Archive for the ‘Impact of stories’ Category

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Making your content a gift

Wednesday, January 4th, 2012

How are you doing with going from deadly boring content to emotionally engaging content?

Consider making your content like a gift!

What do I mean by a “gift” in this context?

• Don’t try to sell anything or provide “empty calories” that just waste people’s time.

• Give your content freely.

• Make your story their story.

• Make your story emotionally engaging.

Having a human story gives others more reason to care about you.

And don’t forget that the impression you make often depends on how much you reveal about your self.

The trick is, just like a Christmas gift, you need to give content that is of value to your audience and has the potential to help them forge an emotional connection.

Most marketing content rarely connects with an audience. You know why? Because it doesn’t make them feel anything. People join a story when they “feel” your story is credible and when they “understand” where your messages are coming from. They will make your story their own if they can identify with the elements within the story, respond to the narrative emotionally and have it serve their interests and agendas.

What makes great content spread is how compelling and inspiring the message is, not how it slants into a direction that ultimately positions your company as the only one to buy from. Content should make connections. I would even go further: content follows connection. First you need to engage, build rapport and make your audience trust you. And pure information or marketing messages do not make that happen. All these new forms of storytelling cannot change the fact that if you communicate in facts and figures, you communicate “brain to brain”. To be successful in any kind of communication, you need to go human to human, heart to heart, emotion to emotion.

I believe the most trusted people and organizations in this new experience economy are the ones that treat content like little gifts we can connect with.

Over the last years I have tried to walk the talk myself, and here are some of the ways I have been telling my story:

• Archiving dozens of blog posts and their comments

• Sharing 3-5 posts by other writers every day for more than a year on Twitter

• Initiating regular discussions with my network on LinkedIn using my LinkedIn

• Sharing presentations via Slideshare and Prezi.

• Sharing all the research for my book “No Story, No Fans” on Delicious (there

are more than 200 valuable articles, videos, reports, etc, on information related to storytelling).

And what is even more important than the sum of all this sharing, is that in telling my stories on all these channels I have been showing my audience that I am not a faceless “box house” simply taking orders blindly and shipping thoughtlessly. I have demonstrated that I am passionate about what I do and what I do it. My stories have given me and my company a human face that show I care. And from the reactions I have got, I can tell my stories have become little gifts to my network.

Now let me give you a simple example of how stories have been creating value for me.

I give a lot of keynote speeches and presentations of that sort. Before I was conscious about my storytelling, I would talk about the facts and figures of good communication: this much faster, that much productivity improvement, etc. After a typical speech, I’d get one or two people who wanted to speak with me. Now that I’m telling real stories that exhibit real emotion and real humanity, I have 20 or 30 people come up afterwards. Some of them say things like: “That’s the first time I ever really connected with a speech.” Those types of responses have helped me gain confidence in the process and have added a humble dose of mo-jo into my story work.

I experience the same thing when I communicate through other channels.

On Twitter for example I started interacting online with more people. In the beginning I could not understand why people were being so nice to me, sharing information with me and providing me with resources. Now I know it’s because I was earning their trust by communicating like a human being, and not like a content marketing machine. I now have a network of people, few of whom I’ve met in real life (yet), with whom I exchange value on a weekly basis. My twitter account went form 0 to more than 1300 followers in less then a year.

And what has all of this brought to my business? Everything. My own business took of once I started really connecting with people. All of my clients today come from my social content network. And what is more, when people contact me we mostly hit it of right away. Our stories connect even long before we start a project together.

What’s your story?

(In my next blog post I will show you how it works to create a story in the concept of a “gift”).

Posted in Blogging and storytelling, Career stories, Impact of stories, Uncategorized | No Comments »

A last story to tell…

Wednesday, June 29th, 2011

I just finished writing my first book “No Story. No Fans”.

As a final word for the book, I was thinking of telling one last story. The story of Paul Revere.

The last chapter: a story about why being connected will help you save the world

My book is all about storytelling and how companies, brands, organizations and even yourself can work your story to connect it to the new world. A simple guide in crafting and building an emotionally engaging story of who you are and what you stand for. A lesson in how to tell your story in a compelling way in order to become a connected company/person in a connected world.

But why all this focus on being connected, you might ask yourself.

Let me share with you the last story in my book…

On the afternoon of April 18, 1775, a stable boy in Boston overheard two British officers talking about “there’ll be hell to pay tomorrow” He went to the home of a silversmith called Paul Revere. It wasn’t the first rumour Revere and his colleagues had heard that day – they suspected the British were going to march to Lexington to arrest colonial leaders John Hancock an Samuel Adams, and then to Concord to seize stores of guns and ammunition. The boy’s news ‘broke the camel’s back’.

Revere commenced his ride at 10pm to warn the communities around Boston and rouse the militia to meet thme In 2 hours he covered 13 miles. In every town he knocked on doors and told the local colonial leaders of the oncoming British and asked them to spread the word to others. By 3am the word was in Andover, 45 miles from Boston.

On the morning of 19th, the British were amazed to meet orgainsed and fierce resistance. At Concord they met and were defeated by the colonial militia and the American revolution was born.

At the same time Revere started his ride, a fellow revolutionary went on the same errand to the east. He had the same sensational news, visited as many towns and houses and covered as many miles as Revere. But the countryside in the direction wasn’t roused. In fact, reports after the event suggested these towns must have been strongly pro-British. But this wasn’t the case. Who was this guy? His name was William Dawes.

Why did Revere succeed where Dawes failed. The secret was Revere’s ‘connectivity’ – his relationships. Revere knew which doors to knock on, the colonial leaders recognised him and trusted him and acted immediately on his news. Dawes on the other hand didn’t know the right doors ton knock on. When he did he had to explain who he was, and some didn’t believe him. He was much less effective because he had few relationships – he was less connected.

I received this story from Mark Schenk of Anecdote (he developed this story based on information sourced from Gladwell’s book ‘Tipping Point’ and various internet resources including wikipedia). Thanks for trading this story with me Mark.

Building connection with your audience is not so much about clever advertsing, content marketing or a making a social media strategy! If you’d ask me, it is even not about marketing. A lot of people today are producing content for content’s sake in order to get their message connected to the new world.

Building connection  is all about story and storytelling – where the most trusted people and organizations are the ones that build, produce and tell stories we can connect with.

Don’t be William Dawes. Be Paul Revere.

 

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Posted in Impact of stories, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Working your brand story (No Story. No Fans!)

Thursday, June 23rd, 2011

Since writing my last post on the Old Spice campaign I couldn’t stop thinking about storytelling and branding.

It opens a question I find hard to answer:

is connecting with millions of potential customers through a fake funny story not useful?

Some people would say that these campaigns are great (Hollywood) storytelling creating fans and followers (probably not friends… but who believes the difference is important?). Can you blame them? I also like the entertainment factor of brand stories, so shoot me! Still I am not considering bying the product… which makes me think of a fantastic cartoon of Tom Fishburne I tweeted the other day.

Yes, finding real engagement with your audience (employees or customers) starts with sharing authentic stories … with tapping into conversations….and all of that digital content marketing stuff I like a lot.

Still I have always found it hard to argue that a broadcasted brand story like Old Spice is not worthy of your attention. Most of today’s customers enjoy a “good” Old Spice Story and are not necessarily looking for in-depth connections with the company or trying to establish deep relationships.

I believe it would be all too easy to say that brand storytelling still is all about ‘the power of the big creative idea’ and that the power of true storytelling and narrative only works for b-to-b communication (hey, does that name actually still exist?) and internal branding.

is connecting with millions of potential customers through a fake funny story not useful?

This weekend I tried to forget all about this question and decided to go for a run. Trying to clear my head. I usually do a 45 minute work-out. Unfortunately I discovered Mitch Joel’s latest podcast (an interview with Avinash Kaushik) on the “Extinction of the Marketing Dinosaur“) just 10 minutes before I wanted to start my run. Mmmm…. I decided trying to clear my head with Mitch Joel on (read: in) it. A good choice for my inspiration, a bad choice for my head.

I did do the 45 minutes but I constantly regretted not having brought pen and paper. So when I got home I immediately re-listened some parts of the episode and made some notes:

“…put your stories on many channels so they become symbiotic…”

Mitch discusses with Avinash the split of broadcasted advertising and content/digital marketing. Listen to the podcast, you’ll enjoy it.

I listened to it with storytelling-ears. These were some brand story questions I came up with after my run:

-Does your brand suffer from a split between the brand advertising story and the conversational stories around the brand?

-Does your brand have a clear core story?

-Does story show the real DNA of the brand?

And for the Old Spice campaign; does the advertising campaign show what the brand is made of? And do customers care about this?

I believe they do.

On the Mitch Joel podcast Avinash tells this short story of how he had a really bad internet experience with a big airline he frequently uses for his international flights; how this experience colors his feelings about the whole brand; and how he feels like telling the world about what he just had gone through.

Just like that. Today anyone can challenge carefully constructed brand stories online by sharing their experience online. Today there is a shift from brands broadcasting to consumers to a position where brands listen to the stories consumers are already telling.

Can brands no longer sell products and services by broadcasting their cleverly designed messages?

Of course they can. After my run I decided to spend the rest of the afternoon on figuring out how. Here is what I have been brewing on; it is the start of a brand-story-model (please have a go at it and mail me what you think about it).

Working your Brand Story: Catch, Create and Connect Stories!

  • CATCH/

Is all about “experience”: how stories reveal themselves in moments/things that happen and in the bigger story around it. Through Story-listening you can uncover the stories that live inside or outside the brand.

  • CREATE/

Is all about “entertainment”: how does the story make you feel about you, the brand and its values and beliefs. Through Story-design you can bring your brand to live.

  • CONNECT/

Is all about “engagement”: how does the story foster participation with the community? Through Story-telling you can engage with your community (communities are a web of stories).

Which brings me back to me original question:

is connecting with millions of potential customers through a fake funny story not useful?

And with my little Catch-Create-Connect-Model in mind I can easily and honestly answer: no, it still is useful! But if you want to go all the way make sure your brand not only works on the “design” of the story (CREATE/) but also on the “experience” (CATCH/) and the “engagement” (CONNECT/).

Let me give some examples from brand who I believe have been working all three C’s:

The award winning Gatorade Replay campaign is a brilliant example of not only “designing your story” (CREATE/) but also working the two other C’s (CATCH/CONNECT).

It uses multiple channels to tell stories around a central theme. Like all the best stories the premise is simple yet compelling. But what makes the campaign so extraordinary is the level of audience engagement and how the audience participates in the creation of the story.

I believe it is a great example of brand storytelling. It is one of the best practices from the ad agency TBWA\Chiat\Day, LA, USA and winner of the Cannes Lions Grand Prix for PR and Promo and Activation.

Here is the campaign

The makers of this story wanted to weave the DNA of the brand into the DNA of culture to find more authentic connections with their audience. With the story they wanted to allow people to experience what Gatorade stands – A Catalyst for Athletic Achievement. And they wanted to demonstrate Gatorade’s bigger story – Fueling Athletic Performance.

What becomes clear to me with these examples is that brands need to reject the approach of only broadcasting a story for the sake of it. Stories are not toys that a brand can use to position itself into. Building brand value through storytelling does not happen with 1 single ad campaign. And like anything good, it takes trust to create something meaningful with your customers. But if you can make real connections and go to the heart of your community, you can build a better brand.

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Posted in Brand Journalism, Digital/Multimedia storytelling, Impact of stories | 3 Comments »

A BIGGER (brand) story! (You need to flip the script part III)

Thursday, June 9th, 2011

(This blog post on “flipping the script” will consist of 4 articles on branding and storytelling. Subscribe to this blog -get updates directly in your inbox- and catch’em all. Missed them? Grab the first one here, and second here.)

“Flipping the script, hey Raf?”

Well yes, I’ve heard the phrase “flip your script” or “flip the script” in various hip-hop songs. And it inspired me to connect the line with the power of storytelling. The idea will be a whole section in the book I am writing (but that is a story by itself).

Why flipping the script? Because storytelling I believe is too often seen as a simple marketing technique. You cannot imagine how many people have asked me lately to come up with “a good story to use”… If there is a script that needs to be flipped, it is this one!

The concept of telling a story starts with making a connection with your bigger story, the human story that makes people feel part of your story. That is the secret behind the “Dear 16-year-old-me” campaign I wrote about in my first post in this serie. That is the secret behind Martin Luther King’s success, Helen Keller, Mahat Magandi, even Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. And of course it is fascinating to see that the way he used story in his presidential campaign has shifted during the administration in recent times. It proves a story is a living thing.

So if you or your company wants to communicate differently, if you really want to be heard, if you want to be trusted as a partner to your employees, you need to flip the script and start telling bigger stories!

Corporate storytelling can make your message stick so it connects on an more emotional level with your audience.

Why should you care?

I don’t want to go all soft on you, but more and more I am convinced that (corporate) storytelling is a key element for making a better world. I always have been a big believer that communication could change the world. Why? Because it helps us understand each other and see the world in new ways.

Let me share with you here the story of little Samantha Smith, who was precocious enough to write a letter to one of the most powerful leaders in the world (Story Credit goes to History.com).
On a day in 1983, the Soviet Union released a letter that Russian leader Yuri Andropov wrote to Samantha Smith, an American fifth-grader from Manchester, Maine, inviting her to visit his country. Andropov’s letter came in response to a note Samantha had sent him in December 1982, asking if the Soviets were planning to start a nuclear war. At the time, the United States and Soviet Union were Cold War enemies. President Ronald Reagan, a passionate anti-communist, had dubbed the Soviet Union the “evil empire” and called for massive increases in U.S. defense spending to meet the perceived Soviet threat.

In his public relations duel with Reagan, known as the “Great Communicator,” Andropov, who had succeeded longtime Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in 1982, assumed a folksy, almost grandfatherly approach that was incongruous with the negative image most Americans had of the Soviets. Andropov’s letter said that Russian people wanted to “live in peace, to trade and cooperate with all our neighbors on the globe, no matter how close or far away they are, and, certainly, with such a great country as the United States of America.” In response to Samantha’s question about whether the Soviet Union wished to prevent nuclear war, Andropov declared, “Yes, Samantha, we in the Soviet Union are endeavoring and doing everything so that there will be no war between our two countries, so that there will be no war at all on earth.” Andropov also complimented Smith, comparing her to the spunky character Becky Thatcher from “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” by Mark Twain.
Samantha Smith, born June 29, 1972, accepted Andropov’s invitation and flew to the Soviet Union with her parents for a visit. Afterward, she became an international celebrity and peace ambassador, making speeches, writing a book and even landing a role on an American television series.

Now, all MY story work is based on this simple premise:

if you want to change the world, you need to change your (corporate/brand) story.

And I believe that the change actually begins at the story level, and that the way that we perceive and experience reality is based on the stories that we tell and that we listen to. This is basically how the world works. Whether we think something is real or false, whether we think something is important or not, whether it is worthy of our intention or it is just noise, it comes down to the story and whether we choose to believe in that story.

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Posted in Change stories, Great storytellers, Impact of stories | No Comments »

You need to flip the script – about corporate/brand stories (part II)

Wednesday, May 25th, 2011

(This blog post on “flipping the script” will consist of 4 articles on branding and storytelling. Stay tuned to catch’em all. Missed the first one? Grab it here.)

So is that easy? Just tell stories? I have been reading a lot about storytelling lately. And watching this video it made me think of the old AIDA communication model (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) and storytelling:

The acronym AIDA has been a handy tool for lots of communicators ensuring that your copy, or other communication, grabs attention. The acronym stands for:

  • Attention (or Attract)
  • Interest
  • Desire
  • Action

These are the four steps you need to take your audience through if you want them to buy your product or visit your website, or in this case to visited a dermatologist to have yourself checked, head to toe, for anything that might be of worry.

A slightly more sophisticated version of this is AIDCA/AIDEA, which includes an additional step of Conviction/Evidence between Desire and Action. People are so cynical about advertising messages that coherent evidence may be needed if anyone is going to act!

I believe the AIDA approach can be linked with the power of storytelling. Let us look at the 16-Year-Old Me campaign again and make an effort to do this.

Attention/Attract:

In our media-filled world, you need to be quick and direct to grab people’s attention. Through sharing stories, the campaign catches the reader’s attention and makes them stop and read what the organization has to say. It uses powerful words and images that resonate with the emotion of the audience. The audience becomes a player in the stories that are being told. In this case, the audience does not like in most cases become the hero. Quite the opposite, the audience becomes the anti-hero: … The words they use in the campaign had rhythm (repeating messages) and that made you swing from past to now to future. It uses metaphors to get the massage stick: Your skin is like an elephant, it never forgets. Later in this book you’ll see that all of these are important elements if you want your story to stick.

Interest:

This is often one of the most challenging stages. You’ve got the attention of a chunk of your target audience, but can you engage them enough so that they’ll want to spend their precious time understanding your message in more detail? Gaining your audience’s interest is a deeper process than grabbing their attention. They will give you a little more time to do it, but you must stay focused on their needs. Most traditional communication fails at this stage because it doesn’t clearly point out the messages that are relevant to the audience. This audience then finds it too hard to choose between what is important and what is not. Moreover, most business communication uses bullets, headings and subheadings, and tries to break up the text in all possible ways to make their points stand out. Do you recognize this? Then you know what the result is. Disconnect. Game-over.

What this campaign clearly shows you is that by sharing stories you not only grab the attention of your audience, but at the same time get their interest by making these stories their own!

Desire:

As you’re building your audience’s interest, you also need to help them understand how whatever it is you’re offering can help them in a real way. The typical way of doing this is by appealing to their personal needs and wants.

So, rather than simply saying “You need to get yourself checked”, the campaign does not explain (brain to brain communication) but shows (heart to heart communication) the audience what’s in it for them: “it’s one of the most common diseases with teenagers, and it can be deadly”.

So don’t build your audience’s desire for your product with communicating the features and benefits of the product or your organization. I know that today, when you describe your offering or when you communicate about your organization, you probably don’t just give the facts and features. You probably expect the audience to work out the benefits for themselves. You probably tell them how the benefits clearly are of interest to them by showing real life cases. But does this kind of communication works for you? Does it create that interest and desire you are looking for?

Action:

Finally, be very clear about what action you want your readers to take. For example: “Visit my website now for more information” rather than just leaving people to work out what to do for themselves.

“Send this video to anyone who is of turn 16. And check yourself! Educate yourself. You can download tools and information about melanoma here: www.dcmf.ca. Share this link. Tweet this link and post it to your facebook.” Can’t be any clearer. And more than 1 million people of taken up this action request. Thanks to the power of storytelling.

So now, what is your story on branding and storytelling?

I believe everyone has a story. You ARE your story. But does your story resonate? Does it stick to minds and hearts of your public? Does it engage and spark action? Let me get into this in more detail next time.

 

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Posted in Blogging and storytelling, Impact of stories | 1 Comment »

You need to flip the script – about branding and storytelling (part I)

Tuesday, May 17th, 2011

(This blog post on “flipping the script” will consist of 4 articles on branding and storytelling. Stay tuned to catch’em all.)

I’ve heard the phrase “flip your script” or “flip the script” in various hip-hop songs.

It often means to do the unexpected, to deviate from the norm. I would like to link to storytelling. Before telling you why I would like to share this video with you.

Dear 16-Year-Old Me is Canadian campaign for skin cancer awareness sends a powerful message about what it means to be an adult, reflecting on the past and realizing there’s so much you needed to say before it was too late. The video got over 1 million views in less than 10 days. And all of this with no paid media for this campaign.

The campaign flipped the script!

The video is one long story brought by a cast of survivors openly addressing themselves when they were 16. This story is good example of what I call “Storynomics” (I am writing a book about this). The makers of this video understand that we are living in the new experience economy where the most trusted people and organizations are the ones that build, produce and tell stories we can connect with. These organizations use stories as a product.

Let’s go back to the video. Sure, it’s a typical “talking heads” online PSA which features different people. But it’s pretty inspirational. The concept and the content have really struck a chord. Why? Because it works with the power of storytelling. The video clocks in at just over five minutes. In terms of online viewer attention span they sure flipped the script. Even with its 5 minutes long, it’s kind of hard to tear yourself away from it. So instead of making a 30 or 60-second version they decided to tell the full story. I watched it from start to finish and looking at the comments I was not one sitting it right through to the end.

The makers of this campaign probably were a fan of the “Dearmebooks.com site.

If you were to write a letter to your 16-year-old self, what would it say? In DEAR ME: A LETTER TO MY SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD SELF, some of the world’s best loved personalities have written just such a letter. They range from the compassionate to the shocking via hilarity and heartbreak, but the letters all have one thing in common: a story that offers a unique insight into the teenager who would grow up to be…. Stephen Fry, Kim Wilde, Annie Lennox, Paul O’Grady, Jackie Collins, Peter Kay, Debbie Harry, Yoko Ono and Emma Thompson… to name but a few!

Where the Dear-16-Old Me campaign really flipped the script was here: Dear 16-Year-Old Me = The Reverse “It Gets Better” Campaign. Don’t we all know these traditional “get better communication” most pharmaceutical companies send out? They sound like this: I had a fantastic life… enjoyed going to the football with son … man, did we had a great time … than I got sick… it was really bad … the worst part was that I couldn’t go to the football with my son anymore… but luckily company X was there … and taking their fantastic medication I started to get better. End of story.

This 16-year-old me campaign is sort of like the reverse these “It Gets Better” campaigns. Like, “Hey kids! Enjoy your lives while you still have it, because eventually you will succumb to the single disease taking away more lives than anything else.” And they bring this message through real stories of survivors of disease.

So is that easy? Just tell stories? Well, let me dwell on this a little bit more in my next blog post: Storytelling and the old AIDA communication model.

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Posted in Blogging and storytelling, Digital/Multimedia storytelling, Impact of stories, Storytelling and Social media, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

WHY I do what I do (that corporate story stuff)

Tuesday, May 10th, 2011

I like Simon Sinek.

I feel like I know him. He probably doesn’t know me. I don’t care, I still like him. Let me explain WHY.

Simon has a great book “Start with Why”. He spends a lot of the book looking at the diagram – the Golden Circle.

WHAT: Every single company and organization on the planet knows WHAT they do.

HOW: Some companies and people know HOW they do WHAT they do. Whether you call them a “differentiating value proposition,” “proprietary process” or “unique selling proposition,” HOWs are often given to explain how something is different or better.

WHY: Very few people or companies can clearly articulate WHY they do WHAT they do. When I say WHY, I don’t mean to make money—that’s a result. By WHY I mean what is your purpose, cause or belief? WHY does your company exist? WHY do you get out of bed every morning? And WHY should anyone care?

The simplicity of understanding WHY and making sure your HOW and WHAT connect with that has really helped me and my story work.

So  yes, I am asking the question “WHY” a lot.

It’s about connection

People have to connect with your “WHY”. A lot of companies have a purpose (WHY) that has come from the leader, which is how it should be – but, and this is a big but, people have to connect to that WHY. If your WHY is to build a large, profitable and successful company – people won’t connect with that. People aren’t interested in helping you to build a company and become more successful. WHY has to connect with their heart.

A story of failure?

My story is not much different from a lot of other young entrepreneurs. Armed with a vision of how I could do it better, a lot of passion and the right amount of insanity, I set off to do something with an over 90% statistical change of failure: start my own business.

In all of this it was necessity that helped me articulate the “Why.” It was my need to understand what was causing my frustration and my need to get out of the corporate world. I knew what I had been doing. I knew how I had doing it, but I didn’t know “Why.” Success and happiness can only fully exist if all three of those things are in balance.

Only when I learned to articulate “Why” I do what I do — to inspire people to do the things that inspire them – would my life start to turn around. I literally stopped talking about what I did and only started talking about what I believed: the power of storytelling. In the beginning my story had no connection what so ever with the world of business and clients. But people who believed what I believed wanted to learn more. My friends started talking about my “Why.” They invited me to their homes for informal gatherings to talk to their friends. I started to get invitations to more and more places, from more and more people — everyone who wanted to learn about this thing called the “Why.” My “Why” became social and was working all the new social media channels. And learned using these as I things evolved.

My life profoundly changed and I had a new direction.

I started doing things and meeting people I never imagined I would. In fact, there’s not a single thing I’m doing now that I imagined doing, let alone wrote down in any plan. I never imagined I would become a speaker, yet now I get two to four speaking requests per month. I never imagined writing a book. I never imagined working with CEO’s and senior managers on defining THEIR story. Yet I now and then and I sit down with leaders of all kinds of companies.

Which brings me to the most simple big-why-point: I am not an academic, nor am I some consultant with some “proprietary process.” I’m just a guy who discovered something that profoundly changed my life — a new direction. I made a decision that I would work to share what I had discovered because if more people could also find clarity of “Why,” it would make the world a better place, and this was a totally selfish pursuit because I would prefer to live in a better world — a world filled with optimism and inspired leaders.

So yes, I believe this why stuff is important.

I am (not) that guy!

I was in Prague a few weeks ago -speaking on a conference about Brand Journalism- with David Henderson –a guy I have been following quite a bit on his blog. David is an award-winning journalist and communication strategist. David asked me to join him in this conference to talk about storytelling. Just four years ago, I was starting up a little out of-the-box-local-communication-consultancy-business. The big dreams I had then was of making a living out of working with storytelling in a bizz environment. I never thought of becoming a more international oriented (and bigger) communication consultant. I never imagined doing what I do now and especially never imagined doing what I did a few weeks ago at the conference. Besides, even if I did imagine something like it, no one would have taken me seriously.

What makes the whole experience even more surreal is that I wasn’t there as an outsider. David asked me to join him in leading the whole conference as an adjunct key note speaker. In other words, I was there as an equal.

I’m not that much more experienced than I was four years ago. The only thing that changed — the thing that changed the course of my career so dramatically — was the introduction of a clear Why into my life.

Why this why stuff changed my life

I did not invent the concept of Why; I just discovered it. It is a naturally occurring phenomenon that exists deep in the human brain and influences the behavior of every one of us. It is what drives our behavior and is where our inspiration comes from. The discovery happened by accident, not because I was looking to fill some market segment, but because I needed feel inspired again. I had lost that feeling and I wanted it back.

Today I continue to work hard to focus my career around my Why, which is both to inspire people to do the things that inspire them and to not worry about what I would do or where it would take me. This was the opposite of what most of us are raised to think from hearing: “Figure out what you want to do and focus on that.” I still don’t know what I want to do, but I know Why I do the things I do. It is this open-minded approach that has opened so many doors for me.

That is my story.

I’m actually quite uncomfortable talking about this stuff. Still I did decide to tell you my experience with this “why” stuff because I believe it is crucial in defining YOUR story and to make sure your story would stick and resonate with your audience. So stay close to yourself when you work on your story. In defining and working your story forget all the this crazy and complex positioning talk of classical communication consultants. (I still most of the time don’t want to be called a consultant because of the negative stories that circulate around this kind of business.) Just connect with your big “why”, try to write it down and you’ll see that you will not be a long way from mnailing down YOUR story. And all sort of happy connections will automatically follow…

Do you know this consultant joke?

The Oldest Profession…

A medical doctor, an engineer, and a management consultant were arguing about what was the oldest profession in the world.

The doctor started… “Well, in the Bible, it says that God created Eve from a rib taken from Adam’s body. This must have required surgery, and so I can claim with a high degree of confidence that mine is the oldest profession in the world.”

The engineer responded, and said, “But earlier in the book of Genesis, it states that God created the order of the heavens and the earth from out of the chaos. This was the first and certainly the most impressive application of civil engineering. Therefore, dear doctor, you are wrong: mine is surely the oldest profession in the world.”

The management consultant leaned back in his chair, smiled, and then said confidently, “Ah, but who do you think created the chaos?”

Don’t be that guy and start your own WHY thing today. Start looking at your BIGGER story.

Note:

Few days after this blogpost I read this great article from Clay Forsberg “Don’t fool yourself, your customers don’t care about you“. I think you should read it.

 

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Posted in Blogging and storytelling, Brand Journalism, Career stories, Change stories, Impact of stories, Uncategorized | No Comments »

How new is the new gold? And where can I find it?

Friday, March 25th, 2011

Is Brand Journalism the new gold? schermafbeelding-2011-03-25-om-1200551

Not necessarily.

But make no mistake, the essential elements of brand journalism are today more important than ever.

If you are an organization who strives to create unique and valuable content and share it with the world, then you’re probably already doing brand journalism.

This is what Larry Light, McDonald Corp.’s chief marketing officer of McDonald’s said in 2004:

“Mass marketing no longer works and no single ad tells the whole story.”

Although this is not a new message I see a lot of companies struggling with exactly that today. And they are asking themselves this question:

“how can we tell our story so it sticks in the minds and hearts of our audience?”.

So Larry Light adopted in 2004 a “new” marketing technique that he called brand journalism.

Speaking at a conference at the New York Sheraton Hotel and Towers in 2004, Mr. Light described the concept as one marking “the end of brand positioning as we know it.” He went on to say that effective marketing should use many stories rather than employing one message to reach everyone. In effect, he declared that McDonald’s was abandoning the universal message concept.

“Any single ad, commercial or promotion is not a summary of our strategy. It’s not representative of the brand message,” he said. “We don’t need one big execution of a big idea. We need one big idea that can be used in a multidimensional, multilayered and multifaceted way.”

He went on to define brand journalism, which he also referred to as a brand narrative or brand chronicle, as a way to record “what happens to a brand in the world,” and create ad communications that, over time, can tell a whole story of a brand.

The concept of brand journalism was first used by David Meerman Scott at the beginning of the 2000s. At the same time, David Henderson, an awarded former news correspondent with CBS and a communication specialist started using the concept in order to enhance the value created by corporate online newsrooms.

David Henderson says:

“The ultimate key to success for next generation online newsrooms is a constant flow of fresh, credible and appealing news updates, features and photos together with unceasing promotion through social media communities.”

schermafbeelding-2011-03-25-om-115850So I let me ask you this question: is brand journalism new to you?

And a even more relevant question would be: is brand journalism useful for you as a person/company/organization/brand today?

Lately I hear a lot of people talking about content and content strategy. Is content and brand journalism the new gold for marketing and communication teams?

Let us have a look at what David Henderson describes as essential elements in Brand Journalism:

  • social media tools – built into each story to provide for easy commenting, posting to Twitter, e-mailing to a colleague or connecting to any number of social networking sites;
  • news stories – written by working journalists in a concise, balanced and legitimate news style, free of sales pitches and self-promotion;
  • profiles of employees, executives and experts – drafted as appealing features;
  • photos – shot by accomplished photojournalists in order to provide the media with easy access to high-resolution images;
  • contact links – instantly alert specific staff members assigned to media inquiries or questions from customers;
  • search engine optimization (SEO) – runs invisibly and automatically to ping or alert every search engine to new activity and stories and boost all-important search engine ranking.

If you look at content in this way I would say “yes, brand journalism is the new gold”.

But I also see a lot of people today producing content for content’s sake. That’s not brand journalism!

What you really need to do this:

schermafbeelding-2011-03-25-om-120802You need to start building an emotional and engaging story. This story tells your audience who you are and what you stand for. And you need to tell your story in a compelling and authentic way.

It is that simple to really become a connected company or a connected person in today’s hyper-connected world.

This is the way people connect in today’s new world.

Want to know more about how to use the power of story and brand journalism?

Join me at the “Brand Journalism International Workshop” in Prague, April 14-15.

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Posted in Blogging and storytelling, Change stories, Digital/Multimedia storytelling, Great storytellers, Impact of stories, Storytelling and Social media, The New Trade | 1 Comment »

a fabulous brand story….

Tuesday, February 15th, 2011

“Stories?

We all spend our lives telling them, about this, about that, about people..

But some?

Some stories are so good we wish they’d never end.

They’re so gripping that we’ll go without sleep just to see a  little bit more.

Some stories bring us laughter and sometimes they bring us tears….

but isn’t that what a great story does?

Makes you feel?

Stories that are so powerful….

they really are with us forever.”

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What a great story!

Wednesday, October 6th, 2010

“Have you heard the story of …?”, “Man, what a great story”,…

We hear statements like that every day. And it appeals to us enormously. Every time. In fact, the current trend toward information “overkill” seems to have actually increased our appetite for truly authentic stories. Stories that inspire us to give meaning to our lives, to surround ourselves with products that show us who we really are. If you wish to play the lead in a sensational story of this type, or to turn your company into a powerhouse of success, you can harness the power of storytelling at various stages of your life or that of your business.

  • Storytelling for HR? Of course.
  • Storytelling for organizational change? Yes.
  • Storytelling to create impact with your internal audiences? Bill says yes!

Bill Quirke is a leading authority on internal communication. He is an international speaker and author of two major books “Communicating Corporate Change” and “Making the Connections”. Bill will be speaking on the BoomXY conference of Stichting Marketing.

This is how smart professors formulate it: Storytelling is a powerful and under-used method of communication that can have significant benefits when used in an organizational setting. And this is how a smart professor sounds and looks like:

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Posted in HR, Impact of stories | No Comments »

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