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At its heart, innovation is a profoundly social phenomenon. More often than not, it is the story that makes the innovation, rather than the other way around.

Story Telling is a forceful tool.  Enjoy these quotes from Bill Fisher – Every Innovation Needs a Story 

My experience is that it is easier than most think, and that you can tell your innovation story in three parts: Why? What? How?

In order to rally the troops around your idea, there needs to be a shared awareness and agreement that doing something different is a good idea. Otherwise, we all find inertia to be a powerful force opposing innovation.

Repeat after me: it makes no sense at all to consider a changing business environment (why?), and a different way of going to market (our innovation; what?), without acknowledging that we may have to change the way we work, as well. Once you pitch the “what”, the evaluative portion of your audience will immediately be thinking “how are we going to make this work?”

‘A story has to be something that is unexpected. What is predictable is never material for a story. “ (this is often about the “why?”)

“Stories are all about discovering the mundane in the exotic and the unusual when all of it is predictable.” (this is typically about the “what?”)

“Storytelling must be about the audience. Stories have to leave some role for the audience. They persuade the audience to suspend their disbelief.” They also speak to the audience’s principle concerns or hopes. (this often speaks directly to the “how?”)

Edison realized the importance of story-telling to the innovation process, when he indicated by the observation “Inventors must be poets so that they may have imagination.”

Let us all be poets in our roles as innovators.