Simply The Best | Group Writing Project

Thanks to Joanna Young of Confident Writing for coming up with the Simply the Best group writing project. It’s a call to sort through all of your 2008 posts and pick out just one to share. Joanna will be posting the collection. I’m looking forward to reading what others selected and I’ll be back with that link when it goes live. Hat tip to Brad Shorr for sharing his best post and getting me thinking about submitting mine. What’s your best post? Joanna’s keeping entries open until December 28.

Joanna Young’s Simply the Best Group Writing Project: My Entry Storyteller Marketing Search Engine Strategies Coverage

Joanna asked that we use 30 words to characterize our best post.

This post is simply the best because . . . it connects two of my favorite topics: storytelling and marketing, covers an industry event, links to real-life lessons, promotes others, includes insight-full comments and ignites inspiration.

And the back story . . .

It’s not every day that I get to go to an event on a press pass. In fact the last time I did, I went to a gardening show in Chicago to interview Roger Swain, former show host of Victory Gardens, and a few landscape experts. The Chicago Tribune bought the story. It was fun, it was novel, it was about 10 years ago.

I never did it again. But, a few months ago when someone from Chicago Search Engine Strategies called to offer my readers a discount, for some reason I asked them to send me a link to apply for press credentials. I applied, they came through and I got to go to the show – for free.

Although this was my first industry press pass, this was the seventh event I covered. Every post went up almost right away – except one. The storytelling marketing post took over a week to go up. When I went back to my notes, I wanted to give it some life. So, I decided to add links to the case studies mentioned.

What I didn’t mention on the post is that this year I created a program about storytelling for a friend of mine.

A friend in his 80s who asked me to speak to his social group. When I sent him a list of my regular marketing and PR topics, I was almost hoping he’d cancel.

But, the next time I saw Bill he said, “Say, I’d like to talk to you about what you’re going to talk about.”

He wasn’t going to give up.

So, I asked him, “Bill, what do you want me to talk about? What message do you want your friends to hear?”

“I don’t want them to give up on living,” he said. “I want them to keep telling their stories to people of all ages.”

“Life-giving Storytelling: The C-P-R Method” became the title of my simple motivational speech for Bill’s group.

Thanks to Bill, I came up with my own personal perspective of what storytelling is about. Make that storytelling for people of all ages.

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How do you define a “best in class” post?