“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
E09: Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyar – Chronicler of the India economic story
A pinch-me-am-I-awake kind of guest Growing up in Mumbai, the Times of India was a daily habit at our household. When I got my hands on the newspaper, here’s what I would unfailingly do: – I’d look for ‘interesting pictures’ in Bombay Times (I mean, let’s be honest, I was in my mid-teens) – In the main paper I would chuckle at RK Laxman’s cartoon of the day – I’d then ignore the rest of the front page and head straight to the sports pages. – And in the Sunday Times of India, I would head to the edit page …
Data Storytelling: As easy as ABC(D)
I’ve been formally teaching Data-Storytelling as a skill for 5+ years now. During this time, I’ve been obsessed with one goal: To have an elegant MECE framework to explain all the components that make up this skill. Today I would like to share a breakthrough in that journey. Let’s begin. A framework that is MECE… You need to know something about me – I’m MECE-obsessed in life. For the uninitiated, MECE (pronounced mee-see) stands for Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive and is a neat acronym for clear, comprehensive thinking: – Clear: Mutually exclusive – i.e. you aren’t mixing up …
E08: Aravind SA – Standup comedian and Storyteller extraordinaire
‘I don’t make jokes, I tell stories’ When I started the Story Rules podcast, I wanted to interview all types of storytellers. Among practitioners of this craft, I find standup comedians perhaps the most talented. Let’s step back and acknowledge the sheer craziness of their mission: – Just one person – Entertaining hundreds of people at a time – Holding their attention at high levels of energy – For more than an hour – Armed with nothing else but some content and a mic. Standup comedy is a serious skill. Aravind SA (aka SA) is among the foremost standup comics in …
Brent Dykes wrote THE book on Data Storytelling
There’s a new book on data storytelling, and it’s incredibly good. Welcome to my content recommendations and reviews for Sep-21: a couple of books, a podcast, articles and a couple of videos. Let’s get started. 1. Books a. ‘Effective Data Storytelling: How to drive change with data, narrative and visuals’ by Brent Dykes I’ve been studying the craft of data storytelling for more than 15 years now and have been deeply influenced by several books. Allow me to take you through a brief history of my learning, in the order in which I read the books (The years in the brackets …
Celebrate memories as stories
Last week, our IIMA WhatsApp group shared a shocking news – one of our batch-mates (let me call him Samir) had suddenly passed away due to a cardiac arrest. We were struggling to process our emotions and come to terms with the event. Samir was only in his early forties. As a means to share our grief, the batch decided to have a call with Samir’s family, comprising his elderly mom, his wife and a 9-year-old-son. During the call, one by one several folks shared memories of their time with Samir… and it was all about his …
Decoding the skills of Shekhar Gupta: India’s best news storyteller
When did you start following the Indian journalist Shekhar Gupta? Hopefully your answer isn’t – “Who Shekhar Gupta?”. If so, then let me introduce you to India’s finest news storyteller. On the other hand, if you, like many others, have started following him through his incredibly popular ‘Cut the Clutter‘ series on YouTube, you might be thinking… “Man, this guy has become an overnight success!” Like most other ‘overnight successes’, however, it’s been one that’s 40+ years in the making. Shekhar Gupta began reporting in 1977… and is rightfully one of the foremost journalists of our …
E07: Praveen Gopal Krishnan: Writer of India’s largest paid newsletter
The one email I look forward to reading every week During the pandemic, my daily newspaper reading habit was replaced by India’s finest business-news subscription product: The Ken. Very soon, The Ken became a habit. Every weekday morning at 7 am, I look forward to their daily newsletter, ‘Beyond the First Order’. Then at 8 am is the email introducing their long-form article of the day. But there’s one write-up by The Ken that I look forward to the most – a weekly newsletter called The Nutgraf written by the maverick Praveen Gopal Krishnan (a.k.a. PGK), COO at the Ken. If you’ve been a regular …
