From Idea to Impact So you have an idea for a story. It might be for a simple social media post or an elaborate brand campaign. But before you start writing, pause. A great story isn’t just told; it’s designed. The right questions can transform a good idea into an unforgettable narrative that resonates with […]
Tag: creating stories
“It takes a very long time to become young.” (Pablo Picasso) Did you have difficulty making friends as a child? Experience scholastic boredom and more than the normal helping of social problems? A little unconventional and nonconformist even at primary school? Eccentric parents? A study of gifted creatives by Psychologist Ellen Winner cited these early […]
In common language, an event is something that happens (changes), in particular something special of limited duration. An example of this is a major sporting event, concert or political rally. An event is an outcome, result, reference or single point of focus. In physics and philosophy, an event occurs at a point in time which […]
This story based on on a story told in Sir Laurens van der Post’s book “The Heart of the Hunter” Once upon a time… on the edge of the dry Kalahari desert, there farmed a bushman farmer. He had crops and a few cows and, though he was relatively content, he did so wish that […]
How did humans ever come to agree that one of the primary ways they would represent their experience of the world is through the rectangular shape? The rectangle is rare in the natural world but it is the shape of the canvas almost invariably used by the artist to paint on. Rectangles are about limits […]
Life is story. What we know of the world and ourselves is made up of countless stories that we hear, tell to ourselves and share with others. But stories don’t just describe, they literally construct who we are, our relationship to the world and the way in which the world relates to us. You can see […]
Leadership, who should be able to take an objective view of everything that is happening in an organisation, usually become increasingly removed from the inner story circles. And often when they hear the stories, they will have been sanitised and edited because thats what everyone wants leadership to know. By their absence from the day-to-day […]
International Literacy Day is celebrated annually on September 8th throughout the world for 60 years now – you can read more about it here. Often schools like to do something to celebrate this event and each year we get requests from teachers from all over the world around what they could do on the day […]
Categories
The Hero’s Journey
The Hero’s Journey is a common narrative pattern and template where the protagonist embarks on an adventure, faces challenges and temptations, achieves victory, and returns home transformed. This journey often begins in the ordinary world, where the hero receives a call to adventure. They may initially refuse this call, but eventually cross the threshold into […]
Stories come and go but some hang around, influencing, teaching, inspiring and enlightening. But stories can also even destroy and damage individuals and organisations. A story may be considered powerful if it fulfills the following criteria; the more criteria met, the more powerful the story: People are surrounded by bits of information. All competing for […]
Stories are used for many different purposes in organisations ranging from literal day-to-day stories through specialised stories designed to stimulate change, develop people and teams and even describe the organisations’ future. Stories as used in organisations can be broken down in three major kinds: Literal Stories – Literal stories appeal to the logical mind and […]
You might wonder how you can get into the storytelling business but the truth is that you’re already deeply embedded in it. Whatever you do, whoever you are, you tell stories. You tell stories to yourself (some call this thinking) and anyone who’ll listen. These stories not only describe your reality, they do a whole […]