See a photo of Lou, his bio, Part 1 of this Q&A, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

Q&A with Lou Hoffman, Questions 8 and 9:

Q: If you could share just one piece of advice or wisdom about story/storytelling/narrative with readers, what would it be?

A: The story is always there.

I truly believe this.

Like discovery in the legal sphere, communicators need to dig for the story. I find mining to be an apt metaphor. As we poke, probe and cajole, a stream of information goes through a “sluice box” which ultimately leaves the storytelling gold.

I always point to one of our campaigns for a type of semiconductor called an EEPROM (electrically erasable programmable read-only memory). On the surface, not exactly a topic that conjures drama and the media spotlight.

In going through our discovery exercise, we found the chip was being used in keyless locks for cars. This led to the insurance industry and researching auto theft. One of the insurance organizations pointed us to an auto museum that included a history of auto security devices. It turned out one of the earliest theft-prevention devices for cars was a blow-up man that one would place in the driver’s seat so potential thieves thought the car was occupied.

You can’t make this stuff up. Armed with this anecdote, we were able to package a story for the EEPROM that played on a number of broadcast outlets including CNN.

A: These workshops are designed to help companies apply storytelling techniques in their communications.

When we say communications, we’re not just talking media relations. The techniques have relevance to corporate blogging, internal communications, new-business development and even the info pack that goes to job candidates. For example, we conducted a version of the workshop for one of Sony’s channel sales teams.

The curriculum is in a constant state of change because each workshop is customized to the specific company. Plus, this never-ending search for the science behind storytelling means we’re always fitting new material into the curriculum.

One element of the workshop that always elicits considerable discussion and seems to flip the spiritual light switch involves reverse-engineering an article with relevance to the company.

You can see this reverse-engineering technique in a diagram (view/download it here: Economist Diagram.pdf) taken from a story in The Economist about wireless sensor networks.

While I wouldn’t exactly call this science — subjective decisions come into building out this diagram — we’re talking to people from technical backgrounds in their “language” by presenting the information in diagram form.

A visual depiction of the different types of content that come together in a mainstream article appeals to the intellectual side of the brain. For example, once they absorb that a significant part of this type of writing consists of anecdotes, we can move into a deeper discussion on anecdotes.

Perhaps it falls under the category of cheap parlor tricks, but we like to end the workshops showing the following:

To add to the Sunday fun, Ariel Hsing will play table tennis (ping pong to the uninitiated) from 1 pm to 4 pm against anyone brave enough to take her on. Ariel, though only 11, is ranked number one among first under 16 in the U.S. I played Ariel, then 9, thinking I would take it easy on her so as not to crush her young spirit. Instead she crushed me …

When asked if anyone knows where this came from, the answer is always no.

It turns out this passage was penned by Warren Buffett in one of his shareholder letters.

It serves as a good example to recap many of the techniques addressed in the workshop: conversational language, self-deprecation, the unexpected, etc.

In short, if one of the richest people in the world can show his humanity, certainly you can.