Category: Blog

Great article from Christian Budtz and Klaus Fog in Design Bulletin. Companies who want to maintain brand status in the future must have a great story to tell. Storytelling is as important for building brands as it is for engaging employees, in creating an understanding of their values and personality. Oh, and they’ve written a new book called Storytelling – Branding in Practice. I’m off to buy it right now.

Here’s a nice little snippet I read somewhere. I believe that as human beings we respond very well to creativity, yet so much of our communication and day to day activity is sadly lacking in it as we send more e-mails, use more powerpoint and create less face-to-face interaction. Digital technology can be a great tool (no! I’ve just come off a conference call to the US – digital technology is an utterly fantastic tool without which our lives would be completely different) but it needs to be used in tandem with a more creative thought process to be really effective. It is so easy to de-humanise, as we ‘press send’ again and again, day in, day out. We do need to inject more humanity in our interaction. And if humanity can be brought about through creativity….

Creativity is essentially a form of human expression that communicates emotionally and intellectually the individual’s thoughts and feelings concerning themes about self, dreams and visions, issues and relationships. All people are therefore creative. Creativity is about humanity.

I thought it fitting that today, the 60th anniversary of the end of the war between the Allies and Japan, we should make reference to Bristol-based designer Nick Hind’s Living Museum.

The exhibition formed part of a special commemorative exhibition in St James’ Park, London where design teams from more than 30 museums and organisations around the country created their own showcases to remember life in wartime Britain. Based on a timeline (not dissimilar to our own storymaps) this ‘living memory board’ took the form of an S-shaped wall in 12×15m space, depicting just some of the events and stories which unravelled following Neville Chamberlain’s declaration of war.

We are impressed. Visual imagery brings WWII stories to life, although so much in those days was communicated via the radio in the absence of TV. Great idea. Loved it.

Graham Bowley writes today on the challenges the EU faces in getting its message across regarding the role it can play in creating jobs, saving the environment, reducing world poverty and disrupting terrorism in the 21st century. This is a story line which needs a human face at the centre to make it more compelling….

Leading research and information portal Melcrum features an article about our engagement programme for EDS.

I hear the BBC is bringing Jackanory back to our screens. When you consider how sophisticated childrens’ TV has become, the simplicity of a presenter reading direct to camera might seem at odds. Just shows how the charms of old-fashioned storytelling never go away….

In an excerpt to Seth Godin’s new book ‘All Marketers Are Liars’, we read that the key to profitable growth is from giving consumers what they want, not what they need. People tell themselves compelling stories about what they want, and in turn believe that this is indeed what they need. Read on….!

We were highly inspired by this commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and Pixar Animation Studios, at Stanford University. It has nothing to do with being Apple aficionados (which we are)….his advice and experiences are truly insightful and often humbling. A word of advice: Pass this on to younger members of your family. They will learn from it too.

The Xerox Chairman and CEO, Anne M Mulcahy, was interviewed in the March issue of Fast Company magazine under the heading What I Know Now. Among other things she talks about the importance of storytelling:

Storytelling is hugely important. At our town meetings, the most frequently asked question wasn’t whether we’d survive, but what we would look like when we did. I got great advice: Write a story. We wrote a Wall Street Journal article, because they had been particularly nasty about us, dated five years out…

… It was about where we could be if we really stood up to the plate. And people loved it. No matter where I go, people pull that article out. They personalized it.

Stories exist at all levels of the corporation. You talk to tech reps, and they’ll tell you what they did to help turn this company around. Whether it was saving a buck here, or doing something different for customers, everyone has a story. That creates powerful momentum–people’s sense that they’re able to do good things. It’s much more powerful than the precision or elegance of the strategy.

You can read the rest of her thoughts, including the importance of engaging everyone in a change process, at the Fast Company website.