Translator: Sebastian Betti Reviewer: Denise RQ
I'm going to ask you to practice a mental exercise and retain the result.
How many stories did you tell yesterday?
Think about it for a few seconds.
I told at least four.
One: while driving my youngest daughter to school,
while I was trying not to crash,
I revealed to her a spectacular technique to remember the multiplication table of 9.
Two: when I got to the office, I answered a client's email
trying to explain him why his website did not appear
in first place in the Google search.
Three: at noon, I had lunch with a close friend.
I told her all the details of the excellent party
she missed during the weekend.
Four: at night, in my house,
while my husband watched the news, I approached to his closest ear and eye
and I gave him the 50th version of this talk, to ask for his opinion.
Four stories.
Am I wrong if I bet you told as many or more than I?
What happens is that we are not aware we spend our whole days telling stories.
Although most of them do not start with "Once upon a time..."
Although we do it on the phone, by mail, by chat.
Well now, do we tell those stories well?
I doubt it!
Isn't it true that more than once, while we are talking,
we are victims of this terrible, dramatic gesture:
The header with cellphone, just like this.
(Laughter)
I guess more than once we are asked about something we just explained.
And that gives us a terrible row.
Why do we have to go through this
that's so obnoxious to us, that makes us so angry?
Because we do not tell Che, Marta! stories.
I worked for more than ten years
as the producer of a TV program called "Memory,"
a show in which some interviewees were subjected to a lie detector.
A show in which there were aliens to whom autopsies were made, etc.
(Laughter)
During one of my first production meetings my boss, Chiche Gelblung, says to me,
"Baby, next week I need a Che, Marta! story."
Seeing my stupefaction,
Chiche explained to me that a story was considered Che, Marta!
when the content gets the viewer in his head, in his heart, or in his guts.
When the viewer had the need to shout, "Hey Marta, come and see this!"
(Laughter)
In other words, it didn't leave him indifferent.
Luckily, on that occasion, I had produced an interview with a vampire woman
who would drink blood in a disposable cup via satellite from Texas.
More Che, Marta! than that, impossible!
What I learned that day served me forever:
not only for online media I managed later but also in my personal life.
Over time, I reconverted and adapted this Che, Marta! formula
and applied it in different areas.
As well as in journalism
we talk about the 5 W you need to have a complete story
- that in Spanish would be the what, when, who, where, and why -.
Today we are going to see the "Ches" that must be included
in a good story to gain other's attention.
[CHE 1 – Gong or the killer phrase] (Sound of gong)
This instrument is a very effective tool when it comes to gaining attention.
Drawing other's attention is a challenge we face dozens of times a day:
when we write the subject of an email in which our curriculum is attached,
when we call our boss on the phone, or our teenage son,
and they answer with a, "What's wrong?",
and we have about 10 seconds before they end the call.
At that moment we have to play our gong, to throw our killer phrase.
Returning to my friend's example, the one I had lunch with,
a Che, Marta! example of beginning of a good conversation would be,
"I can't believe you missed that party!"
Carlita was so drunk that she fell fully clothed in the swimming pool.
She broke two teeth and also burst the cell phone her boyfriend gave her.
A complete disaster!
I brought another example, a little more 'cultural',
to check that this idea of the initial killer sentence
has had different scopes for a long time.
"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams,
he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect."
It so begins "The Metamorphosis" by Kafka.
And you want to keep reading, don't you?
Now, is it enough with the gong?
I'm afraid no.
We have to keep on working. We cannot fall asleep.
We must continue to produce.
[CHE 2 - Let's not be lazy! Production!]
When I worked as a director of the news website minutouno.com,
I proposed a self-directed murderer question
to all journalists, which was the following:
Sincerely, with a hand on your heart,
Would your mother, brother, the relative who loves you the most in the world
read the story you just wrote if it wasn't written by you?
Would you read it if it was not your story?
Before the slightest hesitation, it was clear
the title had to be changed, the photo had to be changed,
or the story had to be thrown away, and it was needed to start back,
meaning, get to work.
The key gesture in life for me is this:
Roll up your sleeves!
We always have to look for the best way of telling our story.
Following with the area of journalists, If I tell you, for example,
the first Oprah Winfrey bosses wanted to change her name.
Do you find it a memorable story?
Is this breath taking? More or less. What happens instead if I play this video?
(Home Video) Oprah: When they tried to change my name,
the news director said to me at the time,
"No one will remember Oprah. So we want to change your name."
We came up with a name people remember and like.
It's a very friendly name, "Suzie."
(Laughter)
Hi, Suzie. (Laughter)
(Video ends)
Well, of course, Oprah tells it one hundred billion of times better than I do.
Then my job, if I want to tell this story,
is to find the video, edit it,
and get the authorization to be able to share it with you.
[CHE 3 - (...)]
She went crazy! She forgot what follows!
Now comes the really important message of this talk.
Anything like that? You might have thought even worst things.
What's just happened? The silence generates expectation.
In a world as noisy as in this we live today, the expectation is worth gold,
because what we say next to that silence, is double heard.
And in addition, we give the audience time to incorporate what we are saying.
Let's take breaks.
This lantern is an essential, fundamental tool.
But it is very important to have it properly programmed.
This is, not like this - as it usually is nor like this, as it also usually is,
but like this
[CHE 4 - Audience XR]
We have to know our audience, to speak its language,
to tell a joke, as our teachers told us in school, "We are all able to understand."
From telling good stories, from communicating well
with whom we love, with whom we live, with whom we work, depends a good part
of the success of our lives.
Achieving it is not easy.
We compete for the other's attention
with people more experienced, more beautiful, wiser, cooler,
we compete for other's attention with TV screens computers', and smartphones'.
In order to obtain the attention we have,
first, to fall in love with our story and then work very hard.
Let's search for images, texts, videos.
Let's tell jokes.
Let's generate and maintain other's curiosity.
Let's get to the head, the heart, and to the guts of those who listen to us.
Let's tell stories "Che, Marta!"
Thank you very much.
(Applause)