Enlarge. Excel. Evolve.

Story Talks is a series on business storytelling, with short videos (ranging from 2-5 minutes) that answers FAQs on business storytelling.  Guest: Dr Amit Nagpal To watch the complete series, click here

Your story is your brand . But which brand do you build and which story do you tell -organisation or people? Organisations want to build organisation brands, yet people prefer to read people stories. This is one of the greatest paradoxes of branding. It has no simple solutions and the answer varies from situation to situation. One point is common viz to align personal brand with organisation brand, to align people story with organization story and to find the delicate balance. A balance where organisation brand benefits due to the CEO or entrepreneur brand and vice versa. Organisational stories need to be interwoven with people stories to make them more effective and catchy to read.  Twitter and Personal Branding Social media is slightly biased towards people branding, because people want to converse and build relationships with people and not faceless organizations. Social media platforms are also social networking platforms after all.  While Twitter has a bias toward...

Announcement of Winners Thanks for the overwhelming response to our contest with 100 plus entries from different parts of India. Our team of 3 judges (  Prakash Hindustani ,  DrNupur Gupta  and I) have decided the following 3 winners of the contest viz:- First Prize Susan Alexander,  Founder, The Write Concept, Bangalore Second Prize Anuj Kapoor,  Sr Instructional Designer, IBM, Gurgaon  Third Prize J Alchem,  Writer & Reviewer of Books,  Delhi The entries of all the three winners will be published shortly on the Blog. For other details, refer to the following link " The Stuff that Super Heroes are Made of " I thank all the participants on behalf of AL Services for the enthusiastic response. Dr Amit Nagpal 31st October, 2014 The AL Services Story www.dramitnagpal.com www.alservices.in

The AL Services Story The AL Services Story-From Branding the Journey to Bonding the Destination from DrAmit Nagpal

-A Contest for Inspirational Storytellers AL Services , an organisation offering brand storytelling and content development services, announces “ Best Storyteller Contest ”. The contest winners will get opportunities for part time work, prizes, loads of publicity on social media and so on. Topic- My SuperHero from Real Life Word range/ limit -500-750 words Age limit -No age limit Last date for entries - 15th October, 2014 The entry should be in the story format and discuss the story of a superhero from real life, whom you deeply admire. You can also discuss related topics like what goes in the making of a superhero or the essential qualities for a superhero .  First Prize The first prize winner will get a chance; - To have Breakfast or lunch in a five star hotel, with Dr Amit Nagpal (or a cash prize of Rs 10,000/- in case of outstation winner) - To work with Dr Amit, in his forthcoming books on Digital Marketi...

Here are some mini-stories on human bonding and deeper relationships:- Bonding and Higher emotions The disciple, “Guruji, I am very disturbed these days. Are we basically selfish? Are our base feelings stronger than higher emotions? Does our communication reveal our selfishness? Are selfish thoughts the first to come in our mind, even in case of a tragedy? And most importantly are we all selfish or some of us are?” The Guru, “You have fired a volley of questions. Let me answer in brief one by one. Firstly, to make it simple we can have a scale where one end represents base feelings and the other end represents higher emotions. We all belong to different points on the scale depending upon our evolution and level of consciousness. It is like being at different points in the journey.” He continues, “Selfish thoughts often come to the mind first because of our self protection mechanism, yet we also feel guilty. We cannot stop the thoughts from coming yet we can stop them from sta...

The process of brand building and bonding / connecting with clients http://t.co/LViBGtLsb9 — authorSTREAM (@authorSTREAM) August 25, 2014 From Branding to Bonding from DrAmit Nagpal

I was fortunate to listen to  Dr Bala V Balachandran  sometime back. A US based management Guru and Faculty at Kellogs, he is the Founder of Great Lakes Institute of Management (and Co-Founder of MDI, Gurgaon and ISB, Hyderabad).  What struck me were Dr Bala's words, "Today there is obesity of data, yet starvation of information." There is too much data out there, still lack of relevant information and information presented properly in formats such as story. ( Read the full article on LinkedIn )

If you interact with CXOs, top bureaucrats and leaders, senior journalists, top entrepreneurs and so on, networking does not work much. If you deal with high value clients, networking does not help much either. What works then, you must be wondering. I would say, time to bid goodbye to networking and say hello to ‘Bonding’. Bonding is the Vitamin-Connect The inspiration for the title of this article comes from Cliff Richard’s song, “Goodbye Sam, Hello Samantha.” Yes as we gain puberty and hormonal changes take place in the body, we feel a strong physical attraction for the opposite gender. And it is time to say Goodbye Sam (for guys). Similarly one fine day, we grow from young professionals to mature professionals. Irrespective of age, we develop a mature mindset-the mindset of evolving from Networking to ‘Bonding.’ And then the time has come to say, “Goodbye Networking, Hello Bonding.” ( Read the Full Post on LinkedIn )

Let me tell you an interesting story. The story is about two amazing people who have influenced and coached me  Jennifer Sertl  (President, Agility 3R) and  Michael Margolis (Chief Instigator, Get Storied) and the coincidence is that they both are Americans. They have played an important role in my journey and influenced my evolution  from branding to bonding. The American Stereotype I have always been told that USA and its citizens are loyal only to their interests and not to nations and people. I have read articles on how an American asked for a connection fee for connecting people and similar blah blah. The mass media has always given me the impression as if Americans are the most mean people in the world. I have been a victim of stereotyping myself and can empathize with anyone who does not belong to the stereotypes they are associated with. I wrote  an ode to Jennifer  about the ways she has influenced me and keep joking with her, “I am so prou...

Introduction The paradox is that trying to build a brand does not build a brand. What rather builds a brand is mindful content, passionate engagement and soulful collaboration. What builds a brand is perception enhancement over a period of time, sharing our achievements as inspiring stories. What builds a brand is our actions and consolidating our successes. What builds a brand is our love and passion for our domain, the excitement in our speech and the joy in our personality. The two hour talk will focus on:- · The paradox of branding · Personal Branding on social media-The Starting Point · Understanding our audience and its psychology · Enlarge as a collaborator, Excel as a communicator, Evolve into a story narrator · "From Branding to 'Bonding'"-The Journey · From deeper wisdom to deeper connection with customers · Holding your hand in the storytelling journey-The mentor Key takeaways -How to create ...

  Let us understand why we should use stories for brand building in 5 sections viz. 1) How do stories work? 2)  Why stories are best tools for online promotions? 3) How do stories integrate? 4) Why stories for organisation branding? 5) Why stories for personal branding? 6) How stories inspire action? 1) How do stories work? Stories inspire action and also connect emotionally and build reputation. Business is all about building relationships and by staying back in the memory, stories help in connecting people and strengthening relationships. Stories also persuade through embedded messages. In the end, we all will become storytellers. Our hearts connect to stories, our brains are wired for stories and our ears want to listen to stories. We want our stories to be heard because our experiences are stories, our complaints are stories and sometimes the biggest burden on our soul, are our untold stories. Great people / legends leave behind legendary storie...

After 12 years on the storytelling path, Michael Margolis, Chief Instigator,  Get Storied , announced a big next chapter in his professional story last week, the full fledged launch of " Story University ", world’s first university dedicated to professional storytelling. In continuation of my previous compilation of “ Best of the Best Quotes on Storytelling ”, here are some more quotes and musings, from my beloved teacher and leading global voice of business storytelling Michael Margolis. (included in " 100 Geniuses of our Times ") ( Read the full article )

Our previous eBook, " The Power of Storytelling " has got 10,000 + downloads in less than one year (including 5,200 on Scribd itself). Inspired by the immense success of our previous eBook, we decided to inspire 'Aspiring Storytellers' and guide them step by step in the storytelling journey. The eBook also includes sections on Brand Storytelling FAQ, Storytelling on Social media and Resources/suggested readings. Bon Voyage!!! An Introduction My life has been a pretty interesting story. Sometimes I jokingly say, “Sometimes your 'life' itself is such a story, that 'story' has to come to your life.” My beloved teacher  Michael Margolis  says that social media has democratized storytelling and I have joined his movement to spearhead storytelling to the masses. Sometime back, a friend came to me and told me, "I want to be a storyteller too. What can I do to become one or is it a gift from God rather?" I replied with a subtle...

Social and online media have democratised storytelling. The strongest marketing weapon of storytelling is available to everyone today.  The major digital storytelling formats include:- 1) Blog stories 2) Visual storytelling 3) PPT stories 4) Infographics 5) Podcasts 6) eBooks 7) Animation and Video Excited to know more. Read  Digital Storytelling-The Brahmastra Is Now Available To Everyone   (on LinkedIn)