Strategic Storytelling

First and foremost, I'm a writer. Essays, short stories, television, film and book reviews - you name it, I write it. All that led me to my current job, in which I use every skill I've ever acquired (plus a whole bunch of new ones) and all the obscure trivia that has been accumulating in my brain for 40 years. I describe it as a bit like researching and writing one Masters' thesis after another; each project requires me to become conversant (if not an expert) in the client's field.

This lens is about how I bring my right-brain creative, artistic side and try - some times more successfully than others - to merge it with the needs of clients and what I continue to learn about strategy.

I believe, as Annette Simmons says in The Story Factor, "A story is worth a thousand assurances." As we move into an increasingly crowded marketplace (left-brain words I never, ever thought I'd be writing), it's all about differentiation. Blue oceans. Small is the New Big (yes, I'm drunk on Seth Kool-aid). To my mind - and increasingly, to corporate minds - the only way to truly differentiate yourself or your product is with an authentic story. Who are you? What do you stand for? Who is your market? And what do they want that you have - that nobody else does?

So what's different about me, about this lens? What can it offer you? As far as I can tell, it's the first one dedicated to corporate storytelling, and E+S is the best (and one of, if not the oldest, at 20 years) in a rapidly growing field. If you want to learn a bit about strategic storytelling, what it is and isn't, or what happens when you take artists and teach them marketing strategy (chocolate! peanut butter!), bookmark this page. For "Brand Sarah," I'll have to create a new lens.