Blog Detail
Ishmael's Corner - Storytelling Through A Business Prism
http://www.ishmaelscorner.com/
Businesspeople tend to associate storytelling with fiction.
Yet, the same elements that make a book such as “Moby Dick” a compelling read - good versus evil, care for the characters, humor, etc. - have a place in the business world. Whether it’s a potential customer evaluating your product or a journalist probing your latest news, communicating information in a more entertaining fashion increases your likeability quotient.
And customers, journalists, job candidates and even gadflies gravitate toward companies they like.
Unfortunately, this concept around storytelling is counterintuitive to many business executives, particularly those coming from engineering orientations where science rules the day. I’m not suggesting you need to lose an appendage to a large mammal before anyone will notice you but the ability to build some drama in business communications is a means to capture attention.
That’s the idea behind this blog: To look at the art of storytelling through a business prism.
No doubt, most blog postings will draw from the media world - defining media as any from journalists to an individual with a virtual soapbox since the words are right there in the public domain to scrutinize. But this blog will strive to tackle the bigger challenge of communicating to the outside world in a more entertaining fashion.
- Added on: Jul 11th, 2008
- Country: United States
- Language: English
- Author: Lou Hoffman
- Listed in: Public Relations Marketing
- Tags: business media blogosphere global storytelling journalists
Recent Posts
Crafting a Guest Post with Entertainment Quotient
The vast majority of my posts address topics outside the confines of the Agency. My last company-centric post was back in July, taking a trip down nostalgia lane with our 21-year anniversary in mind. With the caveat out of the way, I wanted to highl...
Transforming Table Scraps into Energy Makes for a Good Story
Compelling storytelling in business often threads together anecdotes and numbers into a single tale. This dynamic comes across loud and clear in the USA Today article “Utility Turns Table Scraps into Electricity” by Julie Schmit The stor...
Borrowing from Crocodile Dundee, “Now That’s an Anecdote”
Like most business publications, the Journal has been covering the maneuvering related to the Supreme Court addressing the question on intellectual property: When can a business method be patented? As you would expect, stories have revolved around a...
A Mass Comms Curriculum Alone Short-sheets Tomorrow’s PR Pro
I was delighted when Steve Farnsworth asked me to contribute a guest post to his blog. The content follows. While it’s not exactly focused on storytelling, it still falls under the communications umbrella. Steve originally approached me to sha...
Classic Storytelling Still Requires Local Characters
Boy meets girl. David topples Goliath. Money. Overcoming hardships. Goliath meets girl. All the basic themes of classic storytelling work in any culture and in any language. But this doesn’t mean you can develop stories in your home market...
Never Underestimate The Power Of A Great Story
The headline comes from a Canal+ video (brought to my attention by one of our vice presidents, John Radewagen). Our protagonist in this story cheats death four times by his recollection in the space of 74 seconds: Bullets Cut-down tree Waterfall Lu...
