“Great stories happen to those who can tell them”
- Ira Glass
The Story Rules Content Hub
Welcome to the Story Rules Content Hub – the best place on the web to learn all about storytelling techniques for work. Here’s where you get rich storytelling examples, analyses, viewpoints, interview nuggets, visuals, quotes, and much, much more. To find out how you can make the most of this resource, please watch this 12-minute video.
You can explore this (for now free!) resource in four ways:
Trending from the blog
#SOTD 11: A story of unimaginable courage
These paintings reflect on being ready for what’s to come and like the trees knowing we’ll get through it. There will be blossoming once again in the spring. …
Beware of ‘Health food’ claims
This week’s headline article is about how you need to be careful about the veracity of the stories pitched by the new-age ‘health-food’ startups. But before we dive into that, a special announcement. Bonus: The #SOTD Story! A couple of weeks back, I decided to take on a crazy project: The #SOTD series.So, I come across good examples of storytelling every day, in stuff that I read, listen to or watch on various platforms. And often I would feel like Neo from the Matrix, except: I thought – wouldn’t it be nice to share these storytelling techniques with …
#SOTD10
These paintings reflect on being ready for what’s to come and like the trees knowing we’ll get through it. There will be blossoming once again in the spring. …
#SOTD8
Cricinfo’s stats team studied recent Test cricket bowling performances and came across a fascinating insight. #SOTD It turns out, we are in a golden era for bowling in test cricket. In a data-driven piece for The Cricket Monthly magazine, the writers S Rajesh and Shiva Jayaraman decided to explore: How good are the current crop of bowlers – such as Bumrah, Cummins, Ashwin, Rabada etc. – compared to their historical peers? And in doing so, they applied a few key storytelling principles. Here are three I found: 1. Go as wide/far back as you can with your normsComparing with norms …
You don’t really get numbers
Book of the week a. Making Numbers Count: The art and science of communicating numbers by Chip Heath and Karla Starr Great news – you and your best friend have won the lottery! You won a million dollars – but your friend is even luckier with a billion dollar haul. The lottery organisers have only one condition though. You need to spend the money – at a rate of exactly $50,000 per day (Maalamaal, anyone?). Can you quickly estimate how much longer will your friend’s fortune last at this rate of spending? Sure you can give the ‘mathematical’ answer …
E13: Devaiah Bopanna, Writer of funny stories that go viral
This week, I’ve got a podcast episode after ages (man this one has taken time!). And it’s a special guest. So often at work, when I would get bored, I would press CMD-Tab on my Mac and head off to drown myself in the joys of the internet. Movie reviews on Rediff.com, Sports writing on Cricinfo, and funny videos and trailers on Youtube. (Of course I was doing all this to learn the art of storytelling) And on Youtube, while I would watch videos by a variety of creators, perhaps the group that I enjoyed the most was All India …
#SOTD01: How do you get the CEO of a listed company to resign?
These paintings reflect on being ready for what’s to come and like the trees knowing we’ll get through it. There will be blossoming once again in the spring. …
Do you really know your own country?
This week’s book has been one of the most eye-opening ones I’ve read on India. Book of the week a. Whole Numbers and Half Truths by Rukmini S Quick – answer whether these questions are True or False: Delhi has the highest rate of crimes against women in India India faces massive rural-urban migration UP is safer for women than many big states: NCRB report India has a large middle class You are a part of that middle class If you answered ‘True’ for any of the questions above, you need to read Rukmini’s book. I teach how …
Music moves the markets!
This week’s headline article is a great advertisement for the power of music (admittedly not so much for the power of rational thinking). Articles of the week a. ‘When people listen to happy songs the market outperforms’ by Scott Berinato (HBR) Let’s take two known facts. – Most decisions are taken by System 1 thinking – our automatic, quick, heuristic-based thinking pathway – even though we may think it is being taken by the analytical, logical and deliberate System 2 -There is one language that speaks almost exclusively to System 1: music The second fact may come as a bit of …
Sunset time for Covid-19?
This week’s headline article makes for happy reading – and I fervently hope that its predictions come true. Articles of the week a. Coronavirus: Game Over by Tomas Peuyo On the 4th of March, 2020, I was taking a training program in Bangalore. I remember the news bulletins reporting a steady rise in cases of the mysterious new coronavirus in India. I was wondering – is this the real deal? Should I be worried? That question was answered in a superb post by Tomas Pueyo (one that received 40M+ views), ‘Coronavirus: Why you must Act now‘. I remember the …
