Financial Storyteller

Interview with Kathy Hansen on A Storied Career

This week I am thrilled to see a Q&A piece I did for Kathy Hansen run on her blog, A Storied Career.  There are five questions and answers, one of which Kathy is posting each day. Kathy's site "... explores intersections/synthesis among various forms of Applied Storytelling ..." and as part of this she has a long running series of Q&As with a wide range of storytellers. These include notable writers such as Annette Simmons and Lori Silverman, both of which I've mentioned before in my own posts. There are many other story practitioners as Kathy describes them, equally as interesting and it's great to join the list.

I don't think Kathy has interviewed herself yet which is a shame as I think her Q&A would definitely make good reading. Here's an excerpt from her bio (click here to read it in full).

Katharine (Kathy) Hansen, Ph.D., creative director of Quintessential Careers, is an author and instructor, in addition to being a career expert. Her books include Dynamic Cover Letters (more than 100,000 copies sold), Write Your Way to a Higher GPA, and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Study Skills, written with Dr. Randall S. Hansen, as well as Dynamic Cover Letters for New Graduates (11,000+ copies sold), and A Foot in the Door: Networking Your Way into the Hidden Job Market, published by Ten Speed Press, and Top Notch Executive Resumes: Creating Flawless Resumes for Managers, Executives, and CEOs (Career Press) and Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling to get a Job and Propel Your Career (JIST Publishing, April 2009). 

There are many many forms of storytelling in many different fields. My interest is of course in business and specifically the stories told by the financials within them. Whether working as a part-time CFO for early stage companies, a senior employee in a large organisation or as a consultant to both it is clear to me that the ability to translate copious and often complicated numbers into a coherent and easily understood story is a key business skill.

The questions and answers in Kathy's interview hopefully give some insight into this. You can read the first installment here and click through to find subsequent pieces. If you would like to contribute to the discussion then I encourage you to comment over on A Storied Career, where I will join you!

 

Coming Soon: Case Study Series on Financial Storytelling

Over the coming weeks I will be posting a series of short financial storytelling case studies. The aim of these is to provide insight into what financial storytelling is and how it can be applied. Subscribe to this site to be notified when the series launches and also to stay up to date with the latest news from Stewart.

SFU Social Innovation Business Case Competition

Last weekend I was asked to judge another business case competition, this time at SFU Surrey. The competition was titled the the SFU Social Innovation Case Competition, with some prize money provided by the CMA Centre for the students.

The students were all under-graduates and the case they were presented with was hard. The competition is amongst other things, a training ground for the students who try to get on the various SFU Case Competitions that compete around the world and locally (e.g. CaseIT). (oh if only they had such things when I was an undergraduate!) This case was rather different, as it involved a philanthropic activity by a major corporation which was 'for profit' rather than a straight forward foundation or 'non-profit.'

I'm not convinced at the end of the day whether the students came up with any ideas that would actually fly in the real world. However, what I will say is that I am convinced they should be trying! Maybe it's the idea of redistributing wealth from those who have to those who don't, or the growth of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) as a business fad, or even the response of the world to a global economic crisis that makes us want to think different. Whatever it is I think that engaging students NOW is important.

Clifford Stoll commented in his TED speech that if you want to know about the future you should talk to a good kindergarten teacher - they see if every day. Judging by the enthusiasm and effort that all the competitors put in on Saturday I am sure that this is where the answers will come from. Even if I'm wrong, I would still say the student's contribution to the discussion is absolutely key.

It's the first time the Social Innovation competition has been run and in that context it's a great start. There was plenty of feedback from the judges both in terms of what the case was about and how it can improve next time around. Personally, I can't wait.

Note: I just found the inov8.ca blog connected with the above, say the name out loud :-)

Atomica Creative's take on Financial Storytelling - Updated

Last week I was featured on the Network Insider by Tatsuya Nakagawa. Network Insider is the monthly newsletter of Atomica Creative and I was pleased to answer Tatsuya's questions about Financial Storytelling. I will link to the interview directly in a separate post but first I wanted to share some of Tatsuya's comments about the subject which he used to introduce me.

[UPDATE: Here is a link to the interview]

... I was intrigued by his description of himself as so often we are presented with numbers that, recently frankly are quite appalling. As we struggle to understand the meaning behind these numbers, we look to financial storytellers to interpret them for us.
 
The good ones put striking numbers in context and, beyond just helping us to interpret them, get us excited about what they mean for the future. Understanding the past is the first step, understanding what this means for the future and the opportunities it opens up for us personally and for our businesses is the next, key step.
 
As we are constantly bombarded with numbers and headlines about those numbers that can be misleading, the role of the financial storyteller becomes even more important.
 
The storyteller these days need not only be an expert at his or her craft but also at intersecting with technology in such a way that the word gets spread efficiently to the key people who need and can use it.
 
I'll give you an example of a quote in an article I saw just the other day. "Contrary to popular belief, sales of green products are not tanking in a down economy". While this opening line makes me feel good about the opportunities in the green economy, a few paragraphs later (after many readers would have lost interest) I found the following paragraph:
 
....sales of green products are up 4.1 percent, driven mostly by price increases, as unit sales in this category dropped 6.6 percent in 2008.
 
This information, of course, leads one to the exact opposite conclusion, hence the need for not only storytellers, but trusted ones. And as we are all increasingly wired, we look to storytellers who can not only tell our story, but also have the social media savvy to disperse that information across the web using the most effective social media tools to reach our target audience.
 
As business owners, we all struggle to get our message across in a way that is effective and interesting. Creating interest leads to increased understanding and demand, whether for our product or to invest in our companies.
 
Using the multitude of new tools available on the web from Flickr and YouTube to Slideshare and Twitter we look to financial storytellers to help us get the message across to our stakeholders in an a way that is interesting, creative and above all trustworthy.

I agree with Tatsuya on this, trust is a very important element of telling financial stories. For some the fact that I a Certified Management Accountant in Canada and a Chartered Management Accountant in the UK helps to build trust. For others it is the recommendations and endorsements of others that makes the difference. Yet others make up their own mind based on a face to face meeting or series of meetings - my preferred method and one that is mandatory at the end of the day.

So if you would like to get together and talk more about Financial Storytelling and how it relates to your business or organisation, feel free to drop me a line.

CaseIT 2009 Winners - The National University of Singapore

Last Saturday I had the pleasure of being a Judge at the 2009 CaseIT Competition. This is an international undergraduate business case competition. The format was pretty much the same as last year and as I described here on this blog last year.

This year's contest was won by the National University of Singapore. From my perspective all four teams who made the final deserve special merit. I have to remind myself that these are, in my advancing years, kids who are half of my age (I know, the term 'kids' isn't right but it does reflect how I feel!). Twenty or so years is a huge block of time and I only wish I'd been exposed to these kind of competitions twenty years ago!

I am not certain but I'm sure I saw one team whose team I saw last year - should the coach read this he will know who he is :-) If so, then I was very very impressed with the progress made in his team's preparation and execution in the last 12 months. Last year I'm not sure the team knew what had hit them, this year the team (different members of course) knew what to expect. Credit to the coach, who sadly I didn't get to speak to - I couldn't stay for the banquet this year.

Also due are congratulations to Ryerson University and our local Kwantlen Polytechnic University who placed second and third respectively. The case study this year centered around TripIt.com - "The best way to organise and share your travel plans". Unlike last year with Plenty of Fish, this is something I DO intend to try! As with last year, the presentations by the teams were very impressive, especially give the limited time they had.

The nice thing about this competition is that the Students at SFU organised the whole competition and surrounding events themselves. Credit to Steven Chia, his committee and also to Blaize Horner Reich who from the judging point of view masterfully herded the bag of screaming cats called judges into the a coherent and professional panel it was. Hopefully there's room in the bag for me next year!

Comments, urls, twittering storytelling and the financial crisis

How's that for a subject line?

As I begin to increase my writing I am already learning lessons. One of these happened as I typed the previous sentence. In my head I said 'as I begin to try and increase my writing' then I stopped. 'try and increase' ?  This illustrates that I need to be far more vigilant as I write and probably as I speak as well!

One of the motivations for writing more is to increase the audience I share/discuss my ideas with. Of course writing also means commenting more on other blogs. In the process of doing exactly this I noticed a friend of mine did not allow a url to be recorded on a comment. I have it, via disqus as optional, as is the facility to leave a video comment (still waiting for one of those!). So I asked Alan what the story was. He was kind enough to share his reasoning via email and now, this very helpful blog post.

Interesting stuff I thought. Although I have been blogging since 2004 I am using the New Year to pretend it's new again, so I am looking at all aspects of the process.  This is also an approach I am trying with twitter. In this case I am starting to use it to research a specific subject. Storytelling. I am now following a couple of new interesting people (Gabriel Rossi and Kat Hansen) as well as finding a couple of people I am huge fans of (Stephen Fry and Steve Denning). I'm looking forward to discovering even more in the weeks ahead. By the way, given the second paragraph of this post, Stephen Fry's podcast is very apropos.

Of course one of the biggest stories around at the moment is the financial crisis. It is difficult in some ways to filter the various accounts of all the twists and turns. Yesterday I was thrilled to find that a writer I've been following since the early 1990s, Robert Cringely has a relevant blog. He has a couple actually, but this one is especially aimed at the hunt for a new mortgage on his home. I've already learnt a bunch of things I didn't know before reading it. Robert is US based and I would love to know if he has a twin up here in Canada who can add a Canadian twist to the blog?

Customer Engagement and Community with SixApart and Batchblue

I'd been meaning to write about a new online tool I've been using for a couple of months called BatchBook. The developer Batchblue Software describe it as Small Business CRM, specfically:

BatchBook is an easy-to-use, customizable CRM designed with small businesses in mind. It’s actually three products that work together:

• contact management software
• communications management software
• to-do list management software

I think I originally heard about them on A-List blogger Chris Brogan's website, if you can keep up with his prolific output it's well worth checking out as well

There is lots I could write about on the functionality that BatchBook gives me but what I actually want to talk about is the one thing which has kept me hooked. That is the online community Batchblue have created through their user forums and their willingness to engage with the customer, respond to feedback and solve problems quickly.

Batchblue Software may be a small company but they are doing lots of things right. I get really annoyed when I look at a company's website and can't find names, faces etc. With Batchblue I can. Short of making this a very long post all I will say is that if you connect with your customer, listen to your customer and respond to your customer, you are well on the way to building loyalty. Loyalty means being happy to wait for a new feature, loyalty means understanding you CAN contribute to the future development of something you use and you CAN get recognition for it from the company. Bravo Batchblue I say.

Typepad is another service I use and of all the blogging platforms seems to be the one I come back to. I've recently moved this blog to Typepad (from movable type - I'm not geeky enough for that really!) and more recently established a new blog for the Vancouver Chapter of the Society of Certified Management Accountants.

One thing I liked about Typepad was I could make changes and then hit a button to republish the site, indexes or design and see the results. In the last little while Typepad has moved to a new more 'dynamic' platform and the republish button is no longer there, or required. At least that's what I thought.

Today I made some minor changes and was distraught to see that these were not 'dynamically' reflected. I filed a support ticket (no user forum like batchblue!) and to my honest surprise got an answer. In fact I've had an ongoing exchange all day. I even tweeted whether anyone knew of a user forum. As it happens Ginevra Whalen, the Community Manager for Typepad at Sixapart picked it up and emailed me.

Ginerva answered my questions about why no forum, addressed my struggle with the new platform and offered to help solve the issue. In other words, she reached out and listened to me. As she did the support guys at Typepad went back and forth finally nailing down the problem.

At the end of the day, what started as a frustrating day with Typepad ended up as a very positive experience. Typepad is of course a lot bigger than Batchblue, but I was thrilled to see a consistent response from two key services I use.

My loyalty is assured for both products and I wonder in these difficult times, if an increased focus on customers OUTSIDE the company will help those companies with struggles inside and help ride out the financial storm we are all living through?

My American Friends ... Don't Vote! Watch this!

Cleantech Companies clean-up in New Ventures BC Competition

Last Thursday I had the pleasure of attending the Awards Ceremony for this year's New Ventures BC Competition. As in previous years there was a lot of buzz around the room as the final 10 competitors, their mentors in the competition and all the other mentors and volunteers waited for the announcements.

I was very pleased to see the team I co-mentored this year made the final 10. Singular Software have an excellent product which can significantly reduce the time (and therefore the cost) of putting together multi-camera videos. I've talked about this before here and you can see a finished video using multiple angles here and here. Congratulations Bruce and Michael for a great job in the competition it's been a lot of fun working with you.

The winners this year all came from Cleantech, with Saltworks Technologies taking the lion's share of the prizes, 1st Prize and the BC Hydro Sustainability Prize. The other Prize winners were the Small Energy Group and Echoflex Solutions. Congratulations Ben, Josh, David and Shawn for coming to the top of 170+ entrants this year!

For me the competition was a great experience this year and credit should go to Bob and Angie doing a great job. The videos are the Awards Ceremony worked really well but one suggestion I would have would be to hire a trio of trumpet players to announce the awarding of the actual prizes. Strangely that part of the evening was a little bit muted. All in all though a great night and the end of this year's competition. I'm looking forward to 2009 already.

CMA Designation and the foot wide business card!

Back in 1994 in the early days of having my CIMA qualification in the UK I started a new job. On the first day I asked my new Boss, whether it was 'appropriate' to have my letters on my business card ...

Today I had the pleasure of finding out that I have gained my CMA designation here in British Columbia, Canada. This will, in due course (once I have the official letter of course!) mean more letters. Shall I put them on my business card? :-)

It's taken a while but I'm thrilled to be able to say that I am a CMA. I can now lead with that as an opening line! Through the breakfast networking sessions I host each month for the Vancouver Chapter I must have met a couple of hundred different CMAs. These, together with my colleagues on the Vancouver Chapter Board and the members of the Society Office have been a huge motivator for me in seeking acceptance through the Mutual Recognition Agreement.

I've been constantly amazed by the wide variety of roles CMAs have. From Police Officers to CMAs in Charities, Tax Inspectors (boo hiss) to big corporate executives, business consultants to business development, not to mention government and not for profit roles. It's been and continues to be very inspiring. It demonstrates to me that this is a designation with huge potential. It can truly help you achieve you career and personal goals, whatever they may be!

Back to that old boss mine. "Sure. " he said. "We have these special concertina business cards that fold out from the normal size to almost a foot wide! You can put your accounting designation, your degree, your school certificate, under 15 swimming award, most beautiful baby award ...."

This was the shape of things to come and I learnt to be a lot more humble or at least modest since. Nonetheless based on the CMAs I've met to date and humbleness aside, I'm thrilled and proud to take my place among them!

It be International Talk Like a Seafarin' hearty Dayt - Sept 19th !!

`Tis that time again when we can spend a tide talkin' like a seafarin' hearty. Thanks t' Boris o' Bryght fame fer th' reminder. A interestin' take on this he told me about be th' cartoons on th' Savage Chickens website. So me heartys, get yersef an eye patch an' join in!

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