Tag: storytelling


Developing Your Conference Story Arc To Activate Participants’ Brains

Applying a story arc to the conference can activate participants’ brains. And you want stimulated, motivated engaged brains during your event for sure! A story arc is an extended, continuous storyline in episodic storytelling media such as television series, comic books, video games, films etc. Each episode follows a dramatic arc with the story unfolding … [Read more…]

Use A Conference Story Arc To Shift Your Participants’ Brain Architecture And Strengthen Their Neural Connections

We are helpless story junkies says author, journalist, and storyteller Michelle Weldon. We can’t help it. It’s part of our human nature to crave and connect with stories. Your brain on story acts very differently than when your brain is receiving data, facts and information. It changes its structure and releases cortisol and oxytocin–called the … [Read more…]

Using The Power Of Stories To Transform Conference General Sessions

We are a story driven world. We are each a story wrapped in a skin says Dr. Leonard Sweet. When we begin to share our journeys, our stories intersect. Our conferences need to create more story people. We need to transition from speakers talking at audiences and experts telling their stories. We need to move … [Read more…]

Morphing Attendees into Story People Through Narraphors and Frames

We are wired for stories. Every person you meet is a story wrapped in a skin says author, futurist and sociologist Dr. Leonard Sweet. As our lives intersect, so do our stories. We can encourage conference attendees to transition from story listeners to story sharers. Then our attendees become story people participating in a bigger … [Read more…]

The Greatest Conference Story Never Told

It’s time to bring back the luncheon table at your next conference. When attendees break bread together at the table, community is born. It’s where the stories of our profession, our lives, our past and our future are shared, retold, relived and remembered. Too many conferences have made a catastrophic mistake. In the name of … [Read more…]

Creating A Stronger Conference Story

What do vacations and colonoscopies have in common? More than you think! Emmy-winning former Wall Street Journal and NBC journalist, author, inventor and business consultant Kare Anderson shares her thoughts on creating a stronger conference story. She discusses the importance of creating conversation threads and a participatory purposeful narrative that invites others to join in … [Read more…]

Storytelling Isn’t Just For Campfires Infographic

A brilliant campfire story inspires action in its listeners. Like whittling branches into swords to fight forest ghosts, brands can draw similar emotion from their audience. Every organization has stories to tell. In fact, information can be dramatized to turn boring data slogs into exciting journeys that yield personal connections and changes in behavior. Energy and … [Read more…]

Event Organizers: Chief Storytellers And Liars

You are a liar. At least Seth Godin thinks so. In Seth Godin’s book, All Marketers Are Liars, Godin claims that marketers lie to consumers because consumers demand it. He says that customers don’t really need an organization’s products and services. They buy them because they want what the organization sells, because of the way … [Read more…]

Five Important Psychological Advantages Of Stories For Your Conferences And Events

Stories have important psychological advantages that help keep people engaged. Good conferences provide many opportunities to hear and share stories thus increasing engagement. Facts Coupled With Stories Connect Your conference can be full of factual information presented logically and sequentially. But facts alone fall short. They usually don’t persuade someone to change. Information is static. … [Read more…]

Two Conference Education Extremes: Reports And Stories

Most conference education sessions are broken. Creating The Walking Dead Attendee They are full of the requisite PowerPoint bullet presentations that promote status quo thinking. They lull attendees into a coma-like state of disinterest and boredom so that they become the walking dead. Admit it. You’ve been trapped in those dead presentations before. Even remembering … [Read more…]