To know what your business really really is, and express it in a form that resonates with all is rightly a holy grail. Understand and use your business essence, expressed as words, and you: Have the basis of your first, most important story…and all other stories Have an internal company rallying call Have soul However … Continue reading Your essence – the gem at the heart of your business
Category Archives: Persuasive message
The world and its climate is going to hell in a handbasket. Yep…I get and accept the science…and that we’d better not mess around too much in slashing our carbon emissions (and also stop plundering the rest of our planet’s resources). However there is a vital missing message around the “I’m telling you something and … Continue reading The vital missing message from climate change action
Words have power, and people have “an appetite for well-expressed wisdom, motivational or otherwise,” says Ward Farnsworth. He’s dean of the University of Texas School of Law, and author of Farnsworth’s Classical English Rhetoric. The book shows examples of rhetoric (the art of persuasion) from the famous such as Churchill, Lincoln and Dickens, and lesser … Continue reading The power of language
“You’ve got to tell a story” is heard so often it’s almost a cliche. Such an exhortation is more often than not heavily directed at science and science policy storytelling. But no one ever tells you how. Well, here’s a (summarised) how – based on a ‘science of stories’ – written by Michael D Jones … Continue reading How to write a scientific narrative
Whether you find Donald Trump appealing or appalling, there’s no way you can sit on the fence in your opinion of the world’s greatest liar. (Check out The Washington Post science article about ‘Why liars lie’). One aspect of language the Twitterer in Chief has mastered though – surely as a byproduct of his low-level … Continue reading From a metaphor POV at least, here is someone to (partly) emulate
Your first story must Ring true; unearth an aha. Use a metaphor.
Imagine a world without metaphors. In fact don’t even try…because it is impossible. We simply cannot function in a world without the power of description and understanding provided by metaphors. To remind us, a metaphor is a word or phrase that is used to describe something else to emphasise their similar qualities. A metaphor is … Continue reading A metaphor is a knot that ties a word to an image
We have seven words to propose an idea according to Andrew O’Keefe of Hardwired Humans. 7±2 words is about two seconds – which is our brain’s working memory with information says the Sydney based people-strategies- design author and consultant. Our human instinct when we propose an idea, delegate a task or make a request is … Continue reading Hardwired humans…first seven words
Naturally we’d like everyone to read all of our stories all the way through. But what encourages readers to keep on engaging, hang in there until the end? A fascinating study by Jonah Berger, Wendy Mae and David Schweider has unearthed that not all emotion is created equal when it comes to encouraging extended online … Continue reading How to get longer reads of your online content
We all get so wrapped up in our own business we can lose objectivity, lose perspective of what we actually do. It’s the not being able to see the wood for the trees phenomenon. Having someone else with which to bounce around your idea of ‘business self’ is an invaluable resource. Preferably you need a … Continue reading The power of another person’s perspective