The power of a great methaphor in telling a story.

Funny!

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This superb short film from Doctors Without Borders has all the narrative, imagistic, and emotional pieces in place.

The drama is ushered in through a suspenseful opening shot, and the close-ups of the patients eyes draw the viewer into an intense scene of medical urgency. When the lights go out, turning on the switch is one cut away—an excellent use of video’s capacity to link space, time and action, producing a powerful direct appeal.

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This Land documents the Canadian Army's most extensive patrol of the Arctic since 1947. In March 2007 seven Canadian and Inuit Rangers, riding in a convoy of snowmobiles, covered more than 2000km from Resolute to the northernmost tip of Canadian soil - 412km from the North Pole.

Watch -and listen to!- the beautiful story of photo journalist Dianne Whelan.

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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”).

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I just read some of the most popular blog posts on content marketing.

It seems that we all agree that good content should be Findable, Readable, Understandable, Actionable and Shareable.

So that's it? Well, not in the least.

And by now you're thinking “Okay Raf, get to the point!"

My point? Many companies have no clue what the difference is between good content and boring content. I would go even further. Many organizations are not even aware that their message has lost all connection with their audience.

At least that is my experience after four years of accompanying organizations, brands and their leaders in their communication efforts. Many seem to excel at finding ways to render their content marketing completely pointless. You can follow as many checklists and steps as you want, but without engaging content that makes your audience stick like superglue, your content marketing is doomed.

The strange thing with all this is that the solution is so obvious: stories and storytelling.

Stories are how we convey our deepest emotions and talk about the things we value the most. Everyone has a story to tell. I believe stories are the most effective vehicle to drive the heart of a message to the heart of an audience. And exploring these stories should be at the core of every organizations' content marketing strategy.

In my book ‘No Story, No Fans’, Mitch Joel (President of Twist Image and Author of Six Pixels of Separation) puts it like this: “Stories captivate people’s attention. It happens when it comes to The Bible and it happens when it comes to Star Wars.” So true.

Now let me ask you this: Do you think that you or your business is in touch with its own stories?

Do you need to reinvent your story to connect it with a hyper-connected world? Do you need to put the story back in your storytelling? I believe you do if you have trouble answering any of the following questions:

• What is the story that really defines you?

• In which way is your story emotionally engaging to your audience?

• How does your story connect with the existing culture of your organization?

• Can your audiences retell your story?

• In what ways do they trust your story and act upon it?

In my next blog post I'll try to bring some of my trials and errors -and my own storytelling experiences- together in one simple storytelling principle. Following this principle will lead you from deadly boring content that nobody is interested in to highly engaging stories that connect with your audience.

Believe me, I know how challenging it can be to produce smart, highly targeted and truly innovative stories. But I also believe companies today would be able to connect better with their audiences if they would start using stories as little gifts to the community. If they would start to use these gifts as a means to reconnect with their audiences and regain trust. Making your content little gifts is (or has to become) the new “business as usual”. I like to call it “the New Trade”.

And this brings me to my key storytelling principle for you:

Only use content that can be regarded as a little gift to your community.

Here is a company that has been following my 1 simple story principle and succeeds big time in connecting with their audience on an emotional level. For Patagonia (an outdoor clothing company) environmental documentarian Bridget Besaw travels to Chile to this beautiful story of the rugged people living in an area that would be changed forever by five proposed dams on the Baker and Pascua Rivers.

(In my next blog post I will explain the concept of “gift” a little more. And show you how your organization can use this principle in catching, creating and connecting your story.)

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Warning – this story will mess you up! 

This is a very powerful story (I thought why not share it with you…)

The lack of affordable housing and people dying on the streets stand out. I hope Steen’s story of people dying grabs you as it has me. Nothing more to be said here.

I met Steen while walking through a park in Vancouver, British Columbia. Local Vancouver homeless friends call the area “The Bird Sanctuary” because of the growth of trees in an urban area. I would have never found the place if it wasn’t for Vancouver homeless advocate, Judy Graves. I am honored and grateful Judy took the time to give me a tour of the city.

Steen is a colorful character. You can see years of street life in his face. Steen tells a very real story about life and death on the streets of Vancouver. He tells us a very detailed story of how he ended up on the streets this time.

Steen says he has been promised housing before he has to survive another winter, but bureaucracy keeps delaying the local housing project under construction.

Steen says his friends are in and out of the emergency rooms. He is concerned about two of his friends he believes are close to death. When I asked Steen how many of his friends died last year he responded “conservatively six. It could have been a couple more”.

More stories of invisible people here.

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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 these ads, 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 broadcasted advertising stories like Old Spice are 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 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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http://www.corporatestoryteller.be/impact-of-stories/working-your-story-no-st...

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Malcolm Gladwell once said: “You can’t become a chess grand master unless you spend 10,000 hours on practice”. The good men and women of Cardigan have spent that and more learning their trade. In some cases, they have spent 30,000 hours. They have practiced their skills until they have become ‘Grand Masters’ of jeans making.

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You need to flip the script (part II)

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You need to flip the script! (part I)

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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.” M "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 day. 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.

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Is Brand Journalism the new gold?

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."

So 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:

You 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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Dear Believers of The New Trade,
A few weeks ago some of you funded real money to help me get my message out. Thank you.

No I mean... THANK you!

Yes, we made it. My book-writing-project 'The New Trade' reached its target of 9000 euro.

So today it is my turn to help you. That seems only fair.

A quick reminder for those of you who have forgotten why they funded this project anyways. Well, you wanted to get involved in writing a book together. Maybe you were just being friendly (no worries, much appreciated).

So what again is this book project all about: well, the last couple of years I have been reading about all aspects of storytelling. How it influences the economy, the society, leadership, authenticity, social media and so on. Interesting stuff. I have also been guiding quite a few international companies in using storytelling as a business tool. I have given a dozen workshops and lectures about this theme to blue chip companies. They all seemed convinced about 1 thing: the power corporate storytelling. No, it's not a marketing tool. No, it is not business as usual. I have been calling it "the new trade". And I believe the new trade IS the new business as usual!

Futurist Rolf Jensen predicts, "Companies will thrive on the basis of their stories and myths".
For myself I have been intrigued with stories and storytelling ever since I was a very young boy. Stories are how we convey our deepest emotions and talk about those things that we value the most. Everyone has a story to tell. And exploring these stories is my business imperative.
Actually, it's more than that. It's a moral duty. Because I believe that corporate life manifestly dehumanises us, mechanises us into robots. It seems strange that any attempt to infuse it with a soul -with a story- seems bizarre and widely out of place. I believe in breaking down the walls of corporate-dom. Typical management talk does not interest me. Not in companies, not for myself. I focus on stories. Real, authentic stories that help each organisation with its change processes, its strategies, its communication and its position within society as a whole. Is your company touching people's minds and hearts? Are your leaders sharing the stories that will create the future they envision?

Mmm... don't get me going here.

So I decided to write a book about all of this. And to make it simple and concrete I try to summarize my view in one sentence:
The New Trade: is all about people - connecting with other people - by sharing their stories for everyone to repeat - hoping to inspire the world and ultimately make it a better place.

You can still download the Manifesto (pdf) that I have already written about it..

If you want to be part of ‘The New Trade' movement you can start by joining me in this book-writing-project. How does this work. Simple. I write stuff and you can have your say in it. This way the book gets crowdsourced and gets connected with lots of good stuff from our community (believers first).

To get started: I want to share with you my research for this book-writing-project. Follow this link to Delicious and have look at all the material I have been reading lately on storytelling, social media, communities, innovation, crowdsourcing and many more: http://www.delicious.com/rafstevens

I have organized it with ‘tags'. If you look for the tag ‘thenewtrade' you will find all the material there. There are also subtags that will help you to choose which stuff you find more interesting. This is my first gift back to you (you're welcome!).

If you go Twitter you can find me @rafstevens. Please connect with me if you want to follow along. I have been sending multiple tweets to the community often using #thenewtrade. Look for it, you'll probably find lots of material and people that could be interesting to you or your business.
I have also set-up on online discussion group for this project. I called it ‘LinkedStories' and you can access it via Google Groups.

Finally, I have put out a "rafstevens" website on Postereous.  This site combines my work from www.corporatestoryteller.be and my book-writing-project. The content of this site contains curated thoughts from the storytelling community and from my blog. It also has links to all the sites mentioned in this blog post (consider it as a central please where you can always come back to if you lost the links).

So what's next? Well, that is entirely up to you. If you want to be closely involved then I welcome you to join The New Trade movement right now. Start reading some of my research stuff. Start a discussion in Google groups/LinkedStories. Throw me mail: raf@corporatestoryteller.be I'll try to answer to every mail within 24 hours (take notice that there is a time difference between New York, London and small town Nieuwenrode here :-)

Start spreading the word via Twitter. Every tweet counts to create a New Trade of a re-humanized business full with stories.

As for me? I will do all of that in the following weeks. Than I'll see if my message connects to you, and if I can get you engaged in all of this.

Isn't this cool. This is the way stories connect in the year 2011.
Raf

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A new movement to start re-humanizing corporate world?

March 9th, 2011

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Sorry for the F word. I guess I just needed an extra word with storytelling to make my message stick. Or did I not?

“Storytelling” seems to be all over the place lately. Although it is getting a fair amount of positive attention (thank got!) storytelling is also becoming some sort of umbrella word for everything and nothing.

Can I call on you today?

But first follow this short stream of thoughts…

Just a few minutes ago I shared some interesting reflections with some interesting people on the meaning of storytelling on Twitter. It started off with my RT of this blog post: Can a Brand Journalist Still Be a Journalist? Does it Matter?

In the blog post there is a reaction of David Meerman Scott:

A storyteller is a storyteller no matter who he is telling the story to.

I tweeted this sentence and the story began…

Michael Margolis (@getstoried on twitter) and author of The Storytelling Manifesto Believe Me was the first to reply :

Yup!

(you still had 137 characters left Michael

Sean Buvala (@storyteller):

Journalist isn’t #storytelling unless they’re speaking story to a live audience. Pen, video, spoken are unique story expressions.

Gunther Sonnenfeld (@goonth) who just has written a great article about ‘transmedia storytelling’ The Business of storytelling reacted next by saying:

transmedia storytelling helps us understand that storytelling is not confined, rather liberated by platform & channel.

It was his reaction on my question: Is transmedia storytelling not just storytelling?

And suddenly I got followed by the queen of storytelling Annette Simmons (@TheStoryFactor) -love your website your majesty- author of the fantastic book Whoever Tells the best story wins.

Okay, I thought. I have been working in the story fields for about 3 years now. And the most asked question to me is: what is storytelling? Second best question: what do you mean with “a story”? And quite frankly people asking my these questions often do not care about the difference between “story” and “storytelling”.

“Telling” is Tell to Win Peter Gruber would say. This week I have read and reviewed Peter’s book on storytelling Tell to Win. On the first day of sales it was #1 bestseller on Amazon. Amazing.

“Story” is looking at what kind of “story” you want to tell first Annette would say.

Maybe a last one from screenwriting coach Robert McKee. It is not actually Twitter-ready but I would like to share it with you. It comes from a blog post called “Happy tales: the CEO as Storyteller”:

Essentially, a story expresses how and why life changes. It begins with a situation in which life is relatively in balance: You come to work day after day, week after week, and everything’s fine. You expect it will go on that way. But then there’s an event—in screenwriting, we call it the “inciting incident”—that throws life out of balance. You get a new job, or the boss dies of a heart attack, or a big customer threatens to leave. The story goes on to describe how, in an effort to restore balance, the protagonist’s subjective expectations crash into an uncooperative objective reality. A good storyteller describes what it’s like to deal with these opposing forces, calling on the protagonist to dig deeper, work with scarce resources, make difficult decisions, take action despite risks, and ultimately discover the truth. All great storytellers since the dawn of time—from the ancient Greeks through Shakespeare and up to the present day—have dealt with this fundamental conflict between subjective expectation and cruel reality.

But what do you say?

Would you help me define what “storytelling” is for you?

And can you tweet it to me please (if you can’t explain it in 140 characters it is not really a strong elevator pitch is it?).

On twitter I live @rafstevens

So I can I count on the smartest people I know: that is my story network. That’s you, bro!

Thank you.

That’s also you master storytellers: @AstoriedCareer @Digitaltonto @dspark @storybagNL @storyteling @greggvm @davidhutchens @pauljoosten @sharleneSones @evasnijders @makingstories @unoder @kirkcheyfitz @davidhenderson @peterguber @stevedenning @frankadman @clayforsberg @vanessamiemis

I would like to dip my too in your stream every day (just stole that from @greggvm)

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