Tag: story telling
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Why Press Releases Should Tell Stories
Hey, want to hear an announcement from my company? Or, Hey, want to hear a story? Which got your attention? If you’re human, it was probably the latter. We are hardwired to listen to and learn from stories. From the earliest days of painting on cave walls through Aesop’s Fables and TEDx Talks, stories have…
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“The Elements of Style” Never Loses Luster for Lovers of Language
While our digital age has ushered in not a few changes with respect to the written word and how we communicate, there is a 100+-year-old book that still has something to offer our sophisticated new world. The Elements of Style, written by William Strunk Jr. and later updated by E.B White, is a valuable reference…
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The Real Secret to Creating Great Content
Probably the greatest single piece of advice I’ve ever heard about content creation didn’t come from a college class/professional course, or a boss/mentor, or any other supposed expert source. Instead, it came from the movie “Planes, Trains and Automobiles.” Here it is: Yes, it’s said in anger and frustration as part of a much longer…
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Reverse Engineer Your Story-Telling
A couple of years ago, a client of mine who launched a health IT startup, marveled at the number of healthcare entrepreneurs who came up with a cool idea and then went in search of a market for it. In most cases, he told me, this approach found them struggling to find a toe-hold. The…
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PR Pros: Beware of Busywork Masquerading as “Essential Skills”
Some hard truths on the PR skills we really should be developing for our clients and our own professional development. A well-known public relations trade site recently ran a “listicle” of so-called essential PR skills for our modern technology-driven era. Included in the list were graphic design, analytics, and even some light HTML coding. My…
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Access Denied: The Other Kind of Writer’s Block
One of these days I’m going to put together a sort of “Road Warrior Olympics,” in which contestants compete on how well they can conduct business while riding in an Uber, going through security at the airport, and even in the midst of the plane’s takeoff and landing. That’s how impressed I am with the…
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3 Ways Healthcare Companies Can Lead with Empathy
There is a persistent stereotype of public relations professionals as “spin doctors.” We’re hired guns aiming to put lipstick on a pig, pull the wool over someone’s eyes, or <insert any other cliched maxim here>. The last thing we would do is tell clients to lead with empathy, telling honest stories from the heart. In…
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“Lady Luck Favors Those Who Try,” and Other Wisdom for PR Pros from “A Mind for Numbers”
As we strive to be better communicators and storytellers, it often helps to get out of our comfort zones and read inspirational literature that can teach us new things. We often find those types of books in classical literature, or from the latest fiction and non-fiction books. Sometimes, “How-to” guides also help. That happened to…
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Facts Tell But Stories Sell
“Story telling is the oldest form of teaching,” Matt Cavallo declared when we met on May 23. I couldn’t agree more. Great story telling has always intrigued me. Maybe that’s why I’m in PR. I have always believed that behind every organization is a zealous individual with an epic story waiting to be shared. It’s…