See a photo of Mike, a link to his bio, and Part 1 of this Q&A, and Part 2 of this Q&A.
Q&A with Mike Wittenstein (Question 3):
Q: What future trends or directions to do foresee for story/storytelling/narrative? What’s next for the discipline? What future aspirations do you personally have for your own story work? What would you like to do in the story world that you haven’t yet done?
A: I honestly believe that story will become a synonym for strategy. Alan Kay said, “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” Story is one way to do that. Simply writing a story about a business’s ideal future state helps socialize the idea internally and align various departments toward it. And, story is much easier to understand than a PowerPoint presentation. At Storyminers, we use storyboards to portray a visual representation of a client’s strategy and to capture all of the clues that make their signature experience compelling. After that, we write the actual story, using words.
On the personal front, I’m co-authoring my first book, titled Go Away! with Randy Sekeres. The book is about the unwritten customer experience rules that many companies break — and how not to do the same thing in your own business. Randy is a truly gifted writer, and I’m learning so much from the process of working with him. Oh, I suppose I should take the opportunity to use this interview to plug the book. You can sign up for a prerelease notice by going to www.MikeWittenstein.com