Open up your mind and say, ahh...

Every two months, I pull together a community of innovators. We meet somewhere in New York City, usually a boardroom overlooking a park or cityscape. But last month we all found our way into an acting studio operated by The Actors Institute to learn about storytelling.

The members of this group certainly already know something about the topic. They are senior executives at some of the largest corporations, partners in some of the most prestigious consulting and private equity firms, and several cutting-edge entrepreneurs. But the more you know, the more you realize there is to learn, and this group wanted to learn more about how to use effective storytelling to drive change in and grow their organizations.

The experience shocked me, to be honest. I considered myself an expert and snobbishly thought there was little more to learn. How wrong I was. Here are my two key takeaways from this session. Apply them today at your next meeting or phone call and I am willing to bet you will have a better result.

1) Use lots of LOTS. Our facilitator, Gary Lyons, senior coach at The Actors Institute, told us a story and had us dissect what we remembered. Do this, and you will realize your audience is often checked out, comatose, or unable to hear or remember what you are saying. The key to engage them is to use lots of “language of the senses,” or LOTS. When telling a story, share with us what you see, smell, feel, taste, and hear. When you trigger a sense in someone, you bring them into the story with you.

2) Build on your story spine. At McKinsey, I was taught to open presentations with a standard structure: situation, complication, question, answer. TAI suggests you use a five-step structure and do so not just to open your presentation, but throughout your talk. They call it the “story spine”: reality is introduced, conflict arrives, there is a struggle, the conflict is resolved, a new reality exists. These two tools caused a profound shift in our abilities to tell effective stories.

Not convinced? Let me try the story spine with lots of LOTS then:

Reality introduced: A dark room is filled with 20 executives and entrepreneurs resting on chairs in rows facing two director chairs. The door closes, snuffing out the faint sound of New York traffic.

Conflict introduced: Our facilitator, Gary, begins scratching markers on flip charts. He is there to teach us about storytelling. But all I can think about is, “This is a highly accomplished group; they know all of this already. Will we learn anything new?”

Struggle: Gary tells us to use “language of the senses,” but someone complains, “You can’t talk like that at a board meeting,” to which Gary points out that if you talk differently than people expect you to, they are more likely to listen and remember.

Conflict resolved: Gary gently bats back every concern this Type A group lobs at him, patiently walking us through the journey. By the end he has us on the edge of our seats.

New reality: We close with a “before and after” exercise. One of our members gets up to practice a pitch; he is raising money for an energy tech venture. He starts speaking, but I just can’t follow. When he finishes, I realize I have not heard a word. Gary coaches him–lots of LOTS, story spine, look us in the eye, take us in–and the speaker tries again. Now it is all waterfalls of electricity pouring down the mountain, the opportunity to create something and break through with passion. I heard every word, and so much more.

That is the impact that two tools can have in your ability to tell stories–about the company you are building, the project you are leading, the life you live. You can enroll people more completely and emotionally in your mission. Here is how you can put it to use now:

1) Think of a presentation or pitch you will be giving in the next seven days.

2) Write out your presentation as a story, longhand, on paper, using the story spine.

3) Brainstorm a list of LOTS (language of the senses) you want to embed into your story.

Image: Flickr user saipal

HOLLISTER, California — Mike Corbin fiddles with his coffee cup as he sits in his ’50s-style diner, a bit of kitsch he added to his warehouse on the outskirts of town. This is not the Hollister you see advertised on the shirts and sweatpants worn by teenagers. It’s industrial, gritty, a little run down. But for Corbin it is heaven, a place where his dreams once came true.

And might yet again.

Corbin built this diner so customers could grab a bite after wheeling their motorcycles into his garage for a new saddle. This is what he’s famous for, what got him inducted into the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame more than a decade ago. Corbin, 68, made his name stitching custom motorcycle saddles and selling custom motorcycle parts.

But for about 10 minutes a long time ago, Corbin was famous for something else: The Sparrow, a funky, futuristic electric car that he hopes to see fly once again.

Photo: Courtesy Corbin Motors

Corbin was in the right place at the right time with the Sparrow. The place was the San Francisco Auto Show. The time was 1996. Corbin, who by this time had amassed a fortune selling motorcycle seats, showed up with the Sparrow. It was an odd little car, not unlike an Ugg on wheels. Three wheels, to be exact. It looked like something you might see in The Smurfs. Corbin was pretty sure he would be laughed out of the show. The exact opposite happened.

“We took a million dollars worth of orders,” Corbin says, smiling. The years melt from his face as he tells the story for what must be the 10,000th time. You get the impression he never grows tired of this tale.

It was the car enviros had been dreaming of. Small. Electric. Relatively affordable. So what if it could seat just one person and was ugly as hell? Those who loved it saw only the beauty of a car that didn’t burn gasoline. General Motors had just introduced the EV1, whetting greenies’ appetites for an electric car.

“It looked like the world was going to change,” well-known EV advocate Chelsea Sexton said of the mood at the time. And here was Corbin, one of the first entrepreneurs with a plan to feed them.

Corbin had done what his father had told him he should never do. He had built a car, a dream he’d chased since he was a teenager. Here was his golden opportunity. Battery electric vehicles were in their infancy. Bay Area “treehuggers” (Corbin’s word) were ready, willing and able to plunk down almost 14 grand to drive an electric bean. It was emissions-free, after all.

The window was wide open. All Corbin Motors had to do was shove some electric cars through it.

There was just one problem.

“We had no possibility of delivering a second car,” says Corbin. “We had no employees.”

Corbin Motors had no factory, no parts, no assembly line and no idea how to mass-produce cars.

Standing in his warehouse now, his voice trailing off, Corbin is obliged to continue his rags-to-riches-to-rags tale. It’s the only way to get to the latest chapter, about the rebirth, or re-hatching, if you will, of the Sparrow. He lovingly, if not ironically, calls it Sparrow 2. But we’re getting ahead of the story.

After the unexpected and overwhelming response to the Sparrow, it took Corbin another year to deliver four more cars. “We painted them all a different color to make it seem like we were a big deal,” he says.

Meanwhile, the phone was ringing. And ringing. And ringing. At one point Corbin Motors had $40 millions in orders. People were rabid to get their piece of the green dream. But Corbin couldn’t deliver.

“We bit off more apple than we could chew,” said Corbin. “We were under-capitalized from day one. Our single biggest problem was everybody loved the car, but then we didn’t give to them.”

Production slowly ramped up, and Corbin started delivering cars in 1998. They cost $13,999. Chad Wells fell in love.

“I first saw them for sale on the cover of the Gadget Universe catalog that came to my house in 1999,” said Wells, who now owns not one but two Sparrows. “I wanted to buy one.”

Buyers loved them. But problems at the factory piled up almost immediately. First and foremost was the battery technology. In a word, it sucked. A lot of people found themselves stranded on the side of the road.

Remember, this was long before lithium-ion batteries, smartphone-enabled battery management systems and public charging stations. The EV1 and Toyota RAV4 EV had only recently hit the road. Corbin was using lead-acid batteries, the same kind under the hood of your hoopty right now. They’re heavy, they don’t offer much range and they aren’t very durable in an EV application. When one battery in the pack goes down, the whole system goes haywire and you’re left with a zero-emissions paperweight.

Photo: Courtesy Corbin Motors

Mechanical issues, particularly with the motor controllers, didn’t help things any. And then there were management issues, complicated by the fact Mike Corbin wasn’t actually an officer in Corbin Motors. The way Corbin tells it, Corbin Motors was a separate entity from the motorcycle accessories company, and it licensed the Sparrow from Mike Corbin. It’s all very confusing, but suffice to say it wasn’t a good way to run a business.

“I think the fairest thing to say is they weren’t able to figure out how to take a good idea to market and make it profitable,” Corbin said. “They were in over their heads.”

Throw in an economic downturn and you can see where the story leads even before Corbin mentions the 2003 bankruptcy that finally killed Corbin Motors.

“We lost our personal wealth” said Corbin, pointing to his longtime business partner and current CEO of Corbin Motors Anthony Luzi. “We lost everything.”

All told, Corbin Motors delivered 289 cars before it all went bad. Another 75 were in various stages of completion. But even as the company was crashing and burning, people were lining up for cars. Wells finally got his first Sparrow in 2004.

“The attention was ridiculous,” he said of the reaction he got to the car. “It was almost dangerous. Then, and still now, people would do anything to get a picture of it. That includes anything from being cut off and forced to stop to having other drivers taking photos while they drive next to you, while not paying attention to the road and almost killing both of us.”

It is interesting to note the company with which ended up with the remnants of the Sparrow, Myers Motors, claims it will have a an electric three-wheeler ready for delivery this year.

Fast forward to the modern day. Selling motorcycle seats made Corbin a very wealthy man, but he remains equally proud of the Sparrow. He thinks its time has come. Again.

He isn’t entirely wrong. Electric vehicles, once on the fringe, are now, well, at least approaching mainstream with cars like the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt. Tesla Motors has proven that commodity lithium-ion cells can make a damn fine battery pack. Hell — even Aptera Motors almost made a run at it with a teardrop-shaped electric three-wheeler that looked more like a Cessna than a Civic.

If they can do it, Corbin reasons, so can he.

“The Sparrow was my best idea,” he said. “And all of sudden the world is ready. What are we gonna do, let it pass us by? We have proven we can sell a three-wheel electric car, and now the technology is there.”

Corbin is serious. But not everyone sees the Sparrow flying again. And it’s hard to see who’d buy one when you can get an electric car with four doors, five seats and a warranty backed by a company that actually knows how to build cars.

“It remains to be seen whether the public is ready for a three-wheeled vehicle, let alone a one-seater,” Sexton said. “I can go get a new Mitsubishi iMiev that seats five for $19,000 after incentives. I want to root for them all, but there is a bit of a reality check involved.”

Corbin is not deterred. He hopes to have the Sparrow ready to roll by the end of the year. Never mind that he doesn’t have the final specs or even a drawing to show us, let alone a running prototype. But no matter — he’s got a website!

We’ve seen this before, of course. History is littered with the shattered dreams of automotive entrepreneurs who thought they had A Great Idea. More than a few of those entrepreneurs thought they could sell electric vehicles. Corbin knows this. Yet he insists he will succeed.

The way he sees it, he doesn’t have to start over. He just has to pick up where he left off.

BARCELONA: Adobe Photoshop Express is a great, free and highly usable iOS app for quickly fixing up your digital photos, but it pales in comparison to the desktop version of Photoshop. Last year Adobe introduced a solution: Photoshop Touch, but chose to bring it to the Android Tablet market first. Now, as promised, Adobe is finally bringing that powerful image editing capability to Apple‘s iPad 2. The company will announce the new app today in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress.

Editor’s note: This story was intended to be confidential until 9 p.m. Pacific Time on Sunday night, but 9 to 5 Mac broke that embargo, so that’s why we’re publishing this story early.

For $9.99, iPad 2 owners (sorry, there’s currently no iPad 1 support) get the ability to work in layers, use “sophisticated” selection tools and “scribble” over images to remove unwanted portions. Users will also be able to touch up photos, paint over them and create new layouts. The new app is part of Adobe’s upcoming suite of iPad “Touch” Apps. “Inspired by Adobe’s Creative Suite,” the apps include:

Adobe Collage; Adobe Debut presentation software; Adobe Ideas, which will be similar to the Illustrator vector-based desktop drawing software; Adobe Kuler color theme manager; and website- prototyping and wireframe tool Adobe Proto. Adobe said these remaining apps will launch for iOS later this year and will all work with Adobe’s Creative Cloud services.

Other features in Adobe Touch for iPad include the ability to share to Facebook directly from the app, search, using Google, from within the app, apply sophisticated image effects, and even use your tablet’s built-in camera to fill in portions of your image project.

“Photoshop Touch combines the magic of Photoshop and its core features with the convenience of a tablet, bringing image-editing power to the fingertips of millions of people,” said David Wadhwani, Adobe’s Digital Media Business Unit senior vice president and general manager.

Adobe’s Photoshop Touch requires iOS 5 and will be available in the App Store on Monday, February 27. Although 9 to 5 Mac reported it was available now in New Zealand and Australia, the app has since been removed from the App Store, set to become available worldwide on Monday. The 9 to 5 Mac site also reported some of its readers saying the iPad 2 version “works better than the Android version.”

Will you pay nearly $10 for this tablet-based image editing app, or are instant effects-generators and editors like Instagram and Adobe Express sufficient for your image-editing needs? Let us know in the comments.

Airline passengers will face the long lines, interminable delays and frustrating backups that come with holiday travel. Through it all, they’ll also have to decide whether to submit to one of the 500-plus x-ray or radio wave scanners found in airports nationwide and wonder about their safety.

Much of the debate surrounding the increasingly common security scanners revolves around their effectiveness and privacy. But the health implications are coming to the fore as the European Union bans x-ray scanners because of health concerns. Many EU nations will instead use millimeter-wave, lower frequency scanners.

Both types use a beam of electromagnetic energy to create an image of a passenger — sans clothing — in an effort to detect weapons and other contraband. Millimeter wave scanners use a portion of the spectrum close to microwaves, while x-ray scanners, of course, use the higher frequency x-ray portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Both devices collect the scattered waves that reflect off the body to create an image.

The dose of radiation from the x-ray scanners is very low. But whether it is low enough to be harmless remains a lingering question.

A recent report by ProPublica and PBS uncovered concerns over the level of radiation passengers are exposed to. Although the dose is very low, the scanners still violate “a longstanding fundamental principle of radiation safety — that humans shouldn’t be x-rayed unless there is a medical benefit,” the report states. There also is the concern that repeated exposure to even low doses of radiation could be a problem.

According to the story, research suggests “anywhere from six to 100 U.S. airline passengers each year could get cancer from the x-ray backscatter machines,” based on roughly 100 million passengers flying annually. The report also questions why the decision to deploy x-ray scanners was made by the Transportation Security Administration, not the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates drugs and medical devices that can affect public health.

The TSA argues the radiation poses very little threat to human health compared to the security provided by the devices.

“It’s a really, really small amount relative to the security benefit you’re going to get,” Robin Kane, the agency’s assistant administrator for security technology, told ProPublica.

In response to the ProPublica/PBS report, the FDA said the risk of getting cancer is just 1 in 400 million. The agency also clarified several points made in the story.

And as our colleagues at Threat Level noted, Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory analyzed the Rapiscan 1000 x-ray scanner and published the leading and most often-cited study (.pdf) in October 2010. The 49-page report, released in a redacted form, says the machines leak virtually no radiation to TSA staff and nearby passengers and expose the person being scanned to a fraction of the maximum exposure level deemed medically safe.

“You would have to go through the scanner 1,000 times to equate to one medical x-ray,” said Peter Kant, Rapiscan’s executive vice president, summarizing the study. “You get twice as much radiation when eating a banana than when going through the scanner.”

But critics note the mechanical beam’s intensity level has not been published, making it impossible to evaluate the safety claims. Moreover, medical x-ray machines disperse radiation throughout the body, whereas the airport scanners penetrate to about skin level. That means there is a high concentration of radiation on a single organ — the skin.

Questions remain regarding the safety of the scanners and whether such tests were bungled, the manner in which they were placed into widespread use and just how effective they are. There also have been questions about the connection between Rapiscan, which produces the scanners, and former TSA boss Michael Chertoff. Chertoff’s consulting firm had done work for Rapiscan. Both companies deny anything inappropriate occurred.

Beyond the health concerns and the EU ban on x-ray scanners, France and Germany stopped using millimeter wave radio scanners because of numerous false positive results.

According to a separate story about the effectiveness of the scanners, of all the passengers singled out for closer scrutiny after being scanned by millimeter wave machines, pat-down searches revealed more than half of them posed no threat at all. The most mundane things, like sweat and folds in clothing, were among the things contributing to false positives.

Several tests of both types of scanners have shown they are effective at detecting items like guns and knives, but no more so than much cheaper metal detectors already in use. Other tests have shown explosives can be hidden on the body in a manner unlikely to be detected by those monitoring images generated by the scanners.

Passengers do not have a choice whether they are being scanned in a millimeter wave scanner, which resembles a phone booth with glass walls, or an x-ray scanner in which they stand between two large boxes. Airports often have one or the other, but they typically are not used for every security line.

There are roughly 250 x-ray machines and 260 millimeter wave machines in use nationwide. The TSA plans to deploy a total of 1,800 scanners by 2014.

In writing and movies and storytelling, there’s always the question of point of view. From whose eyes will we see the story? Who will lead us into this world? In Harry Potter, the title character is our point of view, and we experience all the magic from the eyes of someone who was seemingly normal, like us. Most stories start like that. They lead us in from “what was” into “the exciting new part.” Jaws starts with Chief Martin Brody trying to be the best dad and chief he can be, and ends with all kinds of crazy. But Brody’s our point-of-view character.

As creators (or marketers), our role is to tell a story. Quite often, we make the “hero” of the story the focus of our time and our attention. If our customer is the hero, we talk about him or her. If we make our company the hero, we try to personify that experience that makes it worth it. If we write about ourselves, that’s probably the easiest kind of hero to write about.

What we miss, most times, is the importance of setting.

The Setting For Your Story

Spider-man swings from building to building in New York City. Can you imagine what it would be like to fire those web shooters and try to swing around in Billings, Montana? Hint: there aren’t enough skyscrapers to make it easy for Spidey to chase after the bad guys. Tarzan either gets to hang out in the jungle or the big city, depending on the telling of the story. He rarely hangs out in Pittsfield, Maine. Settings, as it turns out, are every bit as important to what we feel about characters and the plot as anything else in the story.

What does this have to do with marketing and business? Everything. If you think for a moment that your business exists without some kind of setting, even if it’s an online-only virtual business, then you’re missing a very important element to how you tell the story of your business to buyers and other important people. When we listen to a story (or watch it, or retell it), the setting is just as communicated as the characters in the transmission.

What is AJ Bombers if it’s not the local area place to gather and have fun with a side of burgers? Owner Joe Sorge just proved that you can have more than one AJ Bombers and still deliver that destination effect of fun, but he did it by making the setting of the restaurant be every bit as well-considered as the grass-fed beef he chooses for his burgers.

What are the Elements of Your Setting?

In a western movie, you know there will be gunfights. You know there will be wrongs that need righting. You know there will be a setting pairing off law enforcement with someone who feels they are above the law. Those are the promises of a western’s setting.

If I were restoring a classic old hotel in Tallahassee, Florida, and turning it into a destination boutique hotel, with a happening rooftop bar and an award-winning steak restaurant, I would do a few things to make this story sing. One, I would cast the guest as the hero of the story. No one comes to a hotel to meet the owner. It’s not the same as a restaurant. Two, I would tell the story from the front desk, through the lobby, into the elevator, down the halls, and all the way into the room, such that my guests understood what the “promise” of this setting would be.

Beyond the promise, there’s interaction. At AJ Bombers, I interact with their p-nut bombs: metal bomb-shaped containers that travel on rails from the bar to various tables, “bombing” guests with peanuts. The whole thing is absurd, kid-approved, and unique. Settings have interaction.

After promise and interactive elements, there’s the ways in which the setting helps or hinders the hero. In my hotel example, perhaps the setting helps me feel more metropolitan. In the western, the creek might rise and cut off Mother McCluskey’s farm, requiring me to ride out with my men to get her to safety (thus, a hinderance).

But Why Think About All This When Thinking About Business?

Because we humans build this in, whether or not you supply it. What is the iPod? It’s the opportunity to be the salvation DJ at some party, where you bring your tunes to help fix the setting of a sleepy party about to fail. That’s the story we might consider, whether or not we do it consciously. What is the setting for the car you drive? If you’re a Prius owner, you’ve set yourself as a hero who saves the planet and a few bucks at the same time, and so the setting of your vehicle travels through is a world seeking answers about making the world better. As a Camaro driver, my setting is the unintentional race course.

I’m saying that we all fill in the gaps in a setting, whether or not you’ve considered them to be part of your business. If you’re a PR company in Des Moines, how do you tell the story to your buyers such that it incorporates your locale? Maybe you do it by talking about how important community development opportunities are for your business. Maybe if you’re a business technology firm in Tallahassee, you talk about being situated deep in the heart of the growing Midtown area, which is cutting edge and trendy.

What About You?

How do you view setting? What does it mean for your business? How does it impact what you do or say about your company or yourself? And how replaceable is setting to your story?

I’m currently reading and taking notes from Tell to Win (amazon affiliate link), by Peter Guber. The big premise of the book is that if you learn how to tell a better story, a compelling story, then it will get you much further than numbers alone, or the straightforward facts. As I’ve been revising how I do my professional speaking, this kind of work has been on my mind.

But it applies to you. Most companies, if they tell the story of their business, tell only the “origin” story. “Grandma had a great idea for a cookie back in 1929, and from there, we’ve built the business into a global company dedicated to bringing the best cookies ever.” Well great. Except that’s a fairly brief synopsis, and it doesn’t tell the story of now very well. So, what would it mean to tell your story?

What Story Do People Want?

Even when you’re telling the story of you, people want to see themselves in that story. When I talk about my struggles on the way to building my business, people pay attention to the parts where they can draw comfort from the fact that I wasn’t always successful. They react when I talk about how I couldn’t even pay the bills some months. They see themselves in those moments, and they see bits of hope because maybe that’s where they are in their telling of their own story: at the hard parts.

Above all, I believe people want the story that helps them relate to you and your business.

What else do they want? They want the story of how your products and services will make them the hero. When I see a car commercial and it tells me about fuel efficiency or 0% APR financing, I think of it as such a waste. I know that we want these things from the practical side, but that’s not what sells us on a car, is it? When you see the Mini Cooper, you might think, “Boop boop. I’m a kind of hip person and this is a kind of hip car.” When you see the Ford F250, you think, “I do tough work and I need a tough truck.” Whatever the story, you want to identify with that vehicle as it applies to your own story.

Other Stories to Tell

People love the “how things are made” stories. In Tallahassee, I learned about BevShots from Lester Hutt. He sells beautiful images of the crystals left by different alcoholic spirits. You’ve got to see them to get what I’m talking about. But when you hear about it, you can’t help but appreciate how cool the idea is, and learning how they came about makes it more interesting to want to own them.

People love the “rags to riches” story, especially if the “riches” part is tempered by showing off what a “regular guy” you still are. People also love the “rags to riches to charitable works” story, where you show off just how you’re giving back to the world around you, now that you’ve made it.

And there are many other stories that are useful to those who want to do business with you.

Stories Are A Learning Opportunity

Quite often, we learn through hearing a story. You can hear someone say “don’t text and drive,” but when you hear the story of a promising 17-year-old football hopeful who looked down to see who texted, only to fly off the road, hit a tree, and vanish from this earth, it changes how you consider the information. Stories can give us an emotional connection to data. Stories can compel us to reinforce our opinion, or to shift our perspective. And from that, we can then be further educated.

So, with that in mind, what stories have you told or can you tell about your business? What story would help people better understand you? What story from a movie or a book resonates strongly with what you believe in for yourself? And how will that help you?