so, taking a different tack -
The savage detectives by roberto bolano (“his generation’s premier latin american writer” – nyt) 
It weighs in at a sprawling 577 pages, flits across decades and ends with a apparently tangential/esoteric question which leaves you wanting more
it is a fabulous lesson in how to build a narrative, the guardian even suggest reading bolano “makes you feel changed” should the start point for our presentations be “make the communications feel transformational?” . . . it begins with the words
“i’ve been cordially invited to join the visceral realists. I accepted of course . . . I’m not really sure what visceral realism is”
words in an order you’ve never seen before (visceral realism anybody?), draws you in and makes you want to understand more – in some ways it is the classic narrative opening statement - something we can all learn from in terms of how we tell our stories . . .
what is also interesting about it is the amount of your time it requires to make it through the rather cathartic process of reading the book . . . there is something in there as well about dialogue vs reveal in terms of developing work, but also in terms of the emotional energy a client is willing to invest in your work internally
the book also (as with leslie marmon silko – another great non-traditional narrator) includes words, pictures – multimedia as part of the narration (people like silko and ee cummings also use the white space very very well )
. . .
yet most of the time we choose to tell our stories in ppt with the same structure, over and over and over and over . . . clearly walshy and his zen thang is angled at this, but if we can learn anything from the man reckoned to be one of the greatest authors of the last 100 years it would be
1) use more than one medium to tell our story (we would rarely recommend a client to use just one medium)
2) if you can get a client to invest emotional energy in your work the internal sell will be better, stronger, more energetic, whether we like it or not that will influence massively how effective the work is . . .
binns
