RonAmok!

Recently, I’ve seen lots of chatter in Social/New Media circles about business and storytelling. Evidently, storytelling is “in!” Who knew?

I have mixed feelings about the topic. As a storyteller who has produced 70 episodes of a storytelling podcast since 2005, I’m excited about any interest in the craft. But as a New Media Evangelist who looks into the eyes of corporate executives everyday, I have serious doubts. Storytelling for business may sound great to those who push the business communications envelope daily, but when it comes to actually implementing the practice within rigid corporate hierarchies, I’m afraid that we have a long way to go.

How can business be ready for storytelling if most professional business communicators still believe that “conversational” writing is “unprofessional?” How can business be ready for storytelling if the majority of corporate websites are crammed with McMarketing slogans and McPressReleases? How can business be ready for storytelling if only a minority of them actually allow employees to blog? Storytelling for business? Really?

The elements of storytelling have been honed over many generations. Stories require:

• Characters in conflict.
• Characters that we care about…and good characters are flawed.
• Protagonists and antagonists
• Characters must change as a result of conflict resolution.

In essence, stories require all of the things that professional business communicators are trained to eliminate, like conflict, emotion, flaws, etc…

Storytelling involves an intimate relationship between writer and the reader. This intimacy is orders of magnitude higher than the “conversational” style required within Social Media channels.

Can we implement storytelling within business? Damn straight we can! But we have miles to go before we sleep. Show me an industry where 90% of the competitors are blogging and I’ll show you an industry that is ready for the business of storytelling. Until then, we must keep teaching, because business storytelling will be built upon a foundation of New/Social Media fundamentals.

And not a moment sooner.

Photo Credit: celesterc

Tags: Storytelling Business Storytelling New Media Social Media New Media Evangelist Management Consultant Executives

Last Friday I had the opportunity to cover The 2009 NAMM Show for Podcasting News. Checkout my videos from the floor: HHB-DRM-085 Flash Mic and the TASCAM DR-1 and DR-07 portable recorders.

As I was leaving the show floor, I heard the sound of drums. I followed the sound to discover its source…a massive drum circle consisting of over 200 participants pounding out a pleasantly-deafening rhythm. I grabbed my Flip Camera and started recording.

The man in the middle, Multi-percussionist Paulo Mattioli, lead the crowd through the use of expertly executed hand signals. He’d request; they’d respond, and music emerged from this purest form of collaboration.

The drum circle reminded me of Social Media. This video is the result of that thought.

Lemme know what you think.

Tags: Paulo Mattioli drum circle flip camera flip namm 2009 New Media Evangelist ronamok viddler

They’re talking about you. Your fans are discussing your products, your services, and your brand.

Can you hear them?

These conversations aren’t happening behind your back. Instead, they’re occurring publicly, transmitted through the use of blogs (text), podcasts (audio) and online video. Within minutes of posting, their content is diced, sliced, indexed and made available to anyone around the world.

Are you listening?

Fans come in all forms. They can love and hate. For example I’m a fan of the New England Patriots, yet I hate the New York Jets. And the more successful the Jets are, the more I hate them…and the more I talk about them…and the more interested I am in what they are doing. Putting this observation into writing has brought me to the horrifying realization that I’m a Jets fan. An anti-fan, yet a fan nonetheless.

Fans identify with you, your message and what your organization stands for. Because fans are so emotionally involved, if you disappoint, they’ll turn on you with brutal honesty. Just remember: only your friends (fans?) will tell you that you have bad breath.

So, are you paying attention?

Are you tapping into these fanversations through free tools like  search.twitter.com, Google Alerts, Google Blog Search, Technorati or Google News, all which notify you whenever a fan talks about your company, brand, products or services? And rather than cramming these important results into your overcrowded email inbox, are you subscribing to them via RSS?

Are you gathering valuable insights, ideas, and attitudes from your fans without forcing them to complete yet another self-serving customer satisfaction survey? Are you visiting your company’s fan sites, which are either built upon privately-owned domains or publicly-available third-party platforms such as Blogger, Facebook, MySpace, or Ning? Do you check photo-sharing sites such as Flickr, or video-sharing sites such as YouTube, Viddler, Vimeo or mDialog for examples of fans using, describing, praising or belly-aching about your products?

Can you get over yourself and let fans describe your products and services in their terms as opposed to regurgitating your pithy little marketing messages? Will you let them bastardize your products through innovative uses like dropping mint candies into your soft drink product to initiate the soda pop pyrotechnics of nucleation? Or, are you just waiting to swoop in like a storm trooper with legal guns a blazin’?

Does it bother you that fans don’t care about your mission statement? Does your blood pressure rise when you realize that they don’t care how much “value” you can add, how many “resources” you can leverage, or if your CEO can walk on water? Can you live with the fact that fans simply want your products or services to work well: to eliminate their pain, increase their happiness, make them healthier, or just get them through the day?

And can you listen…I mean REALLY listen?

Listen to your fanversations. You just might learn something.

Tags: fanversations

Photo Credit: http://flickr.com/photos/17748937@N00/2114500411/