Taking a stand for customer service: “United Breaks Guitars”
Read moreIn 2009 and 2010, when I was spending much of my time researching and writing the book The New Marketing: Social Media, Email, and the Art of Storytelling, one of the truly outstanding stories I came across was that of Dave Carroll. At the time, I was working as a consultant for several spirited internet start-ups, and speaking at 20-30 technology
Lessons from the breastfeeding protest in Argentina
Read moreOn Saturday July 23, Coni Santos attended the “teteada massiva” (massive breastfeeding event) that her story had galvanized. She walked calmly through the crowd, smiling as thousands of women nursed their children, in the very same place where she had been harassed for nursing her child in public. Support from all corners of society turned out to be far greater than Ms
Influencing our worlds
Read moreWhen I was in Buenos Aires last month, one of the projects I worked on was preparing a conference with Disney that will take place some time in October or November. As they are interested in hearing my views on “storytelling”, and as this company is known to be replete with master storytellers, I was curious to know what specific aspects or
Practice, spontaneity, and happenstance
Read moreWriting the past few weeks about Martin Luther King and Winston Churchill caused me to think of something one of my first sports coaches at summer camp used to say: “Good things happen to those who prepare.” In particular, I was reflecting on these two true masters of rhetoric and how diligently they practiced their craft. In addition, I thought deeply
The making of a speaker
Read moreIn the last post, I wrote that true masters of rhetoric and public speaking—every one that I have either observed or researched—hone their craft through many hours of mindful practice. It is this mastery of their craft that allows them to deviate from their prepared remarks, in ways that may appear natural and spontaneous when they address an audience. First and
Spontaneity in public speaking
Read moreLast time, I closed the post with an appeal for more unscripted speeches, and for increased spontaneity in public discourse. In reaction to this call for spontaneity, several readers wrote in, wondering about how one can “learn to improvise”. If speaking “off the cuff” makes us sound honest and authentic, does that mean we should not prepare quite so much, and