Category Archives: Organizational Storytelling

The highlight of the Smithsonian portion of the conference for me was Annette Simmons, author of The Story Factor. Annette offers all kinds of great downloadable stuff on storytelling and her other areas of expertise at her Web site. These storytelling folks are all about giving away their knowledge — knowing that it makes us listeners even more likely to buy their books and such. Shades of Oprah, at the end of her presentation, Annette gave the whole audience a partially completed version of a CD she plans to sell in the fall. Her hope was that audience members would review it and give her suggestions.

I had communicated with Annette about my dissertation and quoted her in my proposal, and she was nothing like I imagined she would be based on “talking” by e-mail, reading her book, and checking out her Web site. She’s a fabulous speaker — funny, genuine, and just a pleasure to listen to. Continue reading →

The first, sponsored by Smithsonian Associates and titled Storytelling for Organizational Success, was kicked off by Steve Denning, the prolific organizational storytelling guru and author, whose newest book is The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative. Here also is Steve’s blog.

The theme for the day’s conference was Narrative in Marketing, Branding, Public Relations and Partnerships, relevant to me because a major part of my PhD program focuses on using storytelling for personal branding for organizational entry and career success. A quick summary of Denning’s presentation follows, but he says it best himself in his slide presentation Continue reading →