Business Storytelling: Power Point Presentations

The following link was sent so I could review it and see about having this speaker present to our local National Speaker's Association chapter. http://www.thinkoutsidetheslide.com/DemoVideo2009v1a/DemoVideo2009v1a.html

I think Mr. Paradi makes some excellent points but since this blog is about storytelling let me focus on one that is germane. Paraphrasing: he says that storytelling has been used for 5,000 years by humans to train and transmit information. It has been successful and the human race has survived so why stop now? Power point presentations tend to be fact and data driven with numerous slides filled with much verbiage and/or graphs and statistics. Usually far too much for audience members to take in.

Mr. Paradi suggests instead of using words and graphs to use more visuals. Pair the visuals with headline type descriptions and tell a story. Take a look at the video, he demonstrates the principle. It is amazing how much more interesting the information is when he re-formats it.

Tell a story with your presentation. Make sure your power point tells a story too!

Business Storytelling: Fraudulent Online Patient Stories

One of the list serves I belong to just had this message.

I wrote Patient Stories on Health Web Sites Can Not Always Be Trusted,
inspired by a longstanding concern about the accuracy of online stories and confirmation that, in one case at least, stories on a health website were written by employees. I appreciate your feedback and insights. (http://e-patients.net/archives/2010/03/patient-stories-on-health-web-sites-can-not-always-be-trusted.html)

As you can see the author is looking for feedback on your impressions. I am a bit distressed but not so naive as to believe that this type of fraudulent behavior is not widespread. Customer/patient stories are some of the best ways to promote our products and services but too often the owner is the one who writes the reviews as stories and never gets true customer feedback.

That leaves the next customer trying to determine fiction from the truth. Due diligence is still appropriate and if the details sound more like a fairy tale, well they just may be. Read Lisa's article and send along your comments.

Business Storytelling:Face to Face Interaction

I was re-reading some old e-newsletters and came across one on face-to-face interactions making a come back. The article talked about the use of video conferencing as a way to connect people. To me this is proof that no matter how virtual we get and how digital we get we are human and crave the interaction with other humans.

Stories give us that connection, they build bridges and help us to see the commonalities we share. Like the video conferencing helping to make connections the new technologies are helping us get our stories out and shared with people. Post a blog, people read, update LinkedIn people read, post a video people watch. All people want is for someone to hear their story and more than ever people are sharing their stories, face-to-face or virtually.