to affect change.

 

5. As a result, his 10 simple strategies stay at the transactional level with a few geared towards transformation (figure out what you stand for, declare your moral, reveal the moral). Now any great professional storyteller will tell you these that I've mentioned are essential for any compelling storytelling session. So they land in both worlds of transactional and transformational storytelling.

 

OK -- on to what I do like!

 

If you want to be heard, you'd better learn to tell better stories. The solutions to our significant problems these days depends on our ability to tell great stories and inspire people to think differently. Storytelling does not take long to learn, but it does take a lifetime to master, Know what a story is and is not Our abilitiy to disseminate stories is greater now than in the past -- because of technology. That is just a reminder to expend your use of different channels in sharing your stories that are now available to us.

 

Enough! Go read this piece yourself and decide what you think about it. It's a quick read.

 

This review was written by Karen Dietz for her curated content on business storytelling at www.scoop.it/t/just-story-it ;

Via Karen Dietz, Margaret Doyle

A brand is like the lead character of its own story.  And like any story character, brands  have values and beliefs that become associated with them through their actions.  The challenge for marketers is to characterize their brands first before...

 

Here's a terrific infographic from colleague Jim Signorelli that will help you create a persona for your business. Once you have a persona, it becomes much easier to target your storytelling and marketing/branding efforts. And connect more forcefully with customers.

 

There are 2 ways of finding your persona:

Examine all of your stories and determine their common characteristics. Then look at Jim's infographic to refine and finalize those qualities. Create your persona based on your discoveries. Examine this infographic to determine which character/characters you think you/your business embodies most. Check it against your stories. Build your persona from there.

What is a persona? It is a descriptive profile of a typical customer that includes a character type/archetype, demographic info, and as much flesh and bones information you can collect to create a bit of a story about this customer -- their likes, dislikes, challenges, etc.

 

Thanks Jim for putting together this very helpful infographic.

 

And if you want to dig into this topic more -- and get even smarter about using archetypes for marketing/branding -- read The Hero and The Outlaw; Building Extraordinary Brands Through the Power of Archetypes by M. Mark & C. Pearson. It's one of my bibles :)

 

This review was written by Karen Dietz for her curated content on business storytelling at www.scoop.it/t/just-story-it ;

Via Karen Dietz

Gunther Sonnenfeld:  "With global economic parity looming, companies can no longer rely on themselves for the answers. They must co-create new value systems with their customers and other businesses not only to survive, but to grow. And stories – or the act of curating them – can provide amazing new opportunities for growth."

Via The Digital Rocking Chair