My hiatus is about to come to an end. But before I return to serious social media-ing and bloggonating (Blogg O’Nating, by the way, is the worst leprechaun name ever), I thought I’d muse at you a little. Inspired by NASA.
Because seriously, this is beyond fantastic.
“But Steph,” you protest. “What does that disarmingly catchy parody have to do with my business? I’m not an astronaut!” You don’t have to be. You have content for days. Just gotta use what you’ve got. Continue reading
I know, pumpkin. I know. You don’t want to think about those big meanies. Or hey, maybe you work in one of those cool market segments where friendly competition is the norm, and you don’t need to dwell on those folks. But on the off chance you have competitors, and you want to make sure you’re meeting or exceeding their efforts, how do you do that voodoo you need to do so well?
I think it is time, padawan. I think you are ready. This is an elegant weapon for a more civilized age. This…is close reading. Continue reading
Have you done something different with your hair? It looks nice. Touchable. And that color really brings out your eyes. Here, let me top off your drink, darlin’. Time to talk about mood again.
Mood happens. Whether you are conscious of it or not. So it makes sense to be aware of it, mm? So you don’t, say, write a really chipper blog post about cremation, or melancholy web copy for a party planner. And we establish mood with setting, diction, and now tone.
Setting was pretty straightforward, diction a little less so, and tone is the most elusive. We’ve sort of been building up to the biggie.
“But Steph,” you say, because you are a smart little tomato, “Isn’t tone the same thing as mood?” Kinda. But no. But yeah. But not really. Continue reading
Let’s talk Ello.
In case you’ve been living in a pineapple under the sea, far from news-y goodness, you know about Ello. The invite-only social network exploded in popularity, at one point processing 30,000 sign-up requests an hour.
30,000 people. An hour. Begging to sign up.
Why? Continue reading
Why don’t you have another glass of wine, mm? I’ll light these candles. Because we’re all about mood again today, angel pants. Awwww yeah.
Last time we got together, we talked about the role played by setting in determining mood. In a way, setting is the easiest of these techniques to use — the most common sense. But today we’re talking diction, and that’s a bit trickier. Continue reading
If you’re in tech or online spaces at all, I’m sure you’ve seen The Video.
A few tech fellas, newcomers to San Francisco, had a…let’s call it a difference of opinion with some long-time local kids about who got to use a public soccer field.
The techies didn’t come out looking too great. Continue reading
There are a lot of different ways to talk about the characters that make storytelling work. You can get your Jung on and talk about archetypes. You can go theatrical and delve into the masked roles from commedia dell’arte, which involves amazing masks and will make you hungry (No? Just me? I can’t be the only person who gets hungry just reading Italian). But today I’d like to look at characters through the lens of change: Do they or don’t they?
Storytelling is a specialized subset of communication. And communication requires two parts to complete a circuit of meaning — you need a speaker (writer, artist, Martha Graham-type interpretive dancer, etc.) and a perceiver. Then those two halves switch sides so information flows both ways. Then and only then do you get engagement.
You, my darling little alpaca, only have control of one half of that circuit. What do I mean? Gather ‘round and let Auntie Steph tell y’all a tale. Continue reading
Storytelling for Success 