Gordon Cox:  "Sometimes a new Broadway musical makes a social media push with Twitter and Facebook and Instagram -- and sometimes it does it with a real-world, hand-delivered bottle of poison" ...

I was so sad yesterday when I heard about Maya Angelou's passing. I've always enjoyed reading and watching her. From her I always learned more about humanity, dignity, courage, and character.

When I found this HBR post yesterday of an interview with her, I was delighted. The interviewer/author Alison Beard even talks with Maya about business storytelling.The interview is quintessential Angelou and I know you'll enjoy it. 

There is a little-known book in my library that I treasure for its wisdom -- Facing Evil; Light at the Core of Darkness (1989) -- that Maya (and many other amazing people) contributed to. Some of my favorite passages from her essay are, "We must remember the great struggle between majestic forces -- that that struggle introduces a dynamic into our intellect and into our souls. We are required to develop courage to care...We need the courage to create ourselves daily, to be bodacious enough to create ourselves daily as Christians, as Jews, as Muslims, as thinking, caring, laughing, loving human beings. (pg 29) Now wherever that lives in us--whether it's in the bend of the elbow, behind the kneecap--wherever that lives, there dwells the nobleness in the human spirit. Not nobility. I don't trust the word. I think it's pompous. But the nobleness is in the human spirit. It is seen in the fact that we rise to good, we do rise."

Angelou's view of story was in its power to unite. The end of her poem "Human Family" says, "We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike." (from I Shall Not Be Moved)

Enjoy this article honoring one great lady, and the inspiration that lies waiting for you.

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

Warm Words about the passed CELEBRITY...

She was an artist 

[Disclaimer: "Kathy's Insight" is usually simply another pithy excerpt from the Scooped article]: "I began my career in storybanking at Families USA, a pioneer of the technique. When I got there, the stories were housed in a database that I could only access from the computer in my office, which seemed fine at the time because the story bank was essentially a team of one, and I went in there every day!"

Tadhg Kelly:  '"Game designer" sounds like a cool job, but often game designers actually do a much more ordinary job' ...

This is a nice SlideShare piece that takes a complex subject and boils it down into easy-to-understand principles that anyone can use to create better visual stories.

Check it out. It's one of the better pieces I've found on the topic and includes some information I'd not seen before. Like the Taxonomy of Visual Content which covers different content in terms of cost, interactivity, and format. Very helpful! So is the slide going over the elements of successful visual content. The post also tackles how to get started.

Grab this and go!

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

Great overview of visual content from Column Five. What is visual content, what's the ROI, why does it matter?

The Taxonomy of Visual Content slide is particularly useful.

Some good thoughts from Nuno.

Stories are fundamental to social connection.  Our ability to 'mentalize' and imagine allows people to bridge social and cultural gaps because stories focus on our fundamental humanity.  Recently listened to Billie Goldman from Intel talk at #SoMe Awards Forum on Intel's innovative  "Inside Films" series.  They exemplify Bernardo's message on the importance of shared experience.  It may be brand extension and awareness, but psychologically, it is about empathy and connection--the most valuable (and hard to measure) forms of social capital.