WordPress is just for blogging. Right? Wrong. In business, facts – not stories – sell your product, service, or point-of-view. Right? Double-wrong. Our minds are wired to process stories, not facts. WordPress is a POWERHOUSE storytelling engine. Don’t use it? You lose – customers and business. First, we’ll explore why short stories – not “death-by- Powerpoint” bullets – engage your buyer, capture their attention, and convince them to buy your product, service, or point-of-view. Second, we’ll drill into how I used WordPress to build a storytelling engine – and you can too. Want more sales? Forget the website, build a storySite™.
For audio and slides, go to http://theideamechanic.com/stories-and-wordpress-indieconf-2011-soundslides
Storyboards - telling the stories of your users visuallyStefan Ivanov
Many things are really simple and very familiar but that does not mean that they are obvious. The storyboard is a concept that perfectly exemplifies this statement. And despite the fact that many of us have grown up with these (I got my first Mickey Mouse magazine in 1991 when I was four), it is often frustrating how to have them work for us. When I got to understand the power of storyboards 20 years later, I was truly fascinated with them and have been using them ever since.
This workshop will not teach you how to draw beautifully, this requires a little talent and a lot of practice. We will talk about communicating our ideas with the different stakeholders in a visual way. About depicting the frustration of users to the management visually so that it is easy for them to grasp. About expressing an envisioned solution to a customer and receiving rapid feedback in an easy to understand fashion and at a very low price. About putting all stakeholders on the same page in regard to what the problems are and what the solutions might look like. About providing context for the various scenarios in which a product is being used. The benefits are numerous and our goal will be to get you familiar with the power of telling visual stories through storyboards.
Why is it so that some products become a huge success and other don’t? I bet that each of you has racked his brains with this question for a while. I also did it many, many times. Why do I catch myself buying products every now and then that don’t offer any usability? Why do I keep things that I hardly ever use? And how come there are objects that I use every day without even noticing, as a habit? This talk will answer all these questions by looking into the emotional connections we establish with certain products. We will quantify our perception of objects to get a deeper understanding of the various factors that affect us. We will discuss emotions, usability, conceptual models and much more relating to Don Norman’s famous framework for the Three Levels of Design.
Gamification - a player centered design processStefan Ivanov
Gamification has become a buzzword in recent years and a big percentage of the top companies in the world are already employing it as a technique in their business operations. Additionally we have seen and experienced gamification on a number of occasions in our daily life – from loyalty programs to catchy marketing tricks for product promotion and what not. The design community has witnessed some practices that work really well and others that simply don’t.
This talk will present gamification and its benefits, but also cover examples of good and bad practices. And since gamification is what seems to be the convergence of game design and user-centered design, extensive guidance will be provided about its incorporation in existing processes and products, as well as employing it in designs that are built from the ground up. We also will talk about what makes games fun, what types of players exist and what motivates them. We will discuss the concept of obstacles, the types of work that need to be done to overcome them and the rewards that are provided in return. And all this will be spiced up with numerous examples from the present and the past.
Session 3: Sketching and User-centered DesignLeanna Gingras
This week's UX class covers good design, brainstorming and concepting, sketching, design rules of thumb, and the art of critique. There's a LOT of sketching exercises. Learn by doing!
These are lecture slides for the User Experience class I'm teaching at SVC. Learn more here: http://svc-ux1.leannagingras.com/
Slides for my UX1 class at Seattle School of Visual Concepts.This week is all about looking at the problem space from 1000 feet up. Starting with the big picture makes it much easier to create a user experience that hangs together and make sense. Concepts covered: personas, design narratives, scenarios, user journey maps, user flows, storyboarding, sketchboarding
Storyboards - telling the stories of your users visuallyStefan Ivanov
Many things are really simple and very familiar but that does not mean that they are obvious. The storyboard is a concept that perfectly exemplifies this statement. And despite the fact that many of us have grown up with these (I got my first Mickey Mouse magazine in 1991 when I was four), it is often frustrating how to have them work for us. When I got to understand the power of storyboards 20 years later, I was truly fascinated with them and have been using them ever since.
This workshop will not teach you how to draw beautifully, this requires a little talent and a lot of practice. We will talk about communicating our ideas with the different stakeholders in a visual way. About depicting the frustration of users to the management visually so that it is easy for them to grasp. About expressing an envisioned solution to a customer and receiving rapid feedback in an easy to understand fashion and at a very low price. About putting all stakeholders on the same page in regard to what the problems are and what the solutions might look like. About providing context for the various scenarios in which a product is being used. The benefits are numerous and our goal will be to get you familiar with the power of telling visual stories through storyboards.
Why is it so that some products become a huge success and other don’t? I bet that each of you has racked his brains with this question for a while. I also did it many, many times. Why do I catch myself buying products every now and then that don’t offer any usability? Why do I keep things that I hardly ever use? And how come there are objects that I use every day without even noticing, as a habit? This talk will answer all these questions by looking into the emotional connections we establish with certain products. We will quantify our perception of objects to get a deeper understanding of the various factors that affect us. We will discuss emotions, usability, conceptual models and much more relating to Don Norman’s famous framework for the Three Levels of Design.
Gamification - a player centered design processStefan Ivanov
Gamification has become a buzzword in recent years and a big percentage of the top companies in the world are already employing it as a technique in their business operations. Additionally we have seen and experienced gamification on a number of occasions in our daily life – from loyalty programs to catchy marketing tricks for product promotion and what not. The design community has witnessed some practices that work really well and others that simply don’t.
This talk will present gamification and its benefits, but also cover examples of good and bad practices. And since gamification is what seems to be the convergence of game design and user-centered design, extensive guidance will be provided about its incorporation in existing processes and products, as well as employing it in designs that are built from the ground up. We also will talk about what makes games fun, what types of players exist and what motivates them. We will discuss the concept of obstacles, the types of work that need to be done to overcome them and the rewards that are provided in return. And all this will be spiced up with numerous examples from the present and the past.
Session 3: Sketching and User-centered DesignLeanna Gingras
This week's UX class covers good design, brainstorming and concepting, sketching, design rules of thumb, and the art of critique. There's a LOT of sketching exercises. Learn by doing!
These are lecture slides for the User Experience class I'm teaching at SVC. Learn more here: http://svc-ux1.leannagingras.com/
Slides for my UX1 class at Seattle School of Visual Concepts.This week is all about looking at the problem space from 1000 feet up. Starting with the big picture makes it much easier to create a user experience that hangs together and make sense. Concepts covered: personas, design narratives, scenarios, user journey maps, user flows, storyboarding, sketchboarding
My quest for the talk is to introduce you to gamification with the founding principles that allow us to achieve success by adopting the process and an end-to-end example of gamifying a familiar process at work. Since some of the top global companies are already employing it as a technique for their business operations why should YOU wait? Gamification goes beyond collecting stickers for some discounted items at the local gas station or stamps for a free latte. Since gamification is the convergence of game design and user-centered design we will take on a journey that touches on these two rather familiar concepts to explain what is yet to be understood and applied to break the chains of standard business processes.
How to dive in our users’ environment? The creation of a successful product requires far more than a questionnaire, a decent wireframe or prototype and fluffy visual design. One of the most valuable qualities during the design of user experiences is empathy. We'll talk about what exactly it is, how we can develop and use it successfully in our projects.
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Patterns in UX and Engineering are reusable elements that provide inspiration for solving common problems.
Product Patterns extend this concept by looking at the various mechanisms at a more abstract level then lines of code or those drawn on wireframes.
The following are examples of common patterns used in some of the best web products and are organised according to Dave McClure's pirate metrics (http://500hats.typepad.com/500blogs/2007/06/internet-market.html).
Use this as a way to inspire conversation. Ask if any of these patterns could be used in the context of your product?
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As UX designers, simply crafting a beautiful solution and presenting it well is not enough. Getting it accepted by and sold to a client is the true challenge! The best way to do this is involving your client directly in the design process and having him co-create the solution.
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This workshop was presented at IxDA NYC local event on Wednesday, June 19, 2013 at AppNexus, http://ixda-nyc-june19-es2.eventbrite.com/
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When working on multi-channel experiences that blend both digital and human-to-human interfaces, service blueprints allow interaction designers to look beyond the pixels and peer into the structures and systems of touchpoints that create the service experience.
The process of discovering, designing, and weaving these touchpoints together is the core work and deliverable of service designers. Service blueprints embody the foundational concepts of service design and are a fundamental tool for clarifying the interactions between customers, digital touchpoints, employees, and 'backstage' activities (everything the customer does not see).
During this 2.5 hour workshop, you will learn about the anatomy of services and how to use service blueprints in your design practice. You will create a service blueprint documenting an existing service encounter and identify new opportunities. Utilizing this blueprint, you will explore
ways of manipulating aspects of service delivery to eliminate pain-points, improve the experience, and create new process efficiencies.
How IT services companies who want to build non linear growth models need to make the necessary shifts internally to be able to innovate in product creation
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Le slide del workshop tenuto il 13 dicembre 2013 alla conferenza Agile del PMI-NIC da Dario Giannoccaro e Giulio Roggero. Vengono presentati i Canvas come strumento di dialogo e condivisione.
Agilità interculturale
I valori dell'Agile Manifesto come fattore abilitante alla collaborazione dei team interculturali.
La collaborazione tra persone avviene grazie anche a una buona comunicazione. Culture differenti possono interpretare in modo diametralmente opposto atteggiamenti, frasi e situazioni. Se non opportunamente gestita la situazione porta a problemi critici di collaborazione all'interno del team minando le possibilità il successo del progetto.
L'approccio Agile al progetto tende a mitigare questo rischio grazie alla intrinseca resilienza dei principi ai quali si ispira. Comunicazione trasparente e feedback continui sul prodotto incrementale riducono notevolmente il rischio di non capirsi e di remare in direzioni diverse.
In questa presentazione vedremo alcune pratiche che favoriscono la collaborazione e fanno emergere il potenziale che i team interculturali possono dare ad un progetto.
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Products and services that deliver good user experience have been shown to be more successful in the market. User experience design is a practice of transforming user insights and emotion to create products and services that are useful, easy to use, and enjoyable. The process requires in-depth understanding of the customers and inter-disciplinary collaboration to ensure connected experiences across customer touch points.
In this talk, I will discuss various User Experience Design methods that are commonly used for product and service development. I will cover the pros and cons for the methods, and how they are often tweaked in practice to meet the contextual constraints in the industry.
Presented at HFEM 2014, Kuala Lumpur Malaysia
Drawing Stories for User Experiences (UX) - April 2015Deb Aoki
Simple sketching and storyboarding for collaboration, research, and user-centric experience design. This is a newly updated and expanded deck with new examples, and a reading and resource list at the end. I presented this talk at the San Jose State University User Experience Association Guest Speakers Day in April 2015.
Everyone sells, even you. Learn a simple, easy way to sell by thinking like a buyer, not a seller. Every sales cycle has four phases, but learn why the second one – educating your buyer – can make or break the deal. I’ll teach you the 5 step CM!(tm) process, set you up with a toolbox full of ideas, and get you started on how to become a convincing expert.
For audio and slides, go to http://theideamechanic.com/convince-me-indieconf-2010-soundslides
What? You Don’t Use WordPress to Tell Stories? You Lose.Convinsys
WordPress is just for blogging. Right? Wrong. In business, facts – not stories – sell your product, service, or point-of-view. Right? Double-wrong. Our minds are wired to process stories, not facts. WordPress is a POWERHOUSE storytelling engine. Don’t use it? You lose – customers and business. First, we’ll explore why short stories – not “death-by- Powerpoint” bullets – engage your buyer, capture their attention, and convince them to buy your product, service, or point-of-view. Second, we’ll drill into how I used WordPress to build a storytelling engine – and you can too. Want more sales? Forget the website, build a storySiteTM.
For audio and slides, go to http://theideamechanic.com/stories-and-wordpress-indieconf-2011-soundslides
7.5 Tips for Becoming a Brainstorming GeniusBrightEdge
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Become a BIGFiSH Online: How to Build a Following & Find Lifetime CustomersDanielle Leslie
I gave this presentation at the Freelancers 101 Meetup, hosted by kleverdog coworking and at my Skillshare class at Blankspaces in Los Angeles. Enjoy!
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Keynote Address by Marc Stoiber - Ready! Fire! Aim!Social Media Camp
Ready! Fire! Aim!
No, social is not going to save the world of marketing – no more than online, ambient, guerrilla or content did. Social is just a tactic (albeit a very good one). Unfortunately, marketers have a penchant for new tactics - many have jumped wholeheartedly into social without thinking it through, and many have paid a high price.
What will save marketing is refocusing on why your product deserves to live, and why consumers should care. Call it the brand, call it the essence, call it what you will. It’s the stuff that sets you apart from, and above the competition.
So how do you build an effective brand, and then use social to amplify it properly? That’s what I’m here to discuss.
My quest for the talk is to introduce you to gamification with the founding principles that allow us to achieve success by adopting the process and an end-to-end example of gamifying a familiar process at work. Since some of the top global companies are already employing it as a technique for their business operations why should YOU wait? Gamification goes beyond collecting stickers for some discounted items at the local gas station or stamps for a free latte. Since gamification is the convergence of game design and user-centered design we will take on a journey that touches on these two rather familiar concepts to explain what is yet to be understood and applied to break the chains of standard business processes.
How to dive in our users’ environment? The creation of a successful product requires far more than a questionnaire, a decent wireframe or prototype and fluffy visual design. One of the most valuable qualities during the design of user experiences is empathy. We'll talk about what exactly it is, how we can develop and use it successfully in our projects.
Pirate metric mechanisms - Patterns for better ProductsAnh Han
Patterns in UX and Engineering are reusable elements that provide inspiration for solving common problems.
Product Patterns extend this concept by looking at the various mechanisms at a more abstract level then lines of code or those drawn on wireframes.
The following are examples of common patterns used in some of the best web products and are organised according to Dave McClure's pirate metrics (http://500hats.typepad.com/500blogs/2007/06/internet-market.html).
Use this as a way to inspire conversation. Ask if any of these patterns could be used in the context of your product?
Using Co-creation to Make Design Solutions that Work (EuroIA 2013, Edinburgh)Koen Peters
As UX designers, simply crafting a beautiful solution and presenting it well is not enough. Getting it accepted by and sold to a client is the true challenge! The best way to do this is involving your client directly in the design process and having him co-create the solution.
Using Service Blueprints to Create Holistic Multi-Channel ExperienceIzac Ross
This workshop was presented at IxDA NYC local event on Wednesday, June 19, 2013 at AppNexus, http://ixda-nyc-june19-es2.eventbrite.com/
Using Service Blueprints to Create Holistic Multi-Channel Experiences
When working on multi-channel experiences that blend both digital and human-to-human interfaces, service blueprints allow interaction designers to look beyond the pixels and peer into the structures and systems of touchpoints that create the service experience.
The process of discovering, designing, and weaving these touchpoints together is the core work and deliverable of service designers. Service blueprints embody the foundational concepts of service design and are a fundamental tool for clarifying the interactions between customers, digital touchpoints, employees, and 'backstage' activities (everything the customer does not see).
During this 2.5 hour workshop, you will learn about the anatomy of services and how to use service blueprints in your design practice. You will create a service blueprint documenting an existing service encounter and identify new opportunities. Utilizing this blueprint, you will explore
ways of manipulating aspects of service delivery to eliminate pain-points, improve the experience, and create new process efficiencies.
How IT services companies who want to build non linear growth models need to make the necessary shifts internally to be able to innovate in product creation
Visualizing the Product - PMI-NIC Agile Workshop 2013Giulio Roggero
Le slide del workshop tenuto il 13 dicembre 2013 alla conferenza Agile del PMI-NIC da Dario Giannoccaro e Giulio Roggero. Vengono presentati i Canvas come strumento di dialogo e condivisione.
Agilità interculturale
I valori dell'Agile Manifesto come fattore abilitante alla collaborazione dei team interculturali.
La collaborazione tra persone avviene grazie anche a una buona comunicazione. Culture differenti possono interpretare in modo diametralmente opposto atteggiamenti, frasi e situazioni. Se non opportunamente gestita la situazione porta a problemi critici di collaborazione all'interno del team minando le possibilità il successo del progetto.
L'approccio Agile al progetto tende a mitigare questo rischio grazie alla intrinseca resilienza dei principi ai quali si ispira. Comunicazione trasparente e feedback continui sul prodotto incrementale riducono notevolmente il rischio di non capirsi e di remare in direzioni diverse.
In questa presentazione vedremo alcune pratiche che favoriscono la collaborazione e fanno emergere il potenziale che i team interculturali possono dare ad un progetto.
Experience Design Methods for Product / Service DevelopmentKetut Sulistyawati
Products and services that deliver good user experience have been shown to be more successful in the market. User experience design is a practice of transforming user insights and emotion to create products and services that are useful, easy to use, and enjoyable. The process requires in-depth understanding of the customers and inter-disciplinary collaboration to ensure connected experiences across customer touch points.
In this talk, I will discuss various User Experience Design methods that are commonly used for product and service development. I will cover the pros and cons for the methods, and how they are often tweaked in practice to meet the contextual constraints in the industry.
Presented at HFEM 2014, Kuala Lumpur Malaysia
Drawing Stories for User Experiences (UX) - April 2015Deb Aoki
Simple sketching and storyboarding for collaboration, research, and user-centric experience design. This is a newly updated and expanded deck with new examples, and a reading and resource list at the end. I presented this talk at the San Jose State University User Experience Association Guest Speakers Day in April 2015.
Everyone sells, even you. Learn a simple, easy way to sell by thinking like a buyer, not a seller. Every sales cycle has four phases, but learn why the second one – educating your buyer – can make or break the deal. I’ll teach you the 5 step CM!(tm) process, set you up with a toolbox full of ideas, and get you started on how to become a convincing expert.
For audio and slides, go to http://theideamechanic.com/convince-me-indieconf-2010-soundslides
What? You Don’t Use WordPress to Tell Stories? You Lose.Convinsys
WordPress is just for blogging. Right? Wrong. In business, facts – not stories – sell your product, service, or point-of-view. Right? Double-wrong. Our minds are wired to process stories, not facts. WordPress is a POWERHOUSE storytelling engine. Don’t use it? You lose – customers and business. First, we’ll explore why short stories – not “death-by- Powerpoint” bullets – engage your buyer, capture their attention, and convince them to buy your product, service, or point-of-view. Second, we’ll drill into how I used WordPress to build a storytelling engine – and you can too. Want more sales? Forget the website, build a storySiteTM.
For audio and slides, go to http://theideamechanic.com/stories-and-wordpress-indieconf-2011-soundslides
7.5 Tips for Becoming a Brainstorming GeniusBrightEdge
Katie Fetting's sermon on why what you say is rapidly becoming less important than how you say it. Learn to brainstorm content that's clearer, wittier, and cooler than your competition.
Become a BIGFiSH Online: How to Build a Following & Find Lifetime CustomersDanielle Leslie
I gave this presentation at the Freelancers 101 Meetup, hosted by kleverdog coworking and at my Skillshare class at Blankspaces in Los Angeles. Enjoy!
WeAreBIGFiSH.com
Keynote Address by Marc Stoiber - Ready! Fire! Aim!Social Media Camp
Ready! Fire! Aim!
No, social is not going to save the world of marketing – no more than online, ambient, guerrilla or content did. Social is just a tactic (albeit a very good one). Unfortunately, marketers have a penchant for new tactics - many have jumped wholeheartedly into social without thinking it through, and many have paid a high price.
What will save marketing is refocusing on why your product deserves to live, and why consumers should care. Call it the brand, call it the essence, call it what you will. It’s the stuff that sets you apart from, and above the competition.
So how do you build an effective brand, and then use social to amplify it properly? That’s what I’m here to discuss.
The Art and Psychology of Storytelling in B2BOmobono
Go on, tell us a story. At Omobono we firmly believe that we all have an interesting story to tell. And this is our guide to telling yours...
We're in the business of helping B2B brands make connections with customers, stakeholders, and employees through content & experiences. Emotional, exciting narrative content is fast becoming a tool for B2B audiences to liven up their communications.
Will you go on a quest, defeat a monster or go from rags to riches? Our actionable guide has suggestions for how to structure your story so that is has true emotional impact for your audience.
Because who said B2B had to be boring?
In a time-challenged world dominated by short and snappy, click-bait headlines, Twitter streams, Instagram feeds, gifs, video, Snapchat, YOLO, LOL and #tbt...does writing seem useless and ordinary? And what if you’re not a writer?
Actually, writing matters more now, not less. And in our content-driven world, we are all writers.
Learn how to choose words well, write with economy, style and honest empathy and tell a true story really, really well with “Everybody Writes” author Ann Handley.
Nonprofit marketers and communicators may think they know TikTok – but this session will show them the power this platform has to advance their missions. We will provide an overview of how nonprofits can leverage TikTok, and share success stories from nonprofits that will inspire your next campaign and change the way you think about advancing your cause in the digital era.
Lectures 15 and 16: Learning From The Masters, Storytelling, Worldbuilding, ...Fahri Karakas
Art Description/Synopsis:
In this class that is designed as collective performance art, we review some of the biggest names in the landscapes of entertainment, creativity, and business.
From space to magic, from basketball to fashion, from animation to computer games, from film music to architecture we have a trans-disciplinary tour of storytelling and creative careers.
We have a lot of puzzles. We have a series of exercises in asset creation and imagination.
In one of these exercises, you will have the opportunity to practice screenwriting, world-building, and storytelling.
However, the main actor in all of this experience (the connecting thread/anchor) is a squash.
Contents:
Review of Last Class
Puzzles: This week in review
Puzzles & Improv Adventures
Workshop: Heroes of Entertainment & Imagination
Exercise: Six Adventures and Six Challenges
Exercise: Screenwriting, World-Building, and Storytelling
Workshop: Creating Assets
Exercise: You are a Super-hero
Key Takeaways
Here are The Squash articles:
https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/7-brainstorming-exercises-and-7-lessons-inspired-by-a-yellow-squash-9f9e0df3f236
https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/what-a-yellow-squash-can-teach-you-about-creativity-3ea5e26cb28a
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Editable Toolkit to help you reuse our content: 700 Powerpoint slides | 35 Excel sheets | 84 minutes of Video training
This PowerPoint presentation is only a small preview of our Toolkits. For more details, visit www.domontconsulting.com
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2. WordPress is just for blogging. Right? Wrong. In business, facts – not stories – sell your product, service, or point-of-view. Right? Double-wrong. Our minds are
wired to process stories, not facts. WordPress is a POWERHOUSE storytelling engine. Don’t use it? You lose – customers and business. First, we’ll explore why
short stories – not “death-by-Powerpoint” bullets – engage your buyer, capture their attention, and convince them to buy your product, service, or point-of-view.
Second, we’ll drill into how I used WordPress to build a storytelling engine – and you can too. Want more sales? Forget the website, build a storySite™.
3. My name is Doug Foster, my business is the Idea Mechanics. We help people sell. Think of the words Tell, Show,
Try. We help people ... TELL their story, SHOW proof – e.g. prove what they said is true (like a demonstration), and
create “TRY-before-you-buy” experiences. That’s our core approach to selling: Tell, Show, Try.
4. But today we’re going to talk about 2 things. First we’ll talk about stories. Our talk about stories is not technical, it’s kinda “right-brain.”
5. Second, we’ll talk about WordPress. It’ll be more technical, but not deep. Kinda “left-brain.” During Q&A or after the session we can drill down if you want, but I’d
like to keep it high-level during the talk. If you take away ONE thought ... I want to convince you that ... WordPress is a storytelling engine!
6. This is Lilly. Lilly is a junior at Athens high school in Raleigh. My daughters went to Athens. I’ve been on the Athens Drive High School Business Alliance for over
16 years. Last month we interviewed kids for the Cary Youth Leadership program. I interviewed Lilly. Lilly’s resume didn’t sell me. Lilly’s grades didn’t sell me.
Lilly told me a story. She described herself and how she overcame adversity. She described why she wanted into the program and what she would do. Lilly sold
me. It was a personal, emotional, & engaging story. It wasn’t a long story. It was a short story.
7. That’s point #1 of three points I want to make about stories: Short stories CAN sell.
8. This is a WW2 bomber: a B-25 Mitchell. The date was November 7th,1945; 66 days after Japan surrendered aboard the USS Missouri (Sept 2). A B-25
wingspan was 68’, length was 53’. The B-25 had a pair of supercharged, Curtis Wright R-2600 radial engines. Each engine had 14 cylinders with a total
displacement of 2600 cubic inches at 1750 hp. Cruising speed for a B-25 was about 230 mph, max. around 300 mph. A B-25‘s range was 1200 miles, ceiling
height was 25,000 ft..
9. This is Mt. Fuji. At 12,389 ft. it is the highest mountain in Japan. Mt. Fuji is about 60 miles south-west of Tokyo. It is classified as an active volcano and it last
erupted on December 16, 1707. The crater is 820 feet deep with a 1,600 foot diameter.
10. The story starts at Atsugi Aerodrome in Tokyo. Dad was a Crew Chief for General Whitehead’s personal B-25. This day (2) pilots came out of the officers club
and as Dad said ... “they were well oiled.” They told Dad to grab his gear, they were going for a ride. They took off and crossed Tokyo bay at 50’, then buzzed a
bridge at < 50 ft. (As you can imagine there was lots of prop wash off a B-25.)
11. They headed for Fuji. They climbed up to the rim, then dove inside. Dad still remembers the wingtips being below the rim. Then they nosed up, climbed to the
rim, then rolled to the left. They dropped nearly 10,000 feet in an instant back to the tree line.
12. So B-25’s are NOT supposed to roll. I asked Dad “What were you thinking?” He said “I was glad to be alive!” Then I asked Dad “What were THEY thinking?”
They said “That’s was fun! Let’s roll her right.” They climbed back up to the crater, did it again, this time to the right – and dropped 10,000 ft in a 60 degree slide.
This time the torque from the engines kept it from rolling. So let me ask you a question: What was the date? (11/7/45) What was the displacement of a CW
engine? (2600 cu. in.)
13. That’s the second point – Point #2 – about stories. Facts make a story believable, but we remember the story, not the facts.
14. Dan Roam’s book “The Back of the Napkin” is excellent. It explains how our brain works. A thought starts in the LOW brain (WHO, WHAT, how much, ...) and
ends up in the HIGH brain at WHY. We think in story: who, what, when, where ... and why.
15. That’s my third point – #3 – about stories: our brains are wired for stories. As a child we say: “Tell me a story.” But as an adult we think stories are for children.
16. Let’s recap the three great things about stories: 1) short stories can sell, 2) we remember stories, and 3) we’re wired for stories.
17. Let me also give you a TIP about stories. This is the iPod Nano. Does anyone remember when it was introduced? September 7, 2005; but that’s beside the
point :-).
18. Oh, and one more thing ... the Nano introduction was memorable.
19. If you believe my three reasons for using stories ... alway have a few stories in your pocket.
20. This October I was in Jonesborough, Tenn. at the 39th National Storytelling Festival. No two speakers were the same, no two stories were the same. People
want to know YOUR story. So don’t tell someone else’s story, tell your own story. 5 STEPS TO GET YOUR STARTED TELLING STORIES: First you need to
FIND your story ... it will help you understand who you are.
21. Second step: WRITE it. Forget form, think content. What is your VALUE? How are YOU different? I like LHH’s SOAR approach: Situation, Obstacles, Action,
Results. Find the essence of your story. Mine? We help people sell. It took me years to find it.
22. Third step: PROVE it. When you tell your story the first thing people ask is “Prove it.” The facts I gave you made Dad’s story believable, but his flight log
(TRUST me) is proof – it makes it real.
23. Our sales approach is called Convince Me! A sales cycle has 4 phases (see the diagram on the left). We focus on the second phase: EDUCATE. TELL, SHOW,
TRY are the key steps in educating your buyer. Wrap in PLAN and SATISFY. Google both words (convince me). Out of about 65 million hits, we’re #5 on the first
page. Point #4: make your story convincing.
24. My last point – #5. I took this photo on the island of Capri. Look at the expressions on their faces. I’m sure the guy in the middle is in the middle of a story. A
story is not a story unless it’s told. Tell your story.
25. Recap: how do you start telling stories? Five steps: 1) find it, 2) write it, 3) prove it, 4) make it convincing, and 5) tell it.
26. This is my son-in-law Kevin in Venice on his birthday. I love this quote by Muriel Rukeyser: “The universe is made of stories, not atoms.” BASIC physics. The
world is full of stories. Go find them.
27. Time to shift gears a bit. We’re going to talk about WordPress. Let’s talk left-brain for a while.
28. I’d like to briefly tell you about 10 things I learned building a product.
29. My storySite is http://theideamechanic.com. It’s not really a website, it’s a platform for telling stories.
30. Lesson #1: I chose Hostgator. They give you a range of hosting: Shared -> VPS -> Dedicated. Their product is good, their customer service ROCKS! The cost is
+/- $100/year. You CAN run a storySite on shared hosting. Would a dedicated or virtual server be better? Maybe. Hostgator offers a one click WordPress install
(most hosting services have this – warning: one click is NOT enough security but it gets you started). Techie tip: I minify, zip, and cache the code using two
plugins. I deliver html pages, but they’re built “dynamically.”
31. Lesson #2: You need both a sandbox (test) and battlefield (production). Play in the sandbox until you like what you’ve built. I create a .test subdomain then
move it to production. I use BackupBuddy plugin to backup/copy the site.
32. WordPress started as a blogging platform but has become a full-blown Content Management System (CMS) engine. Great examples: UNC-CH Reese news is
multi-site WP install, also check out http://wordpress.org/showcase/.
33. 4th thing: Wordpress has TONS of resources. I belong to two local RTP WordPress Meetup groups. The WordPress CODEX docs are terse but good. I Googled
“wordpress” and got 2 BILLION hits. SO much is available ...
34. Understand the Wordpress back-end and front-end. The backend starts with a host running MySQL, PHP, and Apache. This is the core of the performance
engine.
35. WordPress uses front-end THEMEs to style the GUI “presentation.” There are thousands of free and paid themes available. I use a framework theme called
THESIS (http://diythemes.com/thesis/) from DIY Themes (http://diythemes.com/). I love it. I build my storySites on top of Thesis then I add my own PHP code for
logic, CSS code for styling, and Javascript for interactivity (including Javascript framework libraries like jQuery). I use plugins too – like sliders from Slidervilla
(http://slidervilla.com/).
36. Speaking of plugins, the 7th lesson I learned: leverage other people’s code. Warning: it can be both good and bad. Not all plugins are “commercial” quality. I
spent ALOT of time selecting, testing, (and debugging) my storySite plugins.
37. At number 8: Analytics. Yes, Google Analytics is free. At $60/yr for 10 sites ... I chose Clicky Web Analytics (http://getclicky.com/). I like the detail and the
simplicity.
38. Let’s talk about two SEO types: on-site and off-site. Thesis theme has GREAT on-site SEO. Plugins like “All in one SEO Pack” (Semper Fi) are excellent. Also, I
use a plugin to create a sitemap and ping the search engines automatically.
39. A keyword phrase we focus on “help people sell” was #1 and #2 out of 620 million hits. Not bad.
40. Off-site SEO. Offload media (videos, photos, audio, slides, ...) to social sharing sites. Use THEIR bandwidth and horsepower, THEIR SEO, YOUR content.
Google is indexing Twitter and other social media. Get your keywords out through off-site channels.
41. And here’s the last point: #10. Good news: you now have a powerful engine. Bad news: you need to feed the monster. Jot down ideas. Making a scheduled,
regular attempt to update. Don’t forget why you did all this work. Tell stories. Remember: a story is not a story unless it’s told. Tell them.
42. I learned alot. Hopefully you can gain from my pain :-). Let’s recap: 1) self-host Wordpress, 2) create test & production sides for your site, 3) Wordpress really is
a CMS engine, 4) there are lots of Wordpress resources, 5&6) there are lots of back-end a front-end tools for Wordpress, 7,8,9) leverage with plugins, track with
analytics, and pay attention to SEO, and 10) don’t forget to feed your monster.
43. Last tip for the day: use the BackupBuddy plugin from iThemes (http://pluginbuddy.com/purchase/backupbuddy/). I use it to move (migrate) sites between test
and production. It is an incredibly powerful tool.
44. Hopefully you have a new perspective. We’re wired for stories. Short Stories that Sell. Wordpress is an engine!
45. Questions? To learn more, visit http://theideamechanic.com. We help people sell.
Editor's Notes
What? You don&#x2019;t use Wordpress to tell stories? You lose.\n
WordPress is just for blogging. Right? Wrong. In business, facts &#x2013; not stories &#x2013; sell your product, service, or point-of-view. Right? Double-wrong.&#xA0;Our minds are wired to process stories, not facts.&#xA0;WordPress is a POWERHOUSE storytelling engine. Don&#x2019;t use it? You lose &#x2013; customers and business. First, we&#x2019;ll explore why short stories &#x2013; not &#x201C;death-by-Powerpoint&#x201D; bullets &#x2013; engage your buyer, capture their attention, and convince them to buy your product, service, or point-of-view. Second, we&#x2019;ll drill into how I used WordPress to build a storytelling engine &#x2013; and you can too. Want more sales? Forget the website, build a storySite&#x2122;.\n
My name is Doug Foster, my business is the Idea Mechanics. We help people sell. Think of the words Tell, Show, Try. We help people ... TELL their story, SHOW proof &#x2013; e.g. prove what they said is true (like a demonstration), and create &#x201C;TRY-before-you-buy&#x201D; experiences. That&#x2019;s our core approach to selling: Tell, Show, Try. \n
But today we&#x2019;re going to talk about 2 things. First we&#x2019;ll talk about stories. Our talk about stories is not technical, it&#x2019;s kinda &#x201C;right-brain.&#x201D;\n
Second, we&#x2019;ll talk about WordPress. It&#x2019;ll be more technical, but not deep. Kinda &#x201C;left-brain.&#x201D; During Q&A or after the session we can drill down if you want, but I&#x2019;d like to keep it high-level during the talk. If you take away ONE thought ... I want to convince you that ... WordPress is a storytelling engine!\n
This is Lilly. Lilly is a junior at Athens high school in Raleigh. My daughters went to Athens. I&#x2019;ve been on the Athens Drive High School Business Alliance for over 16 years. Last month we interviewed kids for the Cary Youth Leadership program. I interviewed Lilly. Lilly&#x2019;s resume didn&#x2019;t sell me. Lilly&#x2019;s grades didn&#x2019;t sell me. Lilly told me a story. She described herself and how she overcame adversity. She described why she wanted into the program and what she would do. Lilly sold me. It was a personal, emotional, & engaging story. It wasn&#x2019;t a long story. It was a short story.\n
That&#x2019;s point #1 of three points I want to make about stories: Short stories CAN sell.\n
This is a WW2 bomber: a B-25 Mitchell. The date was November 7th,1945; 66 days after Japan surrendered aboard the USS Missouri (Sept 2). A B-25 wingspan was 68&#x2019;, length was 53&#x2019;. The B-25 had a pair of supercharged, Curtis Wright R-2600 radial engines. Each engine had 14 cylinders with a total displacement of 2600 cubic inches at 1750 hp. Cruising speed for a B-25 was about 230 mph, max. around 300 mph. A B-25&#x2018;s range was 1200 miles, ceiling height was 25,000 ft..\n
This is Mt. Fuji. At 12,389 ft. it is the highest mountain in Japan. Mt. Fuji is about 60&#xA0;miles south-west of Tokyo. It is classified as an active volcano and it last erupted on December 16, 1707. The crater is 820 feet deep with a 1,600 foot diameter.\n
The story starts at Atsugi Aerodrome in Tokyo. Dad was a Crew Chief for General Whitehead&#x2019;s personal B-25. This day (2) pilots came out of the officers club and as Dad said ... &#x201C;they were well oiled.&#x201D; They told Dad to grab his gear, they were going for a ride. They took off and crossed Tokyo bay at 50&#x2019;, then buzzed a bridge at < 50 ft. (As you can imagine there was lots of prop wash off a B-25.)\n
They headed for Fuji. They climbed up to the rim, then dove inside. Dad still remembers the wingtips being below the rim. Then they nosed up, climbed to the rim, then rolled to the left. They dropped nearly 10,000 feet in an instant back to the tree line.\n
So B-25&#x2019;s are NOT supposed to roll. I asked Dad &#x201C;What were you thinking?&#x201D; He said &#x201C;I was glad to be alive!&#x201D; Then I asked Dad &#x201C;What were THEY thinking?&#x201D; They said &#x201C;That&#x2019;s was fun! Let&#x2019;s roll her right.&#x201D; They climbed back up to the crater, did it again, this time to the right &#x2013; and dropped 10,000 ft in a 60 degree slide. This time the torque from the engines kept it from rolling. So let me ask you a question: What was the date? (11/7/45) What was the displacement of a CW engine? (2600 cu. in.)\n
That&#x2019;s the second point &#x2013; Point #2 &#x2013; about stories. Facts make a story believable, but we remember the story, not the facts.\n
Dan Roam&#x2019;s book &#x201C;The Back of the Napkin&#x201D; is excellent. It explains how our brain works. A thought starts in the LOW brain (WHO, WHAT, how much, ...) and ends up in the HIGH brain at WHY. We think in story: who, what, when, where ... and why.\n
That&#x2019;s my third point &#x2013; #3 &#x2013; about stories: our brains are wired for stories. As a child we say: &#x201C;Tell me a story.&#x201D; But as an adult we think stories are for children.\n
Let&#x2019;s recap the three great things about stories: 1) short stories can sell, 2) we remember stories, and 3) we&#x2019;re wired for stories.\n
Let me also give you a TIP about stories. This is the iPod Nano. Does anyone remember when it was introduced? September 7, 2005; but that&#x2019;s beside the point :-).\n
Oh, and one more thing ... the Nano introduction was memorable.\n
If you believe my three reasons for using stories ... alway have a few stories in your pocket. \n
This October I was in Jonesborough, Tenn. at the 39th National Storytelling Festival. No two speakers were the same, no two stories were the same. People want to know YOUR story. So don&#x2019;t tell someone else&#x2019;s story, tell your own story. 5 STEPS TO GET YOUR STARTED TELLING STORIES: First you need to FIND your story ... it will help you understand who you are.\n
Second step: WRITE it. Forget form, think content. What is your VALUE? How are YOU different? I like LHH&#x2019;s SOAR approach: Situation, Obstacles, Action, Results. Find the essence of your story. Mine? We help people sell. It took me years to find it.\n
Third step: PROVE it. When you tell your story the first thing people ask is &#x201C;Prove it.&#x201D; The facts I gave you made Dad&#x2019;s story believable, but his flight log (TRUST me) is proof &#x2013; it makes it real. \n
Our sales approach is called Convince Me! A sales cycle has 4 phases (see the diagram on the left). We focus on the second phase: EDUCATE. TELL, SHOW, TRY are the key steps in educating your buyer. Wrap in PLAN and SATISFY. Google both words (convince me). Out of about 65 million hits, we&#x2019;re #5 on the first page. Point #4: make your story convincing.\n
My last point &#x2013; #5. I took this photo on the island of Capri. Look at the expressions on their faces. I&#x2019;m sure the guy in the middle is in the middle of a story. A story is not a story unless it&#x2019;s told. Tell your story.\n
Recap: how do you start telling stories? Five steps: 1) find it, 2) write it, 3) prove it, 4) make it convincing, and 5) tell it.\n
This is my son-in-law Kevin in Venice on his birthday. I love this quote by Muriel Rukeyser: &#x201C;The universe is made of stories, not atoms.&#x201D; BASIC physics. The world is full of stories. Go find them.\n
Time to shift gears a bit. We&#x2019;re going to talk about WordPress. Let&#x2019;s talk left-brain for a while. \n
I&#x2019;d like to briefly tell you about 10 things I learned building a product. \n
My storySite is http://theideamechanic.com. It&#x2019;s not really a website, it&#x2019;s a platform for telling stories.\n
Lesson #1: I chose Hostgator. They give you a range of hosting: Shared -> VPS -> Dedicated. Their product is good, their customer service ROCKS! The cost is +/- $100/year. You CAN run a storySite on shared hosting. Would a dedicated or virtual server be better? Maybe. Hostgator offers a one click WordPress install (most hosting services have this &#x2013; warning: one click is NOT enough security but it gets you started). Techie tip: I minify, zip, and cache the code using two plugins. I deliver html pages, but they&#x2019;re built &#x201C;dynamically.&#x201D;\n
Lesson #2: You need both a sandbox (test) and battlefield (production). Play in the sandbox until you like what you&#x2019;ve built. I create a .test subdomain then move it to production. I use BackupBuddy plugin to backup/copy the site.\n
WordPress started as a blogging platform but has become a full-blown Content Management System (CMS) engine. Great examples: UNC-CH Reese news is multi-site WP install, also check out http://wordpress.org/showcase/.\n
4th thing: Wordpress has TONS of resources. I belong to two local RTP WordPress Meetup groups. The WordPress CODEX docs are terse but good. I Googled &#x201C;wordpress&#x201D; and got 2 BILLION hits. SO much is available ...\n
Understand the Wordpress back-end and front-end. The backend starts with a host running MySQL, PHP, and Apache. This is the core of the performance engine.\n
WordPress uses front-end THEMEs to style the GUI &#x201C;presentation.&#x201D; There are thousands of free and paid themes available. I use a framework theme called THESIS (http://diythemes.com/thesis/) from DIY Themes (http://diythemes.com/). I love it. I build my storySites on top of Thesis then I add my own PHP code for logic, CSS code for styling, and Javascript for interactivity (including Javascript framework libraries like jQuery). I use plugins too &#x2013; like sliders from Slidervilla (http://slidervilla.com/).\n
Speaking of plugins, the 7th lesson I learned: leverage other people&#x2019;s code. Warning: it can be both good and bad. Not all plugins are &#x201C;commercial&#x201D; quality. I spent ALOT of time selecting, testing, (and debugging) my storySite plugins.\n
At number 8: Analytics. Yes, Google Analytics is free. At $60/yr for 10 sites ... I chose Clicky Web Analytics (http://getclicky.com/). I like the detail and the simplicity.\n
Let&#x2019;s talk about two SEO types: on-site and off-site. Thesis theme has GREAT on-site SEO. Plugins like &#x201C;All in one SEO Pack&#x201D; (Semper Fi) are excellent. Also, I use a plugin to create a sitemap and ping the search engines automatically.\n
A keyword phrase we focus on &#x201C;help people sell&#x201D; was #1 and #2 out of 620 million hits. Not bad.\n
Off-site SEO. Offload media (videos, photos, audio, slides, ...) to social sharing sites. Use THEIR bandwidth and horsepower, THEIR SEO, YOUR content. Google is indexing Twitter and other social media. Get your keywords out through off-site channels.\n
And here&#x2019;s the last point: #10. Good news: you now have a powerful engine. Bad news: you need to feed the monster. Jot down ideas. Making a scheduled, regular attempt to update. Don&#x2019;t forget why you did all this work. Tell stories. Remember: a story is not a story unless it&#x2019;s told. Tell them.\n
I learned alot. Hopefully you can gain from my pain :-). Let&#x2019;s recap: 1) self-host Wordpress, 2) create test & production sides for your site, 3) Wordpress really is a CMS engine, 4) there are lots of Wordpress resources, 5&6) there are lots of back-end a front-end tools for Wordpress, 7,8,9) leverage with plugins, track with analytics, and pay attention to SEO, and 10) don&#x2019;t forget to feed your monster.\n
Last tip for the day: use the BackupBuddy plugin from iThemes (http://pluginbuddy.com/purchase/backupbuddy/). I use it to move (migrate) sites between test and production. It is an incredibly powerful tool.\n
Hopefully you have a new perspective. We&#x2019;re wired for stories. Short Stories that Sell. Wordpress is an engine!\n
Questions? To learn more, visit http://theideamechanic.com. We help people sell.\n