The Art and Science of Storytelling: Event Structure
Bongani Ncube
August 21, 2024
About CX Centric Conversations
CX Centric Conversations are interactive international discussions centered on business growth through Customer Experience and Customer Centricity. We are a global community. To keep updated about future events and projects please click here.
What did the event entail?
CX-Centric hosted its first global online event of the year 2021 on the 27th of January. In this event, we had a lot of passionate and engaged people in one place. The online event as anticipated by the organizers had quite a sizeable number of attendees. During the online event, the engagement rate from the panel members was also positive as everyone seemed to be alive and interested in the issues involved with Storytelling. All the aspects concerning storytelling were touched upon from the very definition of what storytelling is to also the importance of storytelling to the companies.
Storytelling has grown in importance in business over the last few years. For this session, we were very lucky to have the coveted Keith Kmett, Chief Customer Officer and Master Story Teller. Kmett touched on all the aspects concerning from the very definition of what storytelling is to also the importance of storytelling to the companies. Kmett was the one who kicked off with a keynote on the art and science of storytelling. This was then followed by a practical workshop so as for our attendees to gain practical experience concerning how to use the skill. This provision by Cx-Centric shows by many measures that as an organization, we are always prepared (with the guidance of our much effective Cx-Centric framework) to go an extra mile so as to equip our clientele with all the relevant skills and know-how for them to conquer the world in their industry-specific sectors.
“The key things l learnt were the principles of storytelling, and how your idea can open different avenues to get to the end goal”
— GREG BONSUESQ
Global Spread of Participants
This online session further broadened the knowledge of the attendees in terms of equipping them with the necessary steps which one needs to follow so as to master the art and science of storytelling. This helped our attendees understand that there is no brain too great for storytelling, but each and every one of us has the potential and the capacity to tell a good story to our audience which can lead to achieving the set objectives/aims of the way the story is being told.
Herewith is the video of the keynote speech:
This was then followed by a practical workshop so attendees could practice using the storytelling framework and develop their storytelling skills. At CX-Centric we are always keen that information from our workshops and events are as actionable as possible i.e less talk, more action.
“It was interesting to hear Keith’s example of how to use storytelling to make a business case”
— Alec Dalton, Marrlott
The following were the key takeaways from a majority of our attendees included:
How to use stories in a real-world CX scenario
To identify the main idea of why you one is engaging in storytelling
To use an appropriate medium (e.g Video, Conversation, or Email) for your story
It takes time to develop a strong story
By using the framework provided you can strengthen your story a lot easier and quicker
Do you already have a story to share or work on?
For all of the online events we have hosted as CX-Centric, the feedback we have received from customers has been overwhelmingly positive. However, with the negative response which we have received (i.e. The online event being too short in terms of time for attendees to engage more with the keynote speaker), we have managed to plan our events with the interest of our attendees in mind hence showing how customer-oriented we are as an organization. Here is some of the feedback we got from the polls we carried out during the event:
