Great Storytelling Inspires Change

Recently I was speechwriting for a CEO and pouring over books, courses and as always TedTalks on effectively communicating spoken messages I found some great stuff that cross-pollinates everything I do, shared below.

Scott Berkun provided an enjoyable read on the life of a professional public speaker with many practical tips and resources.

"All good public speaking is based on private thinking." - Scott Berkun

"They worry more about slide templates, images, movies, fonts, clothes, hair, and the rest, forgetting to do the harder and more important work of thinking deeply about what points they want to make." - Scott Berkun

As Scott boils it down:

"if you don't know why you're on stage, the audience can't help you."

Back in the end of March I was able to attend a great storytelling lecture put on by the Calgary Community Knowledge Centre. It was a huge turnout with tons of charitable organizations connecting and learning more about effectively telling their story through video thanks to the combined shared knowledge of the Kelly Brothers.

It was a great turnout with many local charities and organizations there to learn how to effectively tell their story, raising awareness and support.

I can't find the Kelly Brother's WinSport video they showed that gave me goosebumps but I still think of it, and the Audi Super Bowl commercial on gender equality they broke down that made my eyes well up. Effective messaging to study.

Though Audi got a lot of backlash they also got people talking ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I found a thread of amazing TedTalks on public speaking including the corresponding one by Nancy Duarte to the book I had sitting on my desk.

The book and the talk are both such great sources of effective story telling. She breaks down the formula after studying the most famous speeches of all time.

And if you haven't seen it yet, filmmaker Andrew Stanton ("Toy Story," "WALL-E") shares what he knows about storytelling -- starting at the end and working back to the beginning in the TedTalk below. Who doesn't love WALL-E?

If a little animated robot can cause big emotions, connections and just plain entertain - holding my attention for an hour and forty four minutes then I want to know the story behind that story and it's a great one.