Every week, we distribute an internal email about what we’ve been reading. As you’d expect, the topics are quite diverse but almost all of them have some connection to our work here. Here, we share it with you as well (with references to some secret projects edited out). 

We haven’t hit peak storytelling yet, but there are a lot of interesting stories about storytelling worth reading this week.

Mel points us to an Alan Alda interview in the NYT on his work to help train scientists so they can communicate to a wider audience. Mel writes, “I hadn’t realized it, but he founded the Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook in 2009. I think we face a similar struggle when we try to get technologists to tell an engaging story.”

Annie lets us know about this blog entry, which covers “getting people to think about content first, design second. It mostly refers to physical/digital content/copy in a website and the like, but same principles can be applied to how we refer to content (as a story, narration, etc.).”

Stories can come in many forms. Nancy Duarte has “Slidedocs,” a new book in PowerPoint form; in essence, it’s a book in PowerPoint arguing for delivering books in PowerPoint. The idea she’s promoting is PowerPoint you read rather than PowerPoint you get presented. The book has a commercial purpose — it promotes her company’s collection of  PowerPoint diagrams — but it’s a useful resource for any company trying to improve its deliverables.

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