Comments on: The Business of Storytelling

By: Terri Rains

Terri Rains — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 06:54:29 +0000

It does seem hard to believe that the “stuffed suits” who worship at the altar of old school professionalism can embrace the narrative, doesn’t it?

But if there’s one thing I know about business people… They’ll follow the money. As folks learn more and more about how effective storytelling can be, more will do it.

Some will make it ugly, but some will do it right. You just need to hope that they come at with quality instruction and an open mind.

By: Ron Ploof

Ron Ploof — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 02:36:46 +0000

Kevin,

Thanks for the references. They’re awesome.

Some of my favorite storytelling business books include:

1) The One Minute Manager Series, Blanchard et al,
2) The Goal — Elyahu Goldratt
3) The Richest Man in Babylon: George S. Clayson.

Storytelling works. It’s just that until B2B companies can overcome their internal communications biases, they won’t be very good at it.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:43:37 +0000

Human beings ARE storytellers. It’s what we do. It’s what distinguishes from the other critters crawling around this planet and it’s our best hope for understanding each other.

The idea of corporate storytelling isn’t new. For some background, please let me recommend some very good books on the subject:

Squirrel, Inc.: A Fable of Leadership Through Storytelling — Stephen Denning

The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling — Stephen Denning

The Story Factor — Annette Simmons

By: Rob Leavitt

Rob Leavitt — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 03:18:34 +0000

The irony, of course, is that the most successful executives — not to mention sales people — are often the best storytellers. Somehow they seem to forget that when it gets to more “organized” marketing programs, unfortunately. The company I just left had some decent success using storytelling in corporate learning programs (including in some very large companies), but we struggled to integrate that into marketing programs for our clients as well. Hopefully the current chatter will at least move the idea forward a bit. Meanwhile, we can at least keep pushing on the conversational front, which can be a bit of a bridge toward more serious storytelling.

By: Tom Jordan

Tom Jordan — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 00:17:26 +0000

Ron – As a marketing communications writer, I totally agree with your ideas on storytelling in businesses. I think too that the larger and more established the business, the less likely they are willing to adopt a new, radical messaging style. Like podcasting, the storytelling concept probably gets kicked around a lot of boardroom tables, but gets lost, homogenized beyond recognition before it hits the streets. Executives like to incorporate “social media” terms into their marketing lexicon, but it’s only the rare few that are willing to gamble, to integrate truly original, fresh thinking into their marketing plan. Nothing really wrong with the status quo as long as the business plan is solid and has a positive track record. If it doesn’t, then maybe it’s time to unlock the blog sites and step out of their comfort zone while exploring the meanings of the new words they’ve added to their marketing vocabulary. Maybe it’s time to tell a few stories.

By: Lou Covey

Lou Covey — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 22:05:58 +0000

The interesting thing is that now is the time for execs to figure this out. According to Forrester, this will be the year that the “early adopters” of social media approaches are going to start making money.