Why do you need a story? As human beings, we are hard-wired to love a good story.  Stories shape our emotions and vice versa.  We use them to define ourselves, to justify or explain our existence, the things we do, value and believe.  Put simply: we define our stories and our stories define us, (beware…

Listen to any management guru or performance coach and they’ll bang on about the joy of marginal gains, an over-generalised theory adapted and exemplified from models used by David Brailsford at British Cycling.  Sure, every little thing you do contributes incrementally to your success.  Many of us know this.  We make the most of it,…

Gonna to have to face it I’m addicted to books!  Books have that easy-going, take-me-to-bed quality for me.  They can take me on a journey when I’m snuggled up comfortably at home, make me laugh out loud or make me cry.  Whatever makes me keep reading, anything that I can complete must have elements which…

By Ruth McIntosh – Brand Storyteller Many moons ago, when I was studying Dialectology at University, I had this romantic image of the linguistic geographer Edmond Edmont drifting about the French countryside in 1896 on his bike looking for old folk to question. What a great job! Methods have developed since then and information about…

Sting in the Tail Cyclist’s Lip Balm. This goes on my face right? As a female cyclist I am much amused by the use of text and images in advertising. Here’s another: I don’t need to point out the obvious! At least the picture editor had the good sense to edit out the flat tyres…

Some thoughts on Goal Setting with Rebecca Norton from Sense of Direction, Life Coach and Wellness Walk Leader. Many of us set goals at this time of year but statistics show that 80% of people have given up on their goal by February!  So how do you make it to being one of the 20%…

I’ve been thinking about a lot about meanings lately. The Charity, Refuge have produced some brilliantly effective copy this year,  producing poems which read equally well from bottom to top, turning meanings on their head.  I found the hidden messages in them both powerful and moving.  Life is full of riddles and complexities.  The perfect…

Give your customers something to relate to: put real voices to real faces. This will help to establish that all important connection between who you are and what you do.

In colloquial British English “knitting fog”, is used to describe something which you are trying to do but which proves to be impossible or nigh on impossible.  Despite this I know some amazing individuals, particularly teachers or ex-teachers, who can indeed “knit fog” as they can create meaning, structure and material from mere strands.  Teaching…