Are you evolving?

a conversation about enlightening companies' stories

with salvatore rasa


CG: How should companies be telling their stories differently today?

SR: It’s more a question of understanding that their stories are being told differently by others, by other groups of people.

And it’s not as much about using new business language, as about understanding, beyond the intellectual meaning, the change that’s meant by language like ‘communities of interest.’ I think the better term here, that isn't used enough, is ‘communities of need.’

Forget the rhetoric of ‘dynamic market space’ etcetera. The reality is we're in a state of emergency, of urgency, where financial institutions and other underpinnings are disintegrating and disappearing. We are all part of this reality, all members of one or more communities of need; sharing in both the opportunities and the stresses.

CG: You're saying that these stories take on lives of their own, by other 'carriers,' outside of companies’ control. What’s important to think about here?

SR: Companies’ stories are being carried around in all kinds of places. The view of the future of Twitter’s CEO is a perfect example of this fact. Many companies would be surprised if they investigated Twitter and saw all the things being said about them.

I worked on recent projects with Isocurve where several clients said they wanted to enter the social networking area for their advertising and brand awareness. We told them they were already in it, and gave them each a set of things said about their company in the prior 24 hours alone.

And look at glassdoor.com, a community where people tell candid stories about the places they work; that give potential employees on the outside a free and detailed inside-look at those companies, pros and cons; including actual salaries. So they can make better choices about what business to work for.

But this network is just as useful to potential investors who go there, to help them evaluate if a company is worth investing in. For both groups these workplace stories provide ratings, and concrete ways to measure otherwise intangible or hard-to-gauge value.

CG: How, in this increasingly socially-networked world, does a business get a clear – and more complete -- picture of its issues and opportunities?

SR: Significant measurement tools are out there, proven ones like Organization Network Analysis (ONA) and Value Network Analysis (VNA). They map out actual patterns of information and task-sharing in organizations. There’s also a new one called ORA (Organization Risk Analysis).

There are other ways as well to create, encourage and collaborate. Like Base Camp that allows for shared on-line workspaces. These frameworks cross boundaries and include people in the conversation who were previously left out of it; which is the best way to leverage formal and informal networks.

From where I sit, though, I still don't see enough significant change occurring at major organizations – despite the availability of all these valuable forms of information-gathering and sharing.

Even when compelling evidence, that’s scientifically-supported and visually mapped, reveals a company’s serious misunderstanding about knowledge-sharing and communication, they still resist acting; understanding. Why? Maybe these new methods that push you to ask challenging questions are too difficult for companies to accept, or too threatening for them to confront. I'd be interested to hear your readers’ thoughts on this.

Attitude is also an issue: many companies still have a paternalistic one about social networking, and this is not productive.

CG: You believe formal and informal social networks are not just useful but vital to companies. And not just to their communications, but to their ROI. Why?

SR: One of the most under-realized influences on return on investment (ROI) is self-expression. It’s an under-appreciated influence and an under-leveraged asset.

We tend to think of a business as having a brand identity and guidelines. And while these are good and expected things, they're like buoys in the ocean now: they no longer control the way the social ocean currents move, they just serve as demarcation points.

A corporation has two kinds of self-expression. One is its ‘collective expression,’ which includes people inside its walls with interesting knowledge; who can share ideas on innovation. Tapping directly into this expression is invaluable, versus getting information and insight from outside consultants or market research. The other is individual expression; but large organizational structures tend to inhibit instead of encouraging this.

Many companies pride themselves on hiring creative people who bring rich and different points of view to the table. But when you examine things rigorously, does their human resource process really do this? Or, do they really only single out people who are a fit. What’s the real story?

CG: This ties into your view that there’s ‘dangerous language’ out there.

SR: Among the dangerous terms in business is someone is ‘not a fit.’ Much the way radio host Don Imus was fired from his job. It was immensely hypocritical; an extreme reaction to seemingly prejudicial statements, made by a station that like many news agencies didn't have enough deep diversity to respond or work it out honestly.

The issue here is companies’ inability to react or respond the way any normal person would. Which brings us to another dangerous word, to me the most treacherous one in our society: the word they. Because using it reveals people’s bias.

When you hear ‘they’ under too many circumstances in business and social networks and social conversations then it’s already minimizing someone else. It’s a form of prejudice. In the recent Presidential election, it was employed by radio and t.v. pundits as both a positive and a negative reference. They, for example, was used to refer to ‘voters we were told had no interest in voting previously.’

CG: In other conversations we've had, you talk about the need to allow a story to evolve. Why does this matter, and evolve to where?

SR: Every large organization in the world feels it needs to live in a state of continuous improvement. Yet this process often becomes management-consultantized and misses the deeper dynamic that needs to happen. Real continuous improvement is high risk. But it’s risk with relevance, and high reward. Because you learn to work differently and with different business models that meet, serve and support the changing demands of the [business and social] marketplace.

Sometimes, as you evolve a business model in order to continuously improve it, you have to move away from what you do well. And that’s where the risk and the resistance to change lies.

CG: Therefore, to evolve, a company has to be willing to stop resisting and take these risks? Risks that are somewhat counter-intuitive.

SR: When a company is fixated on one way of thinking and working, or wedded to one belief system, it’s less open and able to innovate.

The automobile industry is a good example. Toyota realized they had to look to other dimensions; they saw building a hybrid as a way of doing something they didn't do well then, but needed to learn to do. It worked for them.

This is all related to your original question. Because a story may not always be true at heart or root. It has to be evaluated for its truth. A company’s collective expression is the best way of evaluating that truth.

At the time, all the American car makers were saying the hybrid was nonsense, that no one was going to buy it, that it was a waste of their time; we'll sell more SUVs. They were locked into one way of thinking. Well, we all know what happened.

Toyota swam upstream against these stories, against these prevailing currents of perceived wisdom, none of which were true. They went ahead and tried something they had never done before; they put their innovation out in the world, and a new story began; then that story began to tell itself.

This is widely known now. And, like other breakthrough stories, it became part of ‘best practices.’ But what’s missing from the discussion is a far more critical change management issue, that lies underneath the surface product innovation issue.

A familiar reference like Toyota’s, that becomes so constant, puts all the emphasis on others, on what others did or are doing. However, this can be detrimental, counterproductive. Why? Because it removes our own accountability: to take action within our own organizations; to provoke real change, seismic change and innovation in the places we work.

CG: What’s fundamental in all this? To achieving a transformation.

SR: All business transformations, small or large, involve a transformation in understanding and language. If you only speak from your place of current expertise, you can't move from where you are…to where you need to be.

Only when you begin to allow your story to have ‘disruptive’ elements; when you challenge accepted behavior and question [institutional] assumptions, will you move into dimensions that enable you to grow -- healthily grow -- your business.

CG: And I would add, grow your business consciousness.

CG: Innovation in your view is not well enough understood or engaged.

SR: Innovation isn't about an event or a clever premise. Those are just ways of trying to understand it. In business, we understand a subject, but often fail to understand its deeper significance.

What’s needed for true innovation is a cultural catalyst, that affects, enlightens and alters the fundamental ways we think and work – alters them for the better.

Let’s be clear: a real culture of innovation is very different than an organization that prides itself on a small group of innovators. An innovative business culture is highly responsive and proactive across-the-board, not one that glimpses innovation and gets lucky.

Lou Gerstner, former CEO of IBM, said I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn't just one aspect of the game – it is the game.

CG: Given the nature of the corporate beast, its structure and bureaucracy, is achieving an innovative culture unrealistic?

SR: No, in fact it’s the most natural form in the world of people working together. Everything we do tends to support this premise. Every person working with another person innately understands it. But it’s very hard for it to happen, let alone thrive inside organizations as they exist and operate today.

A deep belief of my mentor Cicely Berry, O.B.E., Voice Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company – who I produced a PBS documentary about – a belief I share profoundly, is that everything we do we do out of a need to survive. ‘Survival’ is a loaded word for most people. But it isn't negative, or desperate: survival is a natural state of growth and development. It’s the way we're constructed, and motivated.

CG: What’s antithetical to companies’ survival, in the natural – and positive – way you define survival? And can you give us an example?

SR: When companies understand survival, at a root level, as a positive force, it can transform the landscape. It allows good, even great things to happen, and less-than-good things to stop happening. The fact is some companies have a business model or tradition(s) built on a doubtful premise or promise; and this puts them in peril whether they realize it or not.

You don't destroy these models or traditions, that’s not the goal. You change them, evolve them to ensure the right kind of survival and growth.

CG: What one or two startling questions should companies be asking themselves right now?

SR: One question is: what’s one unhealthy tradition in your company that you avoid talking about, or tell the public you've left behind (but haven't). Now is the time to look at it again, in this society; with a clear and honest eye. Because that’s the first step to improving things.

I could make a case that there were troubled traditions that led to the collapse of certain companies, and even entire industries like our banking sector, in part because those traditions excluded human beings or de-valued their well being. Or as Swarthmore psychologist Barry Schwartz talked about in a post-TED 2009 interview…People who work in financial services don't have one shred of concern about the well-being of the people they serve. They're only interested in themselves. And why are they that way? Part of our argument is that when you incentivize everything, you de-moralize it, you take the moral dimensions out of it.

The other question a company should ask itself, on the other side, is: what’s an outstanding tradition you have from your recent or distant past? And, if you contemporized it, if you progressed it, what would it look like today?

Robert Wood Johnson wrote the first Johnson & Johnson credo in 1943. J&S still lives by that credo today. What most people don't know is that during the Great Depression he also wrote he wrote a manifesto to industrialists, brilliantly called ‘Try Reality.’ Basically what he was saying to businesspeople was the world is changing. We’re in a modern industrial age; and how do we find the language for that and the right way to be and the best way to treat our workers safely and ethically?

He wrote in his 1930s ‘reality check’ industry only has the right to succeed where it performs a real economic service and is a true social asset.

Well, what if he was sending that manifesto out today? What would your response as a company be to it? How would it impact your story? And how would others tell your story differently among themselves?

In my view and experience, paramount to everything is the need to include not exclude people from being part of the critical conversations that drive business and society ethically and economically.

Paramount, too, is following and encouraging the natural instinct we have to survive, which is the ultimate pathway to personal and professional growth; and to both business and society’s growth.

In this Information-with-Understanding Age, companies have to shift gears from unnecessary competition to collaboration. Collaboration that involves all the other important conversations going on -- and all the other ‘conversationalists.’

I invite those businesses that have made the paradigm shift to this place to share their stories; to share their experiences and enlightenments with all their communities of interest and need. And I encourage other companies out there to take the opportunities they have in front of and around them to evolve.

CG: Sal, provoking as always -- in ways our thoughts and actions need to be provoked. Thank you.

Colin Goedecke is a strategic story developer and senior-level interviewer, with a 25-year history helping leading and emerging companies worldwide platform and tell their marketing stories. Are You Evolving is the 11th in a series of thought pieces to help us think, act and communicate in wiser ways. Others can be found at www.tenowls.blogspot.com

Salvatore Rasa is a provocative social & organizational change enthusiast & specialist, and a senior partner of im21

www.im21stcentury.com His blog is www.worksurvival.blogspot.com email: sal@salvatorerasa.com

share this conversation with a colleague



http://www.tenowls.com/
strategic story development

Reaching More Responsible Communications

a conversation with peter knight


CG: Among the stories various companies tell to the marketplace, are ones about their corporate responsibility (CR), social responsibility, sustainability and citizenship. But many of these are laden with masses of data or top-heavy with detail, does this make sense?

PK: Data is important because it differentiates hard performance from soft assurances. But more vitally important to many groups is the nature and quality of the [top-line] corporate narrative. Because these people want to read the stories that are told [by and] about the company, not concentrate on all the metrics and supporting detail.

CG: Most of the reporting and messaging that’s done looks largely backward, like annuals do, at prior-year performance. But couldn't they do more heavy-lifting, both for themselves and for their audiences? Especially by being more, and more meaningfully – not just lightly – forward looking.

PK: Yes. A lot of companies have a big opportunity to use a CR report to show and discuss [for stakeholders] their road map for taking the business toward a higher plane of responsibility…and profitability.

It's a powerful but underused platform, one that could be far better leveraged to convey the company narrative; from its management to its vision. In a way that can go beyond [the limitations of] what’s possible with often hidebound and jargon-filled annual reports.

CG: What role should designers of CR reports, sites and other communications play beyond making content look and lay out well?

PK: It depends on the medium for the given messages, whether that’s on paper or the web or something in between, like PDFs. But regardless, good design is imperative. And, it must always be done with the understanding it’s just a tool to help convey information successfully, and not an end in itself. It should support but never trump the content.

Designers need, as well, to look carefully at each audience and each medium involved, and figure out the right visual styling for each. Because it can vary widely. Some audiences, for instance, are only interested in data and not in pictures.

Designers can also add value by helping clients define and differentiate the needs of given audiences, and by recommending the right channels to reach each of them.

CG: You believe the practice of communicating CR is still too immature. Why? And what growth agent is needed to mature it and improve all these stories and messages?

PK: Only when CR is taken more seriously by a large majority of the more important stakeholders in companies; only when they demand this kind of content – as I'm sure they will in time – will the whole exercise evolve. Right now, for most, this messaging is only a nice-to-have not a must-have.

As for improving these communications, my advice is look to an inspiration like George Orwell: stick to fundamentals. Write simply. Be direct. Be brave. Be adventurous.

CG: So why isn't the ‘Orwell Approach’ in wide use? If it would make companies’ stories of their responsibility all the more engaging and impactful?

PK: Because so many companies are spineless when it comes to corporate communications. They're terrified of breaking the mold. They benchmark furiously. Never want to step out of the fold. They retreat into soft assurances and old shibboleths, where they feel safe. That’s the tragedy of most forms of corporate communications.

CG: Paging the brave and adventurous out there...we need you.

CG: What useful things can companies, and the design, marketing and other consultants assisting them, learn or borrow from the corporate responsibility realm, to enlighten other parts of their business narratives?

PK: Talking straight. Corporate responsibility stories demand it, even though those who practice this straightforwardness are still in the minority. There's no question every company would benefit by it.

In addition to this, recognize that “negative” topics can actually enhance [through contrast and balance] the positive elements of a story.

CG: Do you also believe companies have a ‘responsibility’ to tell their audiences richer and more dynamic stories, ones aligned with readers’ needs? Versus giving people vacuum-sealed presentations that miss a sense of active listening [by the company], or lack the feeling of a desired kind of "conversation" or running dialogue happening between the lines.

PK: Some companies want to be more engaging. You can see this in the corporate responsibility blogs by McDonald’s, Intel, Sun Microsystems and others. But these are early days, and these blogs are suitably sanitized. Unfortunately, the willingness to put forward edgy, engaging stories -- even though it would be welcome and beneficial -- is outweighed by the perceived risk of litigation.

CG: How far away are we from truly enlightened or at least more enlightened stories in this area?

PK: Very far away. Especially since the dysfunctional economy is making it more difficult for companies to behave with integrity. Maybe the economic change we're going through will catalyze business to align its values more closely with those of society.

That said, never before has integrity been so high up on the scale of need than it is today.

CG: And I would add, never before has the integrity of companies’ stories themselves, and telling those stories more responsibly, been more important – to everyone on the receiving end.

Thanks, Peter, for your good thoughts.



Peter Knight is President of Context America, a leading corporate responsibility communications group, that advises some of the world’s most well-known businesses on CR strategy and content, www.econtext.co.uk He is also a former UK Environmental Journalist of the Year, and was a regular contributor to the Financial Times in the 1990s and 80s.


Colin Goedecke
www.tenowls.com
www.linkedin.com/in/colingoedecke

Content Drives Everything

a conversation with sebastian kaupert


CG: Sebastian, as a seasoned creative director and design educator, why do you believe “content drives everything?”

SK: Shaping the delivery of a message is no longer enough. The most enlightened designers bring a wholly fresh point-of-view. That’s the new price of entry: an original form and visual point-of-view around equally original and interesting content. This is what will engage and is engaging people; what will drive brand and business success now and into the future.

You have mainstream marketers today who 'sponsor' original art, entertainment and thought; and support creative endeavors of all kinds, somewhat like the Medicis did during the Renaissance. The quality and relevance of this content casts a welcome glow on their brands, and on the 'patrons' behind it.

Take L Studio, Lexus’ Internet channel and its bleeding-edge content. None of it has to do with cars or selling cars, but draws instead on and across art, entertainment, science and literature. The intent is to have the Lexus brand thought of more favorably.

The other big dynamic: the many millions of people who curate their own media diet. They go wherever they need to go in digital space to get messages. But only messages that are relevant, that make sense to them. Those that aren't relevant they pay no attention to.

CG: Are creative groups still living in an old paradigm? And where do social networks fit in?

SK: Yes, mostly groups resisting giving up their well-oiled but failing business models; and those unwilling or unable to evolve with our new paradigm. Consider Facebook: in December of 2008 it had 222 million members. Its demographic has gone from mainly young people to people of all ages and places. It’s a vital part of how a lot of us communicate and get information we're interested in. It's a valuable part of the media mix now, or should be. All marketers need to tune into these social networks,but only with customized, relevant and rich content; that’s well designed-and-delivered, in order to engage and compel audiences.

And let's be clear, it's not about 'using,' manipulating the Internet as a marketer: it's about being where your audience is, where it hangs out. If that's in and around social media, then it's simply sensible, not revolutionary, to be there. If your audience is watching a lot of television, then by all means that's where part of your advertising and/or marketing needs to be happening.

CG: How do creative professionals get their clients to this essential next dimension?

SK: They need to think of themselves as higher level program directors. They need to look beyond the creative brief, strategy, themes and goals, and also understand the conversations audiences are having with each other. It’s not about creating beautiful images and layouts or clever visual puns. It’s about inventing original stories and brand worlds that relate to those conversations, and intuitively express and validate a brand and its promise and experience; and do all this within a context not in a vacuum.

CG: What do you mean inventing "original stories?”

SK: I mean originality like the Japanese artist Murakami. Or Damien Hirst, who makes art from industrial materials, formaldehyde and dead animals in ways that both attract and repel, but ultimately engage, move us, make us talk.

It requires all of us as designers to rise to a next level of creativity and ingenuity; one that doesn't look for validation in focus groups, but begins and sustains a rich, real-world conversation; creates a new and worthwhile brand currency.

CG: What creative groups are already out front, thinking and working in this way?

SK: There are more and more that are breaking the old mold. Crispin Porter + Bogusky is one. Look at their work for Burger King, Ikea, Mini Cooper. Often it’s more an event than an expected campaign, and it creates starting points for conversations...that take on lives of their own.

Also Anomaly, which has the right business model to deliver this kind of compelling approach. A great example is outofyourleaguegirl for Converse. The paid-for media was just a small portion of the significant actual ‘distribution’ it achieved.

CG: Is B2B marketing a much different story than B2C?

SK: No. When you look at the most successful marketing in either category, you'll see it transcends all the usual statements about the product or service, and speaks to audiences’ real-life issues; seeks to inspire them where they live and work and think.

CG: So what about those who believe there’s nothing wrong with plain-vanilla marketing messages that are “well designed.” Are they out of synch?

SK: Yes, because this kind of marketing has little impact or credibility today; engages no one; builds no equity. Anyone selling this isn't serving their clients, or their own best interests. But some marketers and designers just don't know how (or why) to take any other path than the familiar one.

CG: How do you teach this to up-and-coming designers, like your students at Pratt?

SK: I start by helping them develop critical communication skills. I also push them to stretch their notion of creativity to include business thinking. Especially how to understand a client’s business, and marketing issues, and to see as their first and foremost goal solving those challenges.

CG: What distinguishes the best designers? What should clients look for? Or expect of them?

The best designers aren't distinguished by their design skills, but by their human skills: their capacity to listen, observe and analyze, and help create genuine connections that lead to lasting relationships.

This is what transforms our value as designers; and leads to entirely new insights and stories. This is what helps our clients succeed, in a marketplace where success revolves in an increasing way around the viral power of individuals' preferences. It cannot be bought, is has to be earned -- by the quality, originality and relevance of their stories, messages and other content.

CG: Thanks for your good thoughts, Sebastian.





Sebastian Kaupert is an inspiring thinker, creative director and design educator. His Brooklyn-based practice is Cradle Studios; his professional profile can be found at www.linkedin.com/in/sebastiankaupert

Reality Check Up

Is your story in excellent shape, inside and out? Diagnose how healthy, unwell or at risk it is, by giving it a proper check up, looking for telltale symptoms and treating issues including…

OVER OR UNDERWEIGHT?
Chubby or bloated stories put too much stress on readers’ systems. Slimmer is better. And those that are too thin – in character, or too slight on benefits – are even worse. Add calories and build more message mass; more muscle.

PRESSURE TOO HIGH?
When a story markets too hard, readers black out or back away. Don't force it: take care to convey thoughts and points in a low-or-no pressure way.

ACTIVE OR SLUGGISH?
Well worked-out stories move with vigor in the marketplace, and leave lethargic ones gasping for air. The best exercise programs include voice toning and rigorous editing.

HYDRATED OR DEHYDRATED?
Fluid stories are far more quenching than stories bone-dry in style or spirit.

BALANCED DIET?
Put all the right nutrients into a narrative, from premise and promise to relevance and openness, to enrich and energize audiences -- and satisfy their needs.

AND REMEMBER TO KEEP A FINGER ON THE PULSE
Actively observe the condition of your content, as internal and external realities change. And use a trained eye. It’s good preventive medicine.

Regular check ups will help ensure a story’s well being, and enhance the long-term fitness and vitality of the business.









www.tenowls.com
strategic story development

Leaping Off Points

It isn’t information that strongly engages and motivates people: it’s stories, ones with energy, thought, texture, longevity – and meaningful messages.

Giving audiences anything less than a real narrative puts you at risk of being boring, lifeless, uninspiring; and wasting effort.

STAND BACK
You can’t appreciate the full sweep of a landscape when you’re sitting in the center of it. Assume a higher and wider perspective: see how the company’s entire story will appear; will contrast with other stories out there; will fit into the overall business environment and social climate.

CHECK YOUR EGO AT THE DOOR
Personal outlooks and instincts have their place, but not here. It’s not about you: it’s all about the company and the purest possible embodiment and expression of its attitude, beliefs and voice.

OPEN SESAME
Ideas can become hermetically sealed, or held captive to one person’s thinking, and suffocate. Fling open the story-shaping to input from the strategists, writers, designers and others involved in the effort and the basis of your messages. Openly airing and hearing thoughts around the table is invaluable.

GET OUTSIDE
What the company’s outside world truly cares about – and doesn’t care about, are essential things to find out and factor in. Things you can’t assume or presume to know. Go and talk candidly with a cross-section of them, on their turf, about what matters. Everyone will benefit.

SYNCHRONIZE
Most companies tell their stories one way externally and another way internally. When you remove the difference, dramatic things happen. Conventional thinking moves to the back seat, and opportunities for new clarity, language and breakthroughs come forward.

STRIKE CHORDS
The best stories reverberate in the mind’s ear. Big Ben-like; Steinway Grand-like, between the lines. Find ways to strike deep chords with your audiences, ones that will echo long after their reading.

PRODUCE SPARKS
People want their imaginations to be inspired; their spirits to be stirred. Use animated, illuminated language, anecdotes and metaphors to ignite, intrigue and excite them.

GO WITH THE FLOW
A company’s story is a living thing. Allow it to be supple; to evolve with changing times and needs -- and keep it from becoming static, inflexible or stagnant.

LITMUS TEST IT
Stories that succeed strike the right balance on every level. As you develop yours, and before the ink dries, make sure it’s completely 1) clear, 2) relevant, 3) engaging, 4) believable and 5) compelling.

ENJOY THE RIDE
Freely interacting with diverse creative and business people to bring a story to life is a great pleasure in and of itself. It also leads to a richer process and a better outcome.








www.tenowls.com
strategic content development

Going from Black-and-White to Color

When The Wizard of Oz goes from black-and-white to color, the story springs to life all the more vividly; extraordinarily.

In the eyes of today’s audiences, many companies’ stories, images and messages are missing a richly individual character: a truly distinctive color, contrast, aura; personality.

Looking and sounding monochrome or mundane; or running with the herd is not only inadvisable but strategically suicidal, when people are fleeing sameness and clamoring for uniqueness.

Fortunately, otherwise lost or plain-vanilla identities can be brought to real life and living color. Partly by communicating with…

A One-of-a-Kind Voice. Anywhere, anytime you hear Sinatra or Elvis singing, or JFK talking, it can only be them. Each company can and should sound like no other when it “speaks.” Cultivate a singular voice.

A Decisive POV. Anyone with a strong point-of-view is more sharply defined in people’s minds and memories. Project personality by showing how intently the company thinks and feels about the world.

A Definitive Energy. Dynamic personas rivet attention; excite; engage. All content great and small should both embody and emanate a strong spirit, and a deep sense of passion and purpose.

And remember, it’s not about adding character, like varnish or veneer. It’s about finding and revealing the unique character that’s already there; that exists within. And infusing those qualities into the molecules of every communication, every message.

Building character takes boldness and brainpower, including the ingenuity of storytellers steeped in business and strategic thinking.

The rewards can be dramatic. Even cinematic.









www.tenowls.com
strategic content development

Authenticity Matters

How authentic is the company’s story?

Because the world is different. There's sky-high demand for businesses that say and do genuinely meaningful things…and low-to-no tolerance for those that pay little more than lip service.

Being true to the core, and to clients, customers, stakeholders and others is fundamental to companies’ success. Which makes authenticity a powerful engine, anchor, and beacon.

Inauthentic stories and messages are simply risky business. Pretending to be authentic is just as perilous. People sense what’s sincere; are sick and tired of spin; and have the power to ruin or revitalize even the largest reputation.

How to communicate authentically? It means marketing and selling from a true-blue place, a place of top-to-bottom integrity:

Creating a perception based on an actual -- not a virtual – reality. Audiences should be able to see and feel what makes the company tick, its ethic, outlook, intrinsic qualities.

Showing the genuine value the business is bringing to its marketplace. Qualify and quantify wherever possible the most relevant and competitive benefits.

Being open-handed. Candor is king, and transparency is a prized currency, so companies need to be as up front as possible in every communication.

Speaking to audiences’ vital concerns. Help them see and believe the company is on the exact same page, and pro-actively on top of their big issues.

Not claiming authenticity but proving it; reflecting it. Let it resonate and be revealed through the company’s actions and activities; illuminated by good, real-world examples.

With so much opportunity and risk riding on the faithfulness of your story, make sure you bring all the right thinking and skill to telling it.









www.tenowls.com
strategic content development