Convincing people via stories: wise advice from Neil Stockley

Neil Stockley has written a great post illustrating the power of story telling in speeches, using the example of Katy Gordon’s speech at the Liberal Democrat Bournemouth Conference. Katy was speaking about the proposals to take action over the widespread airbrushing of photographs illustrating female beauty:

I wanted to know if the proposals in this paper would be seen as more of the nanny state: those do-gooding Liberals getting worked up over trivia. So I took it along to a group of ordinary women in my constituency of Glasgow North, at the North West Women’s Centre in Maryhill. The group ranged from girls in their twenties to retired grandmothers, many of whom have faced real barriers in bringing up families. I asked them what they thought of media images of female beauty and whether there was any role for government on this issue.

What struck me was that all of them independently came up with the proposals in this paper! From Gail, a retail manager, who asked whether we could put something in magazine pictures to say they are airbrushed to Denise, a caretaker, who suggested showing before and after photos so everyone could see the difference.

You can read Neil’s piece here.