Marketing is largely about identity and stories about identity. Marketers want to influence what you do (choose, use, purchase, etc..) and how you experience what you do when you do it. To do this, they know the importance of design and the stories to accompany that design. Design, when done well, is partly about creating empathy with those who are to benefit from the products of design and the best products out there are ones that apply empathy and guide behaviour at the same time. Storytelling is the vehicle that links them together. 
Marketing Metaphors of Meaning in Complexity
by Cameron D. Norman • July 17th, 2012
Marketing the Narrative of Complexity
by Cameron D. Norman • July 6th, 2012
Complexity, by its very nature, is not a simple concept to communicate, yet it is increasingly becoming one that will define our times and may be the key to ensuring human survival and wellbeing in the years to come. If society is to respond to complex challenges the meaning of complexity needs to be communicated […]
Social Networks: Beyond the Numbers
by Cameron D. Norman • July 8th, 2011
Powerful social network research is as much about having a good statistician as it is an anthropologist and together, they need to have the story that comes from it, woven together by the users. 
Celebrating Queer Indigenous Voices Week: Interview with Daniel Heath Justice
by Guest Contributor • July 1st, 2011
By Guest Contributor Jorge Antonio Vallejos, cross-posted from Black Coffee Poet
Near the end of my video interview with Daniel Heath Justice (above) for this special week Celebrating Queer Indigenous Voices I asked, “… anything we’ve left out?”
“There’s a lot we’ve left out,” said Justice.
True!
Although we had a table full of books we failed to…
Read MoreCreating Campires For Innovation and Knowledge Translation
by Cameron D. Norman • June 21st, 2011
Metaphors and analogies are commonly used in systems thinking and complexity science to illustrate concepts that are, on their own, relatively complex and awkward to describe literally. A campfire provides both a metaphor for bringing people together, but also a literal tool that could be used more effectively in work with groups struggling to innovate, collaborate and contemplate together. From a design perspective, campfires and the social system that they create around them provide an opportunity to enhance intimacy quickly, allowing for the potential to explore issues in ways that are more difficult to do in other settings.
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