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Creative Houston Sparks
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I'm still on the road to become a good storyteller, and Ann Handley recently offered a great tip. (A-ha: better way to connect with the reader.)
Total Annarchy newsletter: Yes, You Did See Me on MasterChef, 2023-Jun-4 by Ann Handley
Every story should reveal three truths. I call this the 3 Reveals (because I'm not great at titles).
THE 3 REVEALS
- Reveal the writer to the reader: Help the reader understand the writer.
- Reveal the reader to the reader: Help the reader see themselves.
- Reveal an idea: Help deliver an a-ha moment.
Any story is a kind of partnership between the writer and the reader.
When one of the truths isn't present—a story falls flat. Feels inauthentic. Is boring.
A balance between all 3 Reveals is key. Over-indexing on one can easily throw the whole experience out of whack, like a wobbly wheel on a shopping cart that keeps listing too much to the right. You fight it—and the whole thing becomes annoying.
What I found most valuable in this evocative article is the idea that our perspective of the past should not become fixed. Our memories are malleable, and we should be ready to reinterpret and reuse the past to better understand the present and imagine the future.
Aeon: Octopus Time, 2023-Apr-20 by David Borkenhagen
Its web of radially symmetrical arms allow it to crawl in any direction with equal competence [emphasis added], regardless of how its head is oriented. Its soft and malleable body can move through any crevasse larger than its beak. And with its two eyes positioned on opposite sides of its head, it has a near-total field of vision with almost nothing hidden ‘behind’. These abilities give the octopus a radically different relationship to its surroundings compared with other species, human or otherwise. It is a relationship free of constraints.
Compared with the octopus, human beings appear corporeally constrained. We lack the fluid mobility and wide field of vision of our (very, very) distant cephalopod cousins. Instead, we have two eyes stuck in the front of our heads. We have a paltry two legs, hardwired for forward movement. And we are bound to our terrestrial ecological niche, where our bodies must continually counteract the downward pull of gravity.
It’s not only that our experiences of space are different. Our experiences of time are likely different, too. We think about the passage of time through our terrestrial experience of unidirectional motion through space – our metaphors of time are almost all grounded in the way our bodies move forward through the environment. Given this fact, how would an octopus, who can easily see and move in all directions, conceptualize time?
...if we became more like an octopus, could we free time, metaphorically speaking, from its constraints? Could we experience it as multidimensional, fluid and free?
Values weigh more heavily than beliefs with respect to our actions. (Hint: they have $value.) We are willing to pay the price to reach something we value.
Digital Tonto: Values Always Cost You Something, 2023-May-21 by Greg Satell
...values are often confused with beliefs. When you’re sitting around a conference table, it’s easy to build a consensus about broad virtues such as excellence, integrity and customer service. True values, on the other hand, are idiosyncratic. They represent choices that are directly related to a particular mission.
Make no mistake. Real values always cost you something. They are what guides you when you need to make hard calls instead of taking the easy path. They are what makes the difference between looking back with pride or regret. Perhaps most importantly, they are what allows others to trust you.
Without genuine commitment [to] values there can be no trust. Without trust, there can be no shared purpose.
Greg Satell's 5 Rules paraphrased to my words:
5 Simple Rules That Will Make You A Powerful Communicator | Digital Tonto
Sometimes the hardest thing is merely to make yourself understood. Things that change the world, or even a small part of it, always arrive out of context because, by definition, the world hasn’t changed yet.
That’s why innovators need to be great communicators, because an idea that doesn’t gain traction is an idea that fails.
That’s easier said than done. As Fareed Zakaria has put it, “Thinking and writing are inextricably intertwined. When I begin to write, I realize that my ‘thoughts’ are usually a jumble of half-baked, incoherent impulses strung together with gaping logical holes between them.”
I have been dragging my heels about learning ChatGPT. I know I have to do it, but I like the old way of doing things like research and editing. Plus, if I'm going to have to double-check its output, what's the point? Frank Shaw, the Chief Communications Officer at Microsoft challenges me:
LinkedIn: The Future of Communications: How to Adapt to the AI Transformation by Frank X. Shaw
As communicators, we tell stories that help people fall in love with Microsoft, the things we make, and the impact we have in the world. And now we add – using the incredible potential of artificial intelligence – to that purpose.
Okay, here's how he says we should get started:
To realize this incredible potential, we must first understand the soul of our jobs. If we don’t deeply understand this, then all the fantastic new tools in the universe won’t help us. 😊 And what is clear is this: It is human interaction that drives the insights and the stories and the emotional connections.
Looking at artificial intelligence as a way to free up my time and increase my communication quality... Well, I guess I better get started.
Plus, Frank increases my confidence with his sound insight into the innovation process:
We have an idea, we experiment with it, we measure it, we evaluate it, we share it with one another, we repeat. Some experiments will work, and we’ll celebrate! Some will fail, and we will learn! Both are great outcomes.