I had a rather promising meeting yesterday where the subject of creative writing in business came up. What we know as business writing, aka pr, aka marketing communications, aka marcomms can be pretty dire, dry and formulaic stuff, whereas creative writing in business – telling great stories about businesses – is a whole other kettle of fish.

The manager I was meeting with produced a printed copy of my 9 Lessons from “Black+White” e-book and asked me if I could do something like that for her organization. She hadn’t got the e-book from this website – it had been given to her. Amazing how these things go viral.

I first began thinking about the crying need for great creative writing for business – as opposed to reporting, marcomms or advertising copywriting – well over a decade ago, when I was freelancing for the major Australian business magazines and newspapers, but everyone I spoke to about my ideas thought I was nuts. I knew I wasn’t, of course, but nothing came of it then.

Even now, though, it seems, few if any people I speak to about it here in Australia know what I am talking about. That’s kind of like Black+White all over again. So, clearly, I shall have to articulate all this much better.

Luckily there are some people who do understand the concepts underlying creative business writing, and the reasons for it, and its enormous value. John Simmons, formerly of Interbrand, was one of the first to write about these same ideas. He has written three terrific books on the subject:

John also wrote these:

John edited or co-edited these:

Cyan Books in the UK publishes a large number of books telling the story of specific brands – I wish their books were easy to find here. Look for their Great Brand Stories and Great Asian Brands series.

And, here are links to three important organizations John is a part of:

I shall write more about this topic soon. But meantime, John said this to me the other day: “All I can say is keep plugging away – there’s great value in persistence.” Indeed!