Archive for 'For Business' Category
Storytelling – big-S and small-s
You stand there, staring at the microphone in fear. There are people beside you, behind you, all around you; in front, a seeming sea of faces, all looking at you, hungry, like lions in the arena… Struggling to shake off that image, yet frozen to the spot, you open your mouth to speak. “I… have […]
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Impenetrable acronyms
As the guests arrive, Mother pulls us kids aside. “There’s plenty of ice-cream”, she says, “but FHB on the strawberries, okay?” Back in the present day, a phone-call from a close colleague: “Are you up for an HEC this week? I could do Friday.” Whether family, community or business, every group seems to develop its […]
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Stories anchor us in place, time, context
With just a few words, or pictures, we can imagine ourselves into some other place, separated from us somehow by time or distance. A memory of a quiet morning walk along a quiet quayside, perhaps. In that sense, our stories can anchor us in place, time, context. Yet although the real anchors there are the facts […]
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Stories of principle
This small portrait of one of my English ancestors now hangs on the wall halfway up the stairs at my mother’s house. The formal clothes and the overall style place him around the 1830s or 1840s – a time when the excesses of the Regency were fading, and when public principles once again began to […]
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Using a story-bank to manage your stories
You collect stories; you tell stories; you use stories, in many different ways, in your family, your community, your business. But how do you manage those stories? How do you record them, keep track of them, link them, assess their meaning, veracity and value? How do you ensure that the right story is used in […]
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Relationships, sales and story
Oh no, not again: it’s the souvenir-vendors. I’m here on business, but they’ll mob around anyone here who even looks like a tourist. And every time it’s the same: “You want to buy? Low price, low price” – as if price itself is the only reason anyone would want the item. No attempt at a […]
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Confirming stories
Zahmoo user Aiden Scholes wrote to us on Twitter to ask: Hey @zahmoo. I have an unconfirmed story in my collection. What does that mean? How do I confirm it? In most cases, if you’re maintaining your own story-collections in Zahmoo, you probably won’t use the ‘Confirm story’ functions: the only thing you need to […]
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Using Zahmoo in Most Significant Change
If you’re running a change-initiative, how do you know if that initiative has succeeded, and in what ways? Crunching the numbers can help, of course – but often the best tactic is through a story. A technique called ‘Most Significant Change‘ can help you gain the best benefit from change-stories – and Zahmoo is a […]
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Invisible people
I’m standing on the terrace of our temporary office in this small back-suburb of the city, in yet another country on this trip. It’s just turning dusk, and it’s a festival-day here – hence a good excuse for people to set off fireworks. Lots of fireworks: explosions and flashes and sparkling lights fill the skies […]
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Zahmoo for developers: personas
When developing a new system – software, business-process, whatever – it’s still all too common to refer to the people who will interact with that system as ‘the users’. Abstract. Faceless. A machine talking to a machine. But our users aren’t like that at all. They’re real people, with real stories, like Alice Lewis above. […]
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