Stories to Persuade

From Fast Company, Want to Create Change?  Tell a Story

Since then, I’ve read a lot of great books on storytelling but I’ve yet to read one that so systematically and convincingly explains the steps for creating the drama and landscape for storytelling as the one I’ve just finished. Authors Richard Maxwell and Robert Dickman, who are consultants in the entertainment industry (if there ever was an industry based on spinning a tale, that’s it), have written "The Elements of Persuasion:   which came out a few months ago.

They suggest that all successful stories have five basic components: the PASSION with which the story is told, a HERO who leads us through the story and allows us to see it through his or her eyes, an ANTAGONIST or obstacle that the hero must overcome, a moment of AWARENESS that allows the hero to prevail, and the TRANSFORMATION in the hero and in the world that naturally results. Sounds a like a Hollywood hit to me. But, reading this book, I became convinced that great leaders are also able to express their reality and vision using this arc to define their story.

PASSION – HERO – ANTAGONIST – AWARENESS – TRANSFORMATION

Health Care Advocate

A new profession is being born to help people navigate the health care maze.

Private health care advocacy is a new and growing field emerging at a time when an increasing number of Americans find themselves dealing with a chronic disease, aging family members or the bureaucracy of health insurance.
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Sarah Lawrence College in New York in 1980 established the first - and still the only - master's degree program in health advocacy and caters to all forms of the practice. Other universities have credentialing programs, but requirements vary. Still, no state has an official licensing process.

Securing Your Own Data

Securing Very Important Data Your Own

For example, the start-up Mint.com won this year’s TechCrunch award for its Swiss Army knife approach to personal financial management. In exchange for customers uploading their account information and allowing sponsors to offer them specialized services, Mint will connect nightly to their credit-card providers, banks and credit unions. Then it automatically updates transactions and accounts, balances their checkbooks, categorizes their transactions, compares cash with debt and, based on their personal spending habits, shops for better rates on new accounts and credit cards.

A powerful project management and collaboration tool called Basecamp allows teams to store online entire project management plans, including performance targets, to-do lists, files, collaborative documents and messages. Provided by 37Signals L.L.C., based in Chicago, Basecamp has more than a million users around the world, including me.

Another site, Dopplr, from a company of the same name based in Finland, is still in its beta-test phase. It lets users upload and share their travel itineraries with a group of “trusted fellow travelers.” The site can connect with Facebook friend lists, and in September it announced that it had opened an invitation-only social network to business travelers from 100 leading companies and international organizations, including Google, I.B.M. and Nokia.

This type of sensitive, sometimes proprietary information was once locked up on hard drives or in file cabinets far away from anything resembling a global or even a local distribution network. Yet none of the users flocking to these services seem perturbed that they have relinquished personal control over this data to companies that, even with the best of intentions, may not be able to keep it safe.

Health Vault

Microsoft  debuts a new web site Health Vault

The tagline Be well.  Protected.

Web site stores medical data privately.

Microsoft Corp. today introduced a Web site designed to enable people to manage and keep track of personal medical information while guaranteeing consumers' privacy.

Microsoft's HealthVault is a free site connected to a health-information search engine the company premiered last month. Users have access to a repository of health-related information and their medical histories, such as immunizations and records from doctor and hospital visits.

"Our focus is simple: to empower people to lead healthy lives," said Peter Neupert, corporate vice president of the Health Solutions Group at Microsoft.

The site targets both consumers and health care organizations, such as hospitals and insurance companies, some of which have been slow adopters of new health-information technology such as HealthVault. The goal of the Web site is to connect the entire health care system over the Internet.