Discovering the art of storytelling by showcasing methods, tips, & tools that help you find and tell your story, your way. Find me on Twitter @gimligoosetales
"Stories are irresistible. We can’t help but pay attention to them.
Which is why you’re going to trade in your patient testimonials (the ones filled with statements and facts) for patient stories that make your patients the heroes of their own epics."
Read the full article to find out how tell your patients stories by:
breaking down each stage of the hero's journey framework to develop a transformational story
adapting each stage of the hero's journey into a patient’s journey and pepper your narrative with meaning using five archetypal plots and morals:
The Quest
Overcoming the Monster
Voyage and Return
Rags to Riches
Rebirth
using the real life examples and downloadable patient interview questionnaires as a guide
Kim Zinke (aka Gimli Goose)'s insight:
What a great resource! I'm only sad I didn't discover it when it was first published. Such a time saver to have a templated format for your storytelling toolkit. Even if you're not working with patients or testimonials, you have many hero based stories you can tell. Use the guide and format that Drew has so generously shared to create your own templates focused on your client type or employee base.
I really like how he summed up when to use which plot.
"To ensure you choose the right hero’s journey, identify the nature of the issue first. Then let your patients articulate their motivations. And then analyze the life lessons your patients gained from their journey. Last, choose the hero’s journey that most closely aligns with the given context."
"Kate Santore took the stage at Content Marketing World to share Coca-Cola’s storytelling ethos – and in the process inspired marketers to ask, “What if?”
“Sharing our strategies and approach to marketing has been a tradition at Coca-Cola to open the door for other brands to learn from our 130 years of marketing experience,” Kate says. “Sharing this ‘thought-ware’ collectively raises the bar for every brand and therefore makes us strive for bigger, better, bolder.”"
Read the full article to gain access to the 17 minute video from the conference and a brief interview that formulated the above graphic and to find out more key storytelling points.
Kim Zinke (aka Gimli Goose)'s insight:
Some of the stand-out storytelling points from the video were:
We begin every brief with a storytelling thought-starter question “what if?” This gives us a jumping-off point to push ourselves to ask daring questions.
We're looking for coca-cola stories, not stories by coca-cola.
One of the building blocks of our stories - be the star of your own show.
There are 4 key characters they coca-cola can play - embodiment of an attitude, functional offering or benefit, social connector, object of desire
We ask, if we took coca-cola out of the story, could the story still be told? If yes, then it's not a story we want to tell.
Craft stories that take space in the hearts & minds of consumers - following Maya Angelou's saying "it's not what you say, it's how you make them feel"
Lens we tell stories through - democratic, inclusive, and relentlessly optimistic.
It's a universal story - Coke tastes the same wherever you go
Your brand story should be the thread which connects your value proposition, team, vision, mission, purpose, value proposition with your customers, potential
Click through to the article to access the 30 minute podcast to learn:
6 must have content elements of brand storytelling
How to create a brand story that helps you earn trust and establish authority
Importance of making it easy for people to listen to, watch and understand your brand story
Why you must ensure your brand story helps differentiate you from competition
Why you must start from the inside out in creating your brand story
Selecting the characters (people) to be part of your brand story
Why your brand story is not just about you
Why you must know your unique position in the market
Why you can't be afraid to share your best stuff, including how you do what you do
"Stories are an integral part to communicating effectively with your employees. A great story goes a long way, because it’s memorable and helps create an emotional connection with the listener. What we feel impacts what we do, so stories can be a great way to move employees to action."
Read the full article to find out more about why great leaders should show their humanity using stories, and an exercise using this storytelling formula to guide you:
"Love reading comics? You're not the only one. What about these stories about super-beings keep our eyes glued to the pages and our minds salivating for more? We explore in this deck how comic writers use these storytelling techniques and how you can apply it in your presentation."
View the SlideShare to find out more about these five storytelling lessons and a take-away for each:
"‘Reflections of The Past’ is an award-winning photo series by commercial advertising photographer Tom Hussey. The photographs show an elderly person looking pensively at the reflection of his/her younger self in the mirror. Hussey was inspired by a World War II veteran who said “I can’t believe I’m going to be 80. I feel like I just came back from the war. I look in the mirror and I see this old guy.”"
Read the full article to see more photos from this series that provides an amazing example of visual storytelling.
Kim Zinke (aka Gimli Goose)'s insight:
What a wonderful perspective! Who do you see, and what story do you envision, when you see/think about yourself?
Every photo I looked at in this series made me stop and want to find out more about each of these people's stories. This would be a really fun way to get your family involved in telling their stories.
"Of all the communications tools available to a leader, perhaps none is more powerful than storytelling.
To reap the greatest rewards from storytelling in the workplace and steer clear of the risks, one must think strategically about the stories they tell, making sure they can first identify what they need a story to achieve so they can then find or develop the right story to achieve it. It also involves building great stories to be told. And while every story is different and unique, all great strategic stories are composed of five essential elements."
Read the full article to find out more about these 5 essential elements in leadership storytelling:
Help your leaders build their storytelling skills. They can be one of the most effective communication channels you have.
"Paying attention to the middle three element outlined above (Platform, Person and Plot) will ensure your story is engaging and captivating and something people will understand and want to listen to until the end. Paying attention to the first (Premise) and fifth (Point) elements will ensure your story is strategic: that it’s relevant to the workplace situation in which you’re telling it and that the audience is rewarded with something meaningful in hearing it."
"Between them, Dave Isay, TED Prize winner and founder of StoryCorps, and Brandon Stanton, founder of Humans of New York, have collected more than 75,000 stories from regular people around the world. Isay collects his stories as audio files, while Stanton takes a photo and then interviews his subject — but they’ve both developed fascinating techniques for helping people to open up. They sat down recently to talk about their work and their thoughts on what makes for an honest, open interview environment."
Read the full article to find out more about these tips to draw out stories from your interviewee:
E"ngage deeply. Interrupt kindly. People aren’t very good at knowing how to tell their own stories, says Stanton, and that means that they’re often vague and imprecise. Cutting through that is part of the interviewer’s job."
"The very epic nature of The Hero’s Journey makes it problematic for most for us as marketers. Relying on this type of story assumes we have the full attention of our audience as well as the content to make it work.
What if you don’t actually have a strong enough story with all the twists and turns of the Hero’s Journey? Your story falls flat and ends up trying too damn hard.
There are so many ways to tell stories in your business, but if you’re going to use the Hero’s Journey, deconstruct it so you’re not telling an epic story, but a much more bite-sized one. Every one of the 12 steps of The Hero’s Journey could give you the jumping off point for stories to share in your business."
Read the full article to find out more about these four examples of how to turn the traditional journey into one related to your business or yourself:
Ordinary World
Call to Adventure
Meeting with the Mentor
Return with Elixir
Kim Zinke (aka Gimli Goose)'s insight:
The Hero's Journey for business storytelling can be all wrong. It's too epic. Too long. And it assumes your audience cares. I like how this article addresses telling your story in bite-sized bits.
Learn how to tell stories that will captivate even the most challenging audiences by reading the blog post that gives the complete behind-the-scenes story about this presentation: http://buff.ly/1B8ehRa
View the presentation to find out more about these 3 steps tpo a good story:
"Ensure that your story stands out from the crowd. Start your story with a gripping complication, continue with a middle woven together with “therefore” and “but,” and conclude your story with a moment of transformation. Also, remember that product pitches, or funding announcements, are not stories; they’re self-promotional memos. To find a story worth telling, you need to dig deep to uncover moments of transformation. You can do it. Go find your story." ~ Ethos3 blog post
"While any story is better than an bullet list, some stories are more interesting than others. They command an audience's attention, communicate a message both clearly and memorably and thus help the audience to make a decision."
Read the full article for more on these tips for improving your presentations with stories:
Ask permission before telling a story
Anchor the story to a particular time
Anchor the story to a particular place
Feature a hero your audience identifies with
Use concrete words rather than abstractions
End the story with an emotional win
Kim Zinke (aka Gimli Goose)'s insight:
To pull all tips together, the author put the same business message into three different formats: 1) the typical bullet list outline, 2) a basic story told with abstractions, and 3) a story that's concrete and vivid. Notice the difference?
"Activists know that a personal story has the best chance of influencing a decision. So when they canvas support, they often ask for personal stories that will further their cause.
The problem is that many people who receive such a request don’t really understand what they’re being asked for. They may think they don’t have a story like that to share, or if they do, that they won’t be able to share it in a compelling way."
Read the full article to find out how you can:
find a personal story to support your chosen cause
tell that story so it has the greatest impact
Kim Zinke (aka Gimli Goose)'s insight:
The author uses an example of marriage equality to explain the steps. It makes it very easy to follow along and then replicate for your own situation. And don't think these steps only work for causes. It could easily be used for any organizational or personal stories.
"Our ancestors used it to preserve history; sometimes even drawing images on cave walls and rocks to support their narratives. Kids before grew up telling stories around the campfire, their eyes reflecting the joy and wonder at new chronicles heard over roasted marshmallows.
Today, storytelling takes on the form of interactive media. Thanks to advancements in technology, we’re not just exploring stories from history or science – we’re also discovering each other’s tales. From students, journalists, cooks, photographers, and even entrepreneurs: we’ve become the new breed of digital storytellers."
Read the full article to find out more about these six platforms for digital storytellers:
Une sélection de 6 plateformes digitales, variées et faciles à utiliser pour organiser votre contenu du simple témoignage à un storytelling plus complexe
"In our latest infographic, we share some of the ways that storytelling can be weaved through our organisations with seven simple standards that will help you and your stakeholders communicate in a much more moving and meaningful way."
Read the full article to see the infographic & dig deeper into how to implement these 7 standards:
This infographic can be helpful in crafting your story in all types of scenarios. Writing, speaking, blogging, etc. I especially love the idea of a "swipe file" of factual stories that you can pull from when writing your own.
***This review was written by Penelope Silvers for her curated content on "Writing Rightly"***
"After working with hundreds of nonprofits, social enterprises and impact organisations, we’ve distilled our steps for developing awesome stories into an easy to follow process, The Story Canvas. The Story Canvas is based on the Business Model Canvas’ and is a simple to use tool to develop and iterate your story ideas."
Read the full article to access this step-by-step guide.
Leaders are often Type-A number crunchers who hate telling stories. The result? Data-clogged speeches, dull videos, stuffy blogs and op-eds no one will publish. Here's how to mine gold.
Read the full article to find out more about these 13 ways to help your executives mine their storytelling gold:
"In this excerpt from Consciousness Engineering, Lisa Nichols gives some practical examples of what we mean by "telling your story" and how it can help you in every aspect of your life, whether it's professional or personal."
Most people tell a story. Showing requires more of you. It means finding the colours by showing what you were thinking, feeling, seeing.
Watch this short video to discover the difference and power of showing someone a story. You'll hear two examples of the difference of telling and showing someone a story by hearing:
Lisa's financial hardships raising her child
Being angry
Kim Zinke (aka Gimli Goose)'s insight:
In this short video, we get two powerful examples of what makes a great story. Lisa outlines it as:
Willingness to take risk
Being clear & concise with your story
A show me story not a tell me story.
To get your story going, identify the state of time it takes place in. Paint the picture, take me to the environment, set the backdrop.
"We are hard wired for stories but I don’t think we recognize what a huge reservoir of insights, lessons learned and experiences we have to share with others.
The intent of a story. Storytellers are, by nature, collaborative and giving and can have three major choices in terms of the intent of telling their story: to inform, to inspire or to provoke.
I believe leaders in organizations need to employ the use of stories more in their communications. The question is how do you do that? How do you construct a good story you can use as a key resource in your bag of leadership tools?"
Read the full article to find out more about these 4 key steps to constructing a great business story:
Make a list of people
Make a list of settings
Write down problems or challenges
Write down lessons learned
Kim Zinke (aka Gimli Goose)'s insight:
There are some additional final tips at the end of the article that are also worth noting:
keep your story 5-7 minutes long
less is more
a good story is not solely about the storyteller
and before starting look to the three questions to ask yourself
"Businesses are using storytelling as a way to improve their core messaging, branding, and marketing.
This essay will look at some of the core truths about stories and storytelling in Part I (common storytelling principles that apply to business & life, tips #1-7), and then I'll share a few tools that are practical and easy to implement in Part II (how to improve your business & personal storytelling today, tips #8-11). Use these core principles across many communication needs, from a personal biography to the description of your company."
Read the full article to find out more about these 11 storytelling tips:
Everyone is a storyteller.
We tell stories to connect, dream, and imagine.
Stories are how we are hardwired.
A story is what you take with you.
We are surrounded by far too many examples of bad storytelling — powerpoints, inadequacy marketing, and droll presentations have numbed our innate ability to tell stories.
When you sell anything — yourself, a brand, a business — you tell a story.
We are naturally curious, and we all want to be smart.
Your English teacher was right — it is about "showing" versus "telling."
Detail, detail, detail. The environment matters — because it lays the foundation for imagination.
Introduce conflict — by using the "bait" method.
Shorter is often better. Keep it simple!
Kim Zinke (aka Gimli Goose)'s insight:
We can recognize when we're captivated by a great story. The problem is dissecting what's happening into tools you can use to your advantage later. These 11 tips help you do that.
Be sure to check out the end of the article for a few ways to practice these techniques.
"Have you wondered how to shoot a hospital video story that moves your audience to tears? Or how to write a CEO speech that will earn a standing ovation?
Nasdaq Corporate Solutions and Ragan Communications are offering a free guide—Strategic Storytelling—full of tips for telling your organization's story though a wide range channels, from newsletters to videos."
Read the full article to obtain the link to this free guide featuring advice and case studies from corporations such as Intel, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and American Express Open Forum. This 24 page guide covers:
The three elements of a story
How to find stories within your company
Starting your story: the anecdotal lede
How to bring your story to life with video
How to write memorable speeches & intriguing op-eds
How to write compelling press releases
Storytelling using brand journalism
How to get emotional with images
How to educate and entertain with infographics
Kim Zinke (aka Gimli Goose)'s insight:
Your company isn’t just an organization. It is a story. There are narratives to be found in its history, employees, and
customers. You can present your story in white papers, videos, blogs, speeches, op-eds, websites, and even press releases. Use this nicely laid out guide, full of examples and links to additional information, to help you understand the why's and how's of organizational storytelling. And how to be strategic about it.
"Elon Musk and Steve Jobs are both known for their seemingly mystical power to distort reality. What gives them this ability isn’t a quirk of a charismatic leader; it’s a learnable skill called storytelling.
The better at storytelling someone is, the more that readers and listeners are transported to a whole new world. According to studies conducted on this transportation phenomenon, great stories alter beliefs, result in the loss of access to real-world facts, evoke emotions, and significantly reduce ability to detect inaccuracies. To understand this phenomenon, you don’t need to look any further than your own personal experience desperately rooting for an immortal, time-traveling mutant in X-Men or another equally impossible character and plot from your favorite movie."
Read the full article to find out more about how 11 top online storytellers, who collectively generate hundreds of millions of page views every month, craft stories:
Balance the universal with the specific
Be unapologetically authentic
Test your story until it’s a wow every time
Do a double punch with visual stories
Add incertainty to your plot
Disrupt your industry’s fairy tale stories
Come from a place of stillness
Use open loops to create anticipation
Use quotes to build characters
Find and reverse-engineer the emotions behind great stories
"Storytelling is the art of convincing your target audience to empty their pockets for your products and services without actually giving them a sales pitch. What replaces the sales pitch in this campaign is a fairy tale that revolves around their lives and features your products every now and then showcasing how ‘useful’ they are.
Great stories always begin with a hook, making a promise to the reader that reading it is going to be worth their time (and money). The first and foremost thing to do post setting the hook, is to make your customer the hero of the story!
Then you can walk in all the elves and miscellaneous fancies to keep him hooked; no matter which character you use, ensure that is relatable to the reader and not you.
No matter how long your story is, the one thing that will keep your readers going is the crown prize that is being promised or suggested through the tale. The next step is to just make sure your story has a happy ending that is in sync with what has been filled in by your audience previously via feedbacks, polls and other interactions.
Remember, everyone loves a happily ever after!"
Read the full article to find out more about these tips to keep in mind when you tell your own fairy tale:
Don’t be Cruella — just quit the show off!
Don’t run on Cinderella’s time — make it last!
Don’t be a bore — what if the shoe never got lost?
Don’t go haywire — stick to a theme!
Don’t add to their grief — make it a happy ending!
Don’t make the ending a definite one — keep them wanting more!
Kim Zinke (aka Gimli Goose)'s insight:
There's some good references and visuals in the article - Pixar's 22 rules, the hero's journey, and storytelling TED style.
"In Made to Stick, Gary Klein, a psychologist who studies high-pressure decision-making, suggests that stories are often retold because they contain wisdom. In a medical context, stories provide a simulation of what to do in a certain situation.
But according to Made to Stick, stories contain something else: inspiration.
A story has the power to provide contextual simulation (knowledge about how to act) as well as inspiration (motivation to act). Both aspects are “geared to generate action“. The authors highlighted three story plots that inspire us to act: challenge, connection, creative."
Read the full article to find out more about these 11 examples of storytelling in marketing that use the three plots:
Warby Parker
Dollar Shave Club
Greats
Toms
Pura Vida Bracelets
tentree
Airbnb
Asana
Sugru
Hampton Creek
Moleskine
Kim Zinke (aka Gimli Goose)'s insight:
At the core of every great brand is a story. Ask yourself: what is the motivation behind your brand? What problems did you set out to solve? The story you tell shouldn’t be any story; it should be a story about your passion and motivation. Focus on telling that story, and people will listen.
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What a great resource! I'm only sad I didn't discover it when it was first published. Such a time saver to have a templated format for your storytelling toolkit. Even if you're not working with patients or testimonials, you have many hero based stories you can tell. Use the guide and format that Drew has so generously shared to create your own templates focused on your client type or employee base.
I really like how he summed up when to use which plot.
"To ensure you choose the right hero’s journey, identify the nature of the issue first. Then let your patients articulate their motivations. And then analyze the life lessons your patients gained from their journey. Last, choose the hero’s journey that most closely aligns with the given context."