E17 – Behind the White Screen
This story is about a musician. They year was 1980. In Italy there was a very talented trombone player called Abbie Conant. A trombone is a wind instrument much like a trumpet. It requires a huge lung power and is traditionally assumed to be a man’s instrument. Abbie was…
E16 – The Threat To Bono
This story is about one of my favorite band – U2. In 1976 when they were still teenagers studying in the same school in Dublin, Ireland, Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr decided to form the band ‘U2’. They released their first album in 1980 and it was very clear from the start that they were very good……..
E15 – The Mann Gulch Fire
This is a story about a devastating forest fire that tragically claimed the lives of 13 firefighters in the mountain of Montana. It was 5th August, 1949. The weather was ripe for a forest fire – dry, hot and windy. A lightning strike at Mann Gulch started a blaze covering an area of 50 to 60 acres………
E14 – Importance Of Context
It’s in Washington DC, Friday 12 January 2007 7:50 AM. Its rush hour traffic in the Metro. There are people busying by. In one station L’enfant Plaza at 7:50 AM, a nondescript American white male steps out and walks across and positions himself next to the trash can. He’s carrying a small case…
E13 – Positive Deviance
The year is 1990 Jerry Sternin and his wife Monique and their little 10 year old son, Sam have just landed at Hanoi Airport. The Sternins have been sent by the Save the Children organization at the behest of the Vietnam Government to help with a huge issue of child malnutrition……..
E12 – Smell Of The Place
Charles Pellerin was the director of astrophysics at NASA, where he led the team that was responsible for perhaps the biggest scientific screw-up in history. In 1990 Charles and his team sent up a telescope worth $1.7 Billion into the sky and then found out that the telescope couldn’t focus because…
E11 – The Power Of Metaphors
This is a story from an experiment conducted in 2011 by Paul Thibodeau from the University of Stanford and Lera Boroditsky from the University of California. They wanted to check whether metaphors influence the way we reason and the way we search for more…
E10 – ROI OF BUSINESS STORYTELLING
You are about to read the two stories that I use when people ask me what is the ROI of business storytelling. My answer to them is Rs. 1400 and 28 times. Let me share the two stories of how I got to these numbers………
E09 – Gloves
This story is based in early 2000 and it’s about John Stegner a procurement executive in a company called John Deere the company that makes farm equipment construction and forestry equipment, etc. John Stegner was pretty convinced that…
E08 – Of Linux And Gold Mines
This story is about a Canadian Gold mining company, a contracting gold market and a keystone mine in Ontario called GoldCorp. Rob McEwen, the CEO of the company was quite a maverick. He came…