Now, much as I love Family Guy, we all know that the fastest way to get from one point to another is in a straight line. If the stories that you tell follow this path (i.e., moving from the beginning, through the middle and on to the end without swerving off at a tangent), then they are linear.

In natural conversations with friends and family, our stories tend to wander. They take detours, they get interrupted, bits get forgotten, good bits get stretched out (sometimes beyond the bounds of truth). Occasionally, they end up in places we never expected to go to when we started the journey. It’s like that time when I was talking to Tony Wilson and Frank Sidebottom about how Northside would save pop music*. These are non-linear stories.

The business world loves a story teller. Particularly an authentic story teller. So now there are now lots of bits of software that let you amaze audiences with a non-linear presentations. We talked about some of these a while ago. We even hoped that they would improve. Sadly, they haven’t. And there are new entrants to the market, such as projeqt that let you pull in blog posts and feeds from the social web to help your story spin round with increasing non-linearity and, it’s makers hope,  authenticity.

The sad fact is that when we plan a presentation we still think in linear terms. More to the point, audiences crave linearity. They want to be able to follow the flow of your thoughts. And if you want them to accurately re-tell your stories, it makes sense to present them as logically as possible. If your story has a defined beginning, middle and end, it is much easier to recount.

I can only imagine what the ultimate non-linear presentation tool might look like. Perhaps it would require us to dump everything we have ever known or thought about or heard onto a server somewhere. It would have been trained to follow our usual set of stories to conjure the required audio-visual aid onto the screen behind us in perfect synchronicity with our diatribe. It would know who was in the room with us and whether they were secretly willing us to slip in a vignette about the first ever football match we went to. And it would always earn us a standing ovation.

In the meantime, it’s back to thinking in straight lines and putting in the hard work to be engaging and authentic people.

*Actual, honest-to-goodness true story. Don’t forget to ask me about it next time you see me.

Here’s the thing.

Business communication is like a pop song. Trust me about this.

In any given lifetime, your audience will grant you two minutes and  thirty seven seconds in which to acheive two (2) things:

First – sing your song

Second – get everyone else singing your song, too.

For this to happen, your song has to be individual enough to be worth remebering. But it also has to fit within a style that is easy to recognise and accept.

Unfortunately, singing takes a lot of talent and a lot more guts. Not everyone can do it. Which is why most business communication comes over as a terrible dirge of confused ideas and lame cliches.

Applying the principles of pop to your business communications is not easy, but it works.

To start off with, you need a hook – a neat little riff or idea that is easy to grasp and even easier to repeat. Then you need to back this up with three other elements – a verse, a chorus and a middle-eight. Verses should be short and sweet but provide background, depth and colour to your hook. Maybe a handful of web-pages, maybe some of your staff tweeting around a theme, perhaps a revamped set of business cards with individual designs. The verse should lead into the chorus – this is where you can let rip. Your chorus should get you, your staff, customers, partners, the press and everyone else in the world screaming your virtues at the top of their voices. A simple statement that sums up the true value of you and your company. I’m going to repeat three words from that last sentence: simple, true, value. Simple. True. Value. That’s your chorus.

The middle-eight links your verses with your chorus. This may be the look-and-feel, or the tone of voice. The style of delivery, or the medium for delivery. A key point here is that nobody every listens to a song because it has a great middle-eight, but plenty of songs are left mediocre and forgotten because they had a weak middle-eight.

Of course, pop music has been constantly evolving, from Muddy Waters picking up an electric guitar to the Beatles harmonising with a string quartet, from Brian Eno’s synthesised noodlings to acid fuelled raves and warehouse parties, from Iggy Pop’s flailing nudity to Jay-Z’s tailored suits. So once you have your song down pat, you have to drop it and come up with something new. That’s why we’re here and why we keep coming back.

All together now, after 4…

Each presentation we give is an exercise in leadership.

Leaders have one aim. Make other leaders. To make other leaders, you need:

• A vision
• The ability to share the vision
• A definite direction to follow in order to realise the vision

Put away all the books about what makes a leader. Instead, get out in front of people, give great presentations and test your leadership muscles.

Start each presentation with a vision. By this, I mean before you have even put pen to paper or opened up your laptop, get a clear idea of what you want your presentation to acheive. A big part of this should be that you want your audience to spread the messages and stories you tell them. In other words, you want to create other leaders. Therefore, keep your vision simple, clear and concise.

When it comes to sharing the vision, be original. Take people out of their comfort/slumber zones. Give them analogies. Tell them interesting stories. For instance, Fred Perry played in his first Wimbledon final with a badly injured knee, but before he took to the court he had already decided what his victory celebration would be. As soon as his winning shot hit the turf he performed a cartwheel and jumped the net, just as he planned in the dressing room. Link that to your current situation at work – how to play through the pain barrier, how to stick to a vision against the odds, how to execute against a plan. Give a prize to anyone wearing a Fred Perry shirt. Whatever you do, give people a reason to follow your vision and share your ideas.

Every presentation you give from now on should be a workout for your leadership qualities. You have them already. Go and use them.

A journalist is just a customer with no money and no intention of buying what you sell.

In other words, if you are trusted to talk to customers and you have the time, it is well worth devoting a little time getting to know some people that write about your industry.  Talk to them in just the same way that you would talk to a customer, but enjoy the fact that the pressure is off in terms of converting a sale.  Pitch your ideas.  Tell your stories.  Discuss the issues that come up, but do it honestly.  I guarantee that you will get some great ideas back.  In the past, I have used discussions with journalists to road-test new ideas for pitches.  Use the fact that they are jaded old hacks to your advantage – if you can tell them a story that sparks some interesting conversations then you can guarantee that the same stories will be equally compelling for real customers with real money and a real interest in what you have to sell.

A word of warning, though.  PR people will try to sell you expensive courses to teach you how to talk to the press.  They will retain a savage attack-dog Paxman-on-steroids type to scare you into buying even more of their supervision and guidance.  My advice – don’t bother.  Be honest.  Say something original.  Enjoy it.

To be completely clear from the outset, email is shrinking in importance. There are now so many ways to communicate and collaborate that messages that could once only have been sent via email are moving onto other mediums. And while POP3 and IMAP still make up a huge proportion of the application traffic on a company’s network, the term ‘email’ is slipping from popular usage. People now use protocols developed for email to send each other ‘notes’.

The ‘e’ prefix, once so ubiquitious, has had its day. This is a trend that we believe will continue. After all, it is no longer interesting that things are electronic. To a 45 year old, perhaps it is still a marvel, but to a 25 year old it is taken as read. So farewell e-mail, e-commerce, e-government and e-learning. And watch your backs VoIP and IPTV. Where being electronic is now taken as read, so the Internet Protocol is no longer so amazing. And no body ever really understood it anyway.