I am at the IABC International conference this week, and the keynote, Salman Rushdie made some typically sharp, engaging observations for all communicators.

His topic was on how storytelling is a superior form of communication.

“We are creatures that are defined by the fact that we tell stories.”

“Storytelling is a form of communication that is indestructible.”

The argument about who should have power over the story… is a serious ongoing battle, he observed. Many of us know this as we try to ‘manage’ the information seeping out of (and into) our organizations. So called brand guardians also make a career of this. He then referred to a well known journalist (he didn’t name) who said she was “Dixie Chicked’ –meaning her ‘story’ was spiked the editor.

We are now in an age where we have to frame our stories on the new way the world operated. Implying the complex, networked, always on world, he said that “all our stories now bleed into each other,” be they Middle east ideologies slamming into buildings in Manhattan, or the stories captured by digital pictures of prison abuse in Iraq bleeding into the stories of human rights across the world.