What Happens If No One Reads, Confessions Of An Agency Receptionist, And Perfect Lives

Hello everyone,

Another Friday, another Storythings newsletter! What have you all been upto this week?

We had a Storythings team away day this week, where we dedicated one session to a discussion about some of the failures from our respective careers, and what we learnt from them. We programmed this session because it is absolutely vital that everyone we work with isn’t afraid to fail - fear of failure is often the thing that will limit you from doing your best work. We also had a session where we reflected on our ‘almost-wins’; projects we might have worked on that we truly believed deserved an award of some sort, even a small one. That was fun.

One of the virtual communities I’m a part of (shout out to the Glittersphere) also recommends that we keep a log of our wins, and I’d say almost-wins should be included in that. Visit them when you need a boost, or just to prove to yourself that you are brilliant.

OK, here are the links you've subscribed to this newsletter for - and have a great weekend!

Anjali

The Nettle Dress (68-min watch)

What Happens If No One Reads (12-min read)

How To Be A Supercommunicator (14-min read)

Why Email: Moving To Beehiiv (7-min read)

Stop Creating Media Like Inventory (2-min read)

Confessions Of An Agency Receptionist: The Meeting Room (7-min watch, new YouTube series)

Channel The Storytelling Genius Of Reddit Cofounder Alexis Ohanian (7-min read)

Perfect Lives: A Conversation With Proprietors Of A Book, Record and Ephemera Shop in SE14 (21-minute read)

Wikipedia Is Resilient Because It Is Boring (Threads post)

Adrift: Cast Your Doubts Or Care Notes Into A Digital Sea (calming website)

Storythings is the content marketing agency that helps you STAY HUMAN in a sea of marketing slop. If you think you’re at risk of becoming a B2B zombie, we’ve got the antidote. Click the button below for your free guide.

The Nettle Dress (68-min watch)
Emily, our Head of Production, hugely recommended this film, which is available to buy to watch online. It’s the story of a man who makes a dress from nettles over seven years, and in the process pays homage to his wife. It’s about grieving, learning, communing with nature and the beauty of slowing down.

What Happens If No One Reads (12-min read)
A beautiful piece for those of us who love reading (which I am hoping is the majority of our newsletter audience!). This piece looks at what AI will strip us of: “The kind of reading that retains its worth in the age of AI is the kind that has no measurable ROI, no scalable metrics, no immediate market value of any kind. It is like life in that the point of it is the story itself, and the only way to “get” it is to dwell in it and let it change you.” 

How To Be A Supercommunicator (14-min read)
David Epstein, journalist and author of ‘Range’ speaks to Charles Duhigg, author of Supercommunicators: How to Unlock The Secret Language of Communication in this interview on his Substack. Hugh confirms that the book itself is a great read, but this interview also has useful nuggets. I particularly like how Duhigg defines the different types of communication, and how people often talk at cross-purposes with each other because they are actually engaged in different types of communication: “There are practical conversations where we're making plans or solving problems. There are emotional conversations, where I tell you what I'm feeling, and I don't want you to solve my feelings; I want you to empathize. And finally, there are social conversations, which are about how you and I relate to each other, how we relate to society, how we think of other people.”

Why Email: Moving To Beehiiv (7-min read)
You need to be a subscriber of Brian Morrissey’s The Rebooting newsletter to read this, but you can subscribe for free. He recently moved his newsletter from Substack to Beehiiv, a move we also did a couple of years ago, and here he explains his reasoning. The move is particularly sensible if you are a B2B publisher.

Stop Creating Media Like Inventory (2-min read)
This blog post makes a good point that we’d all do well to remember: “The tweet, the article, the video were never the point. They’re just portals. What matters is what they convene, which is the conversation, the ritual, the shared experience. That’s where the value is. That’s where the business is.”

Confessions Of An Agency Receptionist: The Meeting Room (7-min watch, new YouTube series)
Advertising influencer Rob Mayhew has started a new YouTube series, a satire about what transpires inside agencies. You can see what it’s taken inspiration from - and anyone will be able to get this reference - yep that’s right, The Office. I think this is going to be one of those things that gets better over time. Definitely not there yet….

Channel The Storytelling Genius Of Reddit Cofounder Alexis Ohanian (7-min read)
An excerpt from Christina Farr’s book The Storytelling Advantage: How Powerful Narratives Make Businesses Thrive, this piece looks at how Alexis Ohanian slowly built and used his communications skills to his advantage.

Perfect Lives: A Conversation With Proprietors Of A Book, Record and Ephemera Shop in SE14 (21-minute read)
This conversation with Bruno Halper and Daniel Lichtenstein, the owners of Perfect Lives, is so nice to read. It makes you feel nostalgic for things, people and places that may not be around anymore, but, as the shop is proof of, vestiges of them can still be found. Perfect Lives sounds like one of those places I really have to visit in London. It’s a good thing it’s not far from me currently…but I only have 2 weeks because it’s moving to Hackney.

Wikipedia Is Resilient Because It Is Boring (Threads post)
What caught our eye about this is the neat animated title graphic. The full story is behind a paywall at The Verge, if you’d like to give that a go.

Adrift: Cast Your Doubts Or Care Notes Into A Digital Sea (calming website)
I was searching for something nice and calm to end the links section with today, and I found just the thing. I’m off now, or I might fall into a doze….

It’s always nice to hear from our readers, whether you have something you recommend we share in our next newsletter, or just to say how much you enjoy it (thrilled to say it’s a lot of people!). So do drop us a line.

See you next week!

Matt, Anjali, Hugh and the rest of Team Storythings