This is the latest in a series of blogs on what we at Present Tense LLC call a “Master Story”. In this installment, Frank Luby looks at the role the Master Story plays in helping professionals use storytelling to establish their name and reputation. Read the first part of the series, on why you need a Master Story, here. The next time you have a few minutes to fill, start a list. Write down a few things you wish your customers knew about you. Don’t sort it yet, and don’t over

As a founding member of Race2Rebuild, a charity racing team raising money for disaster recovery projects, I’ve been lucky enough to help plan and attend ‘build days’. These are large events where hundreds of people from all walks of life come together to do good for a day by working to rebuild communities destroyed after natural disasters. Individuals and other charity organizations are part of the mix, but there are always teams of company employees that turn up for the day

A simple Internet search will tell you that the average amount of time it takes a person to learn to play the violin properly (which I assume means well enough that the instrument rarely makes the ear-piercing shriek of a misplayed string) is two to three years. I can't speak to the accuracy of that yet, but I hope to be able to confirm it in roughly 20 to 32 months. Having taught myself to play the guitar some years ago, I recently decided to do the same with an even more co

I’m a soccer (or, really, football) fan. Having followed the sport, and only that sport, for years, it wasn’t much of a shock that many within and contributing to FIFA are being accused of corruption. What was a shock was when someone exposed it. While crimes are still alleged, the evidence trails are public as are the resignations and confessions. What was most interesting is that much of the investigation was triggered by and reported by not authorities, but investigative j

When Scott Borchetta walked on stage last week in Nashville to accept an award from the industry association MusicBiz, he had a message written on his suit sleeve which said “Music has value”. Yes, that message seems trivial and obvious. After all, you don’t see executives attend other industry conferences writing messages like “software has value” or “football has value” on their designer clothes. But when the American Idol mentor, who founded Big Machine Records and signed

Let me begin this article by saying that hiking is nothing new to me. I know, I know, as The Bard himself so eloquently put it: "The lady doth protest too much, methinks" (Queen Gertrude in Act III, Scene II of Hamlet, for the unaware). But it's true. I was somewhat forcibly enrolled into a program in high school that included two intense camping/bonding experiences per year that always involved serious treks. And then there are the four years I spent in the Marines that invo

Our more diligent followers may recall when I wrote my earlier post extolling the universal virtues of Mystery Science Theater 3000, I therein lamented that my fellow writer Elana had already written a piece on one of my favorite works of literature, Catch-22. Forgiveness is forthcoming. I also mentioned the unlikelihood of being able to write a business-relevant piece based around another of my favorite pieces of literature: the sci-fi epic Dune. Having recently given it my

- Elana Duffy There is a point in our business lives where we can all set aside our pre-supposed differences and get along. Reaching that point should be a goal for all of us, not just because it’s nice to think we can all sit and have coffee together, but because we need to do this for the betterment of business and productivity. I am an engineer. Engineers build. We think logically: we have a train of thought that boards at a station, travels a defined path, and disembarks

- Paul Mooney Creative writing is not something reserved only for those dreaming of selling their first literary masterpiece to the world at large. Storytelling is a key element of many things we do in business, from presentations to white papers (to stories at the water cooler, but we are trying to stay in the non-fiction realm here). I'll clear up any mystery right off the bat: the hard part is actually writing something. Not all that mysterious of a revelation, I grant you

- Stacey Ebert Companies have many similarities to schools, only now we are all grown up. Jobs replace assignments, bosses replace teachers, and paychecks replace grades on report cards. Just as students want to impress their teachers, today it’s adult employees feeling the same about their supervisors. Valuing employees benefits all parties and might just be the secret to maintaining the best talent. Regardless of age, we all like to feel valued. Whether it’s public or one-o

- Paul Mooney Let me begin by directing you to the earlier post from Present Tense partner Elana Duffy highlighting the good business sense to be taken from Joseph Heller's classic novel Catch-22. It inspired me to write a similar article about my favorite novel, but since that's also Catch-22, that was a no-go. And since my second favorite novel is Frank Herbert's epic Dune, I figured I'd choose a different medium as I'm not quite sure how to tie a tale of space witches, sem

We’ve published our first “self-help” ebook on storytelling skills Present Tense LLC is launching a series of ebooks aimed at executives, managers, and others who would like straightforward, simple ways to improve their storytelling skills. The first one has finally hit the ebook shelves: 10/10: How to write business content that is memorable and effective. Now available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and iTunes and other major platforms, this quick read will help you generate

- Stacey Ebert Professional development can be a trial. No one wants to sit through monotone presentations or worse, click-through online training that takes them away from the mounting pile of work sitting on their desk. That’s true no matter how strong our love for broadening horizons and expanding our knowledge. The irony is that professional development is critical to employee engagement, yet it often comes across as dull, mindless, and lacking energy. If those presentati

Paul Mooney As someone who spent four years as an officer in the Marines, I'm no stranger to large, complex operations. Weeks, months even, of hard work comprised of long, slow periods of planning punctuated by intense moments of stress that can last for days. Since leaving the service I’ve thankfully not encountered similar situations, but the last few months I've spent producing a TV pilot I wrote has come extremely close. While this particular task is by no means a commonl

Elana Duffy Veteran’s Day, Armistice Day, whatever you call it in your country, the idea is the same in many countries that took part in the First World War: honor and remembrance to those who fought for freedoms, and those who laid down their lives to protect their countrymen. It is a day of peace and respect. Being a veteran, it seemed prudent to address the concept of expanding some timeless leadership techniques from the battlefield to management. Love or loathe the milit

Paul Mooney A screenplay probably looks like a strange piece of work from the perspective of someone unfamiliar with how scripts are written. The text is in widely-spaced blocks of varying widths, some words and lines are in all capital letters, and most of the pages look pretty sparse compared to the average essay or book. But screenplays are actually written with some very simple and specific objectives in mind that are applicable in any form of writing. Every word has purp

- Elana Duffy My favorite book is Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Between the sardonic humor, sarcasm, and - however ridiculous the book may seem - truisms of military life, it has captured my attention time and again. It is different; it emulates none of the other stories of its time, and continues to challenge me as a reader to notice something new with each reading. Not to mention its accuracies that apply to other aspects of life, such as business. Having left the military and

- Paul Mooney In my last post I covered one of the biggest impediments to creativity in advertising and business: fear. This time I'll be addressing an even more universal hurdle to creative progress: laziness. While it’s certainly not as daunting a word as fear, laziness is an equally pervasive problem. So how do you identify it, prevent it, and stop it? Obviously, laziness is a pretty broad term widely used to describe personal faults. Lazy people or groups of people are, b

- Frank Luby One week after an EF4 tornado destroyed Marysville, Indiana in March 2012, I performed clean-up work as part of a United Way effort. As the sun set through the mangled trees on that Saturday afternoon, another volunteer made a comment that has stuck with me ever since. “You know, it’s amazing how much you can get done when there are no leaders around,” he said. His comment triggered questions I’d never thought to ask before this experience. How can a group of tot

- Frank Luby The call came as midnight approached, along with my deadline. I was in the office of the Maroon, the University of Chicago’s student newspaper. On the other end of the line was Stevie Ray Vaughan, sitting in a downstate hotel room. He sounded exhausted, but said he was ready to talk for an article that would run on the front-page of the Maroon’s arts supplement. And talk he did. He took me behind the scenes of his hectic schedule and his band’s upcoming album. He