Hacking the Magical Number Seven With Storytelling

Our short-term memory is widely believed to have a capacity of seven elements, plus or minus two. This assumption has influenced a number of major decisions — it’s the reason that U.S. phone numbers have seven digits, for example. There are ways to trick your brain into being able to store more than seven (plus or minus two) items, however. One example of a hack around the limit is described in George Miller’s 1956 paper “The Magical Number Seven.“

Another approach is to connect items through a story. Stories serve as one of mankind’s most efficient compression algorithms, allowing people to dramatically exceed the seven-item limit. If you want to show your boss how hard you’ve worked, pack your presentation with data, charts, and bullet points — but if you want to have an impact, tell a story. The same goes for building great products, effective advertising and selling yourself as a candidate for a job.

Applied Storytelling:  The Pitch, the Resume, and the Product

1.  The Pitch.

Don’t start your presentation in PowerPoint or Keynote — start with a storyboard. Take a sheet of paper or whiteboard, divide it into a few sections with horizontal and vertical lines, and write the storyline at the top of each slide. After you’ve nailed down your narrative, think about the images, videos and supporting examples that you can use to tell your story. If you do presentations with any frequency, buy “Beyond Bullet Points” or “Presentation Zen.” Your presentations will improve dramatically with a little practice.

2.  The Resume.

If you don’t tell a story about your background, the interviewer will invent her own. So think about the story you want to tell about yourself before you craft your resume. You should obviously be honest, but you can craft the text of your resume and your interview pitch in a way that will leave the interviewer with the key points you want to get across rather than just a general impression of you based on what school you went to or how you dress.

3.  The Product.

Disneyland is an incredible place, but as I noticed recently, many of the rides are actually very similar to those found in other amusement parks. Yet despite the trek to get there and the crazy long lines, my kids are devout Disneyland fans. The difference is storytelling. The same came be said, albeit more subtlety, for many of the world’s top brands. Read more at gigaom.com