How can I improve my data storytelling?

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Guest blog by Hannah Howes, Sussex Innovation Centre’s Catalyst scheme Over the past few weeks, I’ve been trying my hand at a new data storytelling app. DATAacademy is an app designed to help learners make smarter use of data. The app could be used by individuals or teams in a range of professions and […]

Measurement, shmeasurement

Twice during yesterday’s excellent PRmoment.com #PRanalytics conference, the verboten three-letter acronym AVE was used. On both occasions, there was a sharper intake of breath than when one speaker, during a panel session, spelled out the C-word. In full. AVE. Advertising Value Equivalency. There, I only went and said it. The bane of the PR measurement industry. […]

I’ve seen the future of learning – and I like it

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Through persistence, making enquiries at the right time, and a healthy dose of good luck, I was privileged to attend last month’s RSA President’s Lecture. I was pleased to do so in this, the first year of my Fellowship of this most excellent organisation. The address was given by Simon Nelson, Founder of FutureLearn. He […]

Timeout: the key to killer ideas

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I was impressed to read last week of a bold initiative from ad agency Wieden + Kennedy. The agency – or at least the London office of W+K – has banned email in the evenings and weekends, and meetings can only be booked between 10am and 4pm. They’re doing this because – in the words […]

Three steps to better brand storytelling

Insight Agents National Storytelling Week

All this week at Insight Agents, we’ve been marking the sixteenth annual National Storytelling Week with a series of blogs that highlight what gets in the way of impactful brand storytelling. We commissioned our friends at Sussex University’s Innovation Centre to ask those in charge of storytelling at some of the Britain’s biggest retailers what […]

Why brands need to avoid jargon in their storytelling

To celebrate National Storytelling Week, corporate and brand storytellers Insight Agents commissioned Sussex University’s Innovation Centre to interview senior figures in the UK retail sector to tell us the challenges they face in telling their brand stories. Today Sam Knowles, our Founder & MD, takes a personal look at jargon – and argues that brands […]

Let me tell you a story – a brand story

In the first of a series of five daily blogs to mark National Storytelling Week 2016, Insight Agents’ Founder & MD Sam Knowles reveals the three most important barriers companies face in telling better brand stories. Recent estimates suggest that the average Brit spends almost nine hours on media devices every day. In that time, […]

The four Es of effective storytelling

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I’ve always loved English. It’s such a rich language with gloriously diverse ways of saying the same thing. In one form or another, English has been around for more than a millennium. In that time, many other languages – of conquerors and the conquered, of allies and foes – have left their trace. That’s why […]

Being decontrolled

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I had a new experience on Sunday. My colleague Luke and I were trying to go to Dublin. We were headed there to debrief a favourite new client on a brand language project we’ve been running for the past couple of months. But it wasn’t to be. At least, not in person. The first inkling […]

Losing control: 11 TEDxBrighton learnings

The main auditorium of the Brighton Dome is a catholic entertainment venue. Over the past 17 years, I’ve graduated here – twice. The first time, I shook the hand, the second time enjoyed a warm embrace from the late Sussex VC, Richard “Dickie” Attenborough. I’ve also enjoyed: the Bootleg Beatles; Marc Ronson on the Version tour; […]