CREATE : HOW TO GENERATE STORIES
The previous chapter explores some of the various ways you can communicate your stories, but I deliberately left one out.
This is not your normal ‘channel’ of communication, yet it is the one that is often the most influential. It can potentially reach more people then you ever thought you could.
It doesn't cost any money to share your stories in it. And it can as easily build up your brand or completely destroy it.
It's called the grapevine.
Every single person you interact with is part of the grapevine. Colleagues, clients, potential clients, employees, potential employees, suppliers, partners, competitors … everyone.
The term ‘grapevine’ originates from the American Civil War when telegraph lines where strung from tree to tree, like vines. It was popularised by Marvin Gaye when in 1968 he released the song ‘I heard it through the grapevine’, which reached number one in the United States and the UK.
Grapevine communication is informal conversations between people.
IT DOES NOT FOLLOW ANY PREDETERMINED RULES OR STRUCTURE, SO NEWS CAN SPREAD RAPIDLY THROUGH IT.
Think of the grapevine as a piece of hardware, and the software is the stories that travel along the grapevine. While you can't control the grapevine, you can certainly influence it by the stories you proactively share and by your actions and decisions that generate stories. So it's worth understanding its power and how it works.
First of all, there are no formal rules governing the ...
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