Category: Storytelling

When I first heard about Bob Sutton’s book, The No Asshole Rule, I cracked up (sorry couldn’t resist). I loved the idea behind the book and the irreverent way that Bob gets his point across.

I even got of my ass to take the ARSE (Asshole Rating Self Exam).

But Bob continues to generate strong word of mouth by providing a new service — ARSEmail. Now you can "help someone who is dealing with an asshole" or apologise for being one — all from the one convenient website. Makes me think Angryman could give up his bloglife and simply spend the time sending emails … but then we would all miss out on his colourful rants.

Bob’s campaign (or is it Guy’s) goes to show how well an integrated and intelligent campaign can be put together. Only thing its missing is some YouTube hidden cam videos.

(Via Guy Kawasaki)

The dream was intense. I was jumping between the number 66 and 67. They were merging together, skipping and jumping across my vision. There was no sound, only intensity.

Periodically I would half wake and the dream would skip. The numbers changed … this time a larger number, still intense and jumping up and down, not changing, just vibrating. The number 11037. Eventually I forced myself awake, listening for sound in the quiet house.

I repeated the numbers over to myself, thinking that I had to remember them for a reason.

Then here they were, just a day or so later … 67 which was my seat number … 11 which was the flight number and 37 which was the gate number. I think I might just take your advice Ian and Sharon and buy a lottery ticket!

On the weekend I woke from a nightmare dominated by numbers. And today I looked down at my boarding pass to see those same numbers! Weird! And a little spooky!

So it seems the secret is out! Some of the brightest blogging minds are getting together in Chicago in May … check out the details here.

When I was thinking about the way this came together, I stumbled upon this cute photo on Flickr. There are a few others in the series. But this one grabbed me … it is about starting — but starting with a secret message — "A girl goes up to a boy’s backpack and leaves a little love letter".

In many ways, blogging is like constantly writing love letters. You think about, maybe even obsess about a topic, you let it stew away, and then, in a fit of passion, the post flies from the tips of your fingers up onto the screen. Will anyone read it? Will they respond? Will this passion remain unrequited?

Like any great love, you start with the first message. And if any of you have NOT started a blog, isn’t it time to start a new love affair? Go on Tammy. We’re waiting.

How do you get a story going? How do you generate suspense? How do you arouse the curiosity of an audience?

Simple.

Target an impatient and curious audience.

Watch the masters at work on this one.

Good timing for the day after Valentine’s Day (here in Australia) …

This is not the style of story that I normally expect to find on AdRants, but you can never say NO to an unexpected love story. And once you start dancing with an enchanting story, you will never be the same again!

Inspiration strikes in the most unlikely places. You can be walking past a shop and see something in the window that takes your fancy … you can be sitting quietly in a park meditating on your future or you can be listenting to a song and find the words mean something new for your day.

The word “inspiration” carries within it, a history of breathing. It sounds like “respiration”, it echoes in my mind like the pounding of a heartbeat. When I think of inspiration, I think of life.

Recently I have been the recipient of a wonderful gift. But when it first arrived, it did so with great fury. It was so sudden, and so unexpected, that this gift appeared to be wrapped in great pain and tremendous sorrow. We stood and looked at it, not able to fathom the torrent of our emotions. We daren’t touch or lift to shake. In the end, my family and I sat down around it, and waited — each alone in our anguish.

When I heard the news that my father-in-law had been in a cycling accident I had no words. There was only action. There was only urgency. And the clock marched on. We visited and left, waited and walked, distracted ourselves and went through the cycle of hope and despair over and over. The hospital corridors became familiar.

When I visited Noel, I would speak like he could hear me. I would tell him stories from the day, the week, the news. I would joke with him, and touch his arm. I would watch the instruments and monitors and listen to the din of the respirators helping him to breathe.

With every day came a new challenge to overcome. With every night came a new fear. We would wake, exhausted and at day’s end, fall into bed unable to sleep. But slowly, progress was made. Noel responded to treatment. He began to initiate his own breathing. He began to wake … the smallest of improvements was cause for celebration but an equally small problem would spiral us into depression.

In the midst of this crisis for us all, came an unexpected source of inspiration and generosity. My blogging friends had banded together and come up with a plan … and before I knew it, the generosity and energy had spread. My friends had put together a special blogroll — a FoGroll — Friends of Gavin.

FOGROLL
The Viral Garden
Resonance Partnership
Mindblob
Masi Guy
Marketing Profs: Daily Fix
Marketing Nirvana
Logic + Emotion
It Could Get Worse 2.0
HolyCow
Hee-Haw Marketing
Greg Verdino 2.0
eSoup
Drew’s Marketing Minute
CrapHammer
ConverStations
Conversation Agent
CK’s Blog
ChaosScenario
BlogHer
bizsolutionsplus
Biz and Buzz

Can we change the world? Perhaps. Can we change a person’s world? Absolutely. These generous people put their time, thought and energy into doing something for us when we were having trouble getting from day to day. They raised some money for our medical expenses, for which we are truly grateful, but more importantly, their words and their actions showed that belonging and friendship knows no boundaries.

Tomorrow we will visit Noel. He has a long and challenging recovery ahead of him. But he is not alone, and neither are we. Out of all this, we have all become closer … the dynamics of our relationships have shifted and changed. But at the centre of it all we have found a renewed sense of belonging and of our own place in the world. And it is a truly humbling experience to find yourself unexpectedly loved and cared for.

I want to change the world. But, I can tell you, my world has already changed. Thanks to you all.

Blogging is one of those intensely personal-public occupations. Just in the act of writing, we may let something slip, allow a thought or idea to break through in the text that reveals our “true” selves. Jean Genet called this the “holy of holies”, Kafka called it “the frozen sea” … And in the blogging world, your self-revelation could be read by anyone (or no-one) — it could be read by your boss, your lover, your ex-lover, your children or your extended family.

I have been pondering how blogging can generate strong bonds of friendship between people who have never met face–to–face. I was wondering how it is that we, as readers, enter into the spirit of relationship so openly (and at times, so fiercely) and quickly with authors whom we admire. And then I skipped by Maryam’s blog and my breath was taken away. I wanted to respond (but was black balled), but needed something more poetic than my own words … so I was looking through the writings of some of my favourite authors, and came across something delicious.

There is a deep philosophic and emotional linkage between reading and writing. In fact, I believe that a good write must be a good reader — and vice versa, that a good reader can be a good writer (with effort and discipline). With this in mind, I found a great quote from Proust’s small book, On Reading — which applies in the same way to writing:

The atmosphere of this pure form of friendship [reading/writing] is silence, which is purer than speech. Because we speak for others, but keep silent for ourselves. So silence, unlike speech, does not bear the trace of our defects, or our affectations.

I think this is partly what draws me to text over image, what drives me seek out and write stories and what makes me question the use of photographs on blogs. In a predominantly visual medium such as the web, the dominance of text amounts to a form of eloquent silence in which readers and writers can commune.

Oh … and in case you haven’t … vote for Maryam.

Some time ago I began writing my posts from Flickr. It allows me to find an image that matches the emotion of my post, or to create some dialogue between the text and image. I always try to find some image that will create some tension between my writing and ideas and the visual story that is being told in the photograph.

Every now and again I come across a photo that stops me in my tracks. Often, I add them to my Flickr favourites thinking that I will come back to them, but never do. But this one was a little different. It was a picture that came with a story … actually it is a picture that came with a fully-fledged conversation … follow the link under the photo to see the unabridged tale.

What I liked about this was the title (which I have kept for this post) — "About Beauty (please read)". It is a gentle request that matches the emotion of the image, and immediately prepares you for a story that starts from the photograph but rolls out into a community conversation.

Marketers often work hard to find a correlation between image and message (and sometimes we win, and sometimes we don’t). But what we often forget is to ask for permission, or to invite our audiences into the creative tension we have created. We forget, though we shouldn’t, that our art is creating stories for many that need to resonate with our audiences one heart beat at a time.

S.

My good buddy, CK, is putting in the hard yards to make sure that you all remember that the MarketingProfs Book Club’s first group review starts in ONE WEEK. That’s right, you have to read the book and be ready for witty repartee and thrilling insight in less than 7 days!

CK is spreading the message the best way she knows how … she’s out there on foot, hooking up with other bookworms, enlisting the national guard, riding whales and even placating penguins (want to know more … check it out here).

Don’t forget, if you have not joined up yet, you can still do so! Just send CK an email at bookclub@marketingprofs.com and tell here you’re in.

Oh, and the story CK tells to get us all inspired is one of the best blog stories I have seen in a while. Check it out.