Or How Stephen King Would Build A Story For Your Project Living generates stories. Stories of our experiences, world and relationships. Businesses and organsiations are also story-generating machines. These stories are an underutilised resource that can take projects to a new level with a process called 'generative story thinking'. Generative story thinking is what allows…
What does Co-Design, Complex Systems Theory and Storytelling have in common? Can co-design methods be used to gather stories as a qualitative data set in processes of innovation, change or disruption? To use stories as a qualitative data set, it is necessary to see storytelling as a system of feedback loops that deliver new learnings…
Improving Empathy In Your Design Process, Create Characters For Your Personas! Human-centered designers use empathy-based processes to understand the people they are creating solutions for. Being able to see through another person’s eyes can feel like magic or good luck. And yet the tools to make this a repeatable and reliable process are within our…
With storytelling, smaller is bigger. I recently met a screenwriter and he told me about a project he's working on, a cross-cultural romance. In his story, a feminist from the West falls in love with a chauvinist from the East. He was having trouble creating the backstories of these characters, why they are together despite their differences. We kept coming up against sticking points and the story wasn’t working.
Once upon a time there was a president who was known primarily by his initials, JFK. He and the nation he represented was upset that Russia was beating them in a competition called the space race. Every day the USA and Russia ran against each other to be the ‘first’ when it came to exploring…
In this examination, I deconstruct Nike's Narrative of 'Just Do It'. We look at how this simple statement acts as a bridge between its external communications and it's internal communication framework of Mission, Vision and Values. A good narrative does that for businesses. It unifies the vision of what drives people internally within the company…
“Don't ever underestimate the power of a story. Even if the story has to do with bacterial infections and chickens,” Josh Muccio, host of The Pitch. The Pitch from Gimlet Media showcases founders of start-ups as they sell the story of their business to a panel of investors. This podcast illustrates the real-world application of…
With the launch of The Boring Company, Elon Musk shows us he is all about the underground, including his marketing. The Boring Company is developing high-speed travel tubes to help ease inter-city traffic. Also, you can buy a flamethrower on the site. Yep, a flamethrower with the Boring Company logo on the side.…
“Strong Opinions Weakly Held” This phrase originated with Paul Saffro, Director of Palo Alto’s Institute for the Future. In a discussion about wisdom, Bob Johansen of the Institute allegedly explained to Bob Sutton that to deal with an uncertain future and still move forward, the Institute advises people to have “strong opinions, which are weakly…
Working in an innovation space can feel lonely when only a small number of people outside of your team understand what you are trying to accomplish.
Storytelling Built For Innovation 