Thanks to all those who joined us for the roundtable on corporate storytelling at FCCJ – and to those who wanted to join but couldn’t make it.

Special thanks to Rick Wolfe our moderator.

Twenty-three of us had such an animated conversation over lunch that we were by no means finished at two o’clock.

We began with the observation that the essence of any corporate reputation is the story that customers, employees, investors and other stakeholders carry in their heads – also known as “public sentiment.”

As panelist Merle Okawara noted, quoting Abe Lincoln, “public sentiment is everything.” How do you sway public sentiment? By telling stories.

What’s new today is that corporate storytelling is no longer didactic. In the blogosphere anyone can now tell stories about your company. The more sensational they are – and often the more false they are – the faster stories spread today.

In this new environment, companies can no longer “control” their own story… instead they must learn to shape and influence the narrative as one participant in a conversation.

How do you go about doing this?

Listening is good. As one of us observed, “today, everybody is talking. Who’s left to listen?”

One key is to have a strong story and consistently tell it well. And this can give long-established players an advantage. Patricia Bader-Johnson of IBM noted the importance of creation legends, and how the stories told by the founders continue to shape today’s corporations.

Still, as others argued, a seamless history of continued growth does not necessarily add up to a compelling story. Near-death experiences and struggles against long odds win more hearts. People tend to favor underdogs over the omnipotent.

From the conversation, the beginnings of a “recipe” began to emerge:

• Don’t take storytelling for granted!
• Distinguish storytelling from data delivery.
• Develop a storytelling culture – supported from the top.
• Use storytelling to create a shared definition of your company’s culture.
• Don’t carve the story in stone – it needs to evolve!
• Dig for stories within your organization!
• Engage the eyes and the ears at the same time.
• Pay attention to feedback from the story – and measure it!
• Monitor the blogosphere conversation to find what you need to change.
• Listen to the bad news – people will be surprised that you do.
• Respond to false stories with your own story.
• If at first you don’t connect – don’t give up!
• Build a conversation mining tool. Track the conversation volume and intensity.

And finally…

Remember, that at a very fundamental level, storytelling is about humanity. The best stories are carriers of wisdom. That’s why they are so powerful.

At least that’s what I heard. What did you hear?

Best wishes to everyone for a reinvigorating holiday and all-round success in 2008!

John R. Harris

Last word to fellow Torontonian, the late Marshall McLuhan: “In big industry new ideas are invited to rear their heads so they can be clobbered at once. The idea department of a big firm is a sort of lab for isolating dangerous viruses.”