See CORPORATE VALUES by Michael Juul Jensen at the end of this article.
Corporate values - It sounds boring. Corporate valuez..zzzz...
Storytelling has recently been the buzzword in management.
I went to a couple of storytelling seminars - zzzz..ztorytelling zzzz..zeminars!!!

Did you know that Pfizer Inc. has shown great interest in the combination
of corporate values and storytelling as a sedative drug for those who suffer from insomnia?

Managing director Henrik Thorning, president and founder of Fiberline Composites Inc.
had won the Danish Industry initiative award.
I always make an art work to the award winner.
I met him at his factory - searching for some inspiration.
He showed me everything - enthusiastically.
He told me everything - enthusiastically.
He had just finished a timeconsuming work of developing the corporate values for the company.
But they were not implemented, yet.
And.
As he saw the logo I had made to 1st grad at Hedensted school.....

Henrik Thorning  was excited.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Make a story about SOFUS.
Exactly as pedagogically as the 1st grade logo.

Sure.
Sure.
And my very own storytelling concept had popped up.

A little bit of information to the reader:
Why a story about SOFUS?
Fiberline Composite Inc.'s corporate values focused on  Samspil=Interplay, Ordentlighed=decency, Forudseenhed=foresight, Udfordring=challenge and Sund økonomi=Yield a profit. The initials says SOFUS.
(......in English I still will call him SOFUS.  Interplay, Decency, Foresight, Challenge and Yield a profit
says IDFCY....we couldn't call him IDFCY?)

 

 

The story

about SOFUS     

for Fiberline Composites Inc., Denmark

 

Hi! My name is SOFUS.

My name has five letters. They are the initials (in Danish) of five keywords, that describes the values on which my company builds its business.   The first keyword is interplay.   Sofus Interplay   Here I am with open arms, blue hair, 4 freckles, large ears, a big smile, my very new overall trousers and a red Shirt inviting customers, colleges and cooperators to play with me. To work together with me. Then it becomes more fun for me and more fun for you to go to work.   We will become more enthusiastic.   We will communicate better, and what is most important, we will be better troubleshooters concerning those problems, that always will arise in an interplay.   Sofus Decency   Just for fun I have put on a halo. I am not very holy. I love beer and girls as everybody else. But in a cooperation, I believe there must be some rules. I keep what I promise. If there are any changes in what we have agreed we have to talk about it, even if it can be difficult.    My intention is that whatever I have committed myself to, will be achieved.   In this way I can assure myself and anybody else that my work will be done in the same way every time achieving the highest possible standards.   Sofus Foresight                 It is hard to foretell, especially about the future. Said the Danish humorist Storm P. However we are not supposed to foretell. We have to find all the elements, all the facts that can tell us what the future probably will be like. We have to keep a sharp lookout all the time. We have to make good educated guesses. We have to find out our goals. Then we know which way to point.   We always try to achieve our goals. If there is something wrong about our goals, if they are not realistic, we will have them adjusted.    Sofus Challenge   Recently I was in the city of all cities, Paris. I was in the Louvre where I saw Mona Lisa, I was in Montmartre, here I saw Place du Tetre with all the exhibiting and working artists, and I saw the huge white cathedral Sacré-Coeur. And I saw everything else you have to see in Paris. For instance the old Triumphal Arch and the new one. I was at the top of them both. I had to use the stairs in the old Triumphal Arch, but fortunately there was an escalator in the new Triumphal Arch. The Danish architect Johan Otto von Spreckelsen has created a spectacular edifice. Of course I was at the top of the Eiffel Tower, too. But is is old. It is rusty. it is heavy, heavy, heavy it must be hard to maintain. When you are taking the escalator to the top it creaked and made disturbing sounds. You almost believed that.....   I think Paris needs a new Eiffel Tower. As I returned home I wrote to the Mayor of Paris:   Marie de Paris Bertrand Delanoë Hotel de Ville 5 rue de Lobau 75196 Paris RP   I told about the new tower, it is 50 meters higher than the Eiffel Tower is today. It is erected in the park Champ-de-Mar on Place Jaques Rueff between the river Seine and Ecole Militaire. The new tower is constructed of light materials free of maintenance and of very strong materials. Splendid idea, Bertrand Delanoë answered, and asked for more details, stressing that the architecture should be like that of Spreckelsens new Triumphal Arch. Copying if possible some of the modernism and elegance of the new Arch in the Defence.   I went to my laboratory. To invent the right material. Concerning durability. Concerning strength. Concerning weight. Etc. And to find the right way to construct the new Eiffel Tower. And finally to make tests. As I had finished my work I showed the entire project to Bertrand Delanoë. He loved the project and he was enthusiastic about implementing it. SOFUS had invented a brand new modular system of building blocks. It was world news.   The new Eifel Tower built in Fibre Composites Materials
- applying tomorrow's materials today     Next time you are in Paris, you must visit Champ-de-Mar on Place Jaques Rueff.     Yield a profit Sofus        I have put on my office clothes and I have had my hair done. Now I am ready for talking about money. To keep a business going it is necessary to earn some money. Then we can still strengthen our knowledge and become less sensitive towards declining markets. Our customers must be as satisfied as we are. We must price our products reasonably, and sell reasonably, so that we yield a profit.  
 

________________________________________

And SOFUS became a hit.
New SOFUSes and new stories were created

 

 

about Safty Sofus

 

 

about Angry Sofus and many more

 

The story about SOFUS (English) - storytelling

Historien om SOFUS (Danish) - storytelling

The story about SOFUSes (English) - storytelling.

Historien om SOFUS'er (Danish) - storytelling.

As a tribute to the employee's children

I made a coloring book in English, Danish and Italian
that the children can download and colorize

The story...get rid og Angry-Sofus (English) - coloring book
The story...bliv fri for Vrede-SOFUS (dansk) - malebog
La storia...LIBERATI DA SOFUS ARRABBIATO (italiano) - libro da Colorare.

    OOO
 

CORPORATE VALUES

  By Michael Juul Jensen Extracts from an article in e-newsletter INSIDER (www.insider.mondo.dk), published by Mondo A/S.   Translated and edited by Asbjorn Lonvig.   The good story is met with sympathy in a time, where the noise of messages is so extremely loud. In USA the corporate storytelling is the latest tool in stakeholder-relations, and in Denmark the attention to this tool is increasing. In storytelling the company has the opportunity to illustrate it's potential, a potential that is not shown in numbers and digits and fancy business visions. Storytelling is the opportunity to communicate the values and goals of a company.    The good story is easy to remember and you want to tell it to others. It is an efficient tool to communicate important messages to all around a company - customers, suppliers, cooperators, competitors, employees, the press, politicians and not least stock-holders and potential investors.   In storytelling you have the tool to describe not measurable values and the development potential of a company. Concerning publishing these stories the corporate web site and e-newsletter of course are evident. It's quick and relatively easy. But it can as well be done by traditional means in the traditional media. The point is to tell a story that makes it quite clear that this exact company is something special.   Corporate storytelling started - not surprisingly - in USA. Some years ago Scott Rosenberg, the managing editor of the famous American e-zine Salon.com, wrote in an article "Story Time":     "a beginning wave of interest from the corporate world - which is beginning to see narrative and storytelling as additional powerful tools in the marketing arsenal. In a business environment where 'branding' has become a mantra of power, many companies are beginning to think of advertising as an opportunity to tell their corporate story to the world. And marketers are looking for ways to capture stories from customers about how they feel about a company's products and services. Storytelling isn't just for kids any more - it's for CEOs, too."     PricewaterhouseCoopers is one of the companies that soon found out the impact of a good story on a more efficient branding. One of the partners, Bill Dauphinais, have said to "Fast Company":   "Brands are built around stories. And stories of identity - who we are, where we've come from - are the most effective stories of all. This is a powerful way to bring them to life."   Coca Cola has established a storytelling center i Las Vegas. In "The World of Coca-Cola" the company percents an entire adventure world  in text, sound and pictures based on the Coca-Cola-brand. Director Channel Deborah MacCarthy, Coca-Cola's College, says that there is a thoroughly prepared branding strategy behind this untraditionally initiative:   "We wanted to bring the brand to life, to tell the stories of Coca-Cola, and to express Coca-Cola's core values: fun, refreshment, and specialness in people's lives."     The director of IBM's Institute of Knowledge Management, David Snowden says about IBM's increased attention on the possibilities in storytelling:   "Organizations are beginning to understand that storytelling is not an optional extra. Stories are something that already exist as an integral part of defining what that organization is, what it means to buy from it, what it means to work for it. These are the early days in understanding the use of stories in modern business. The results, however, are sufficiently good that we now know that there are major benefits to be achieved from the use of stories and from the development of storytelling skills."      In the book "The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge Era Organizations", Stephen Denning writes about how he - back in 1996 - discovered the power of storytelling in motivating an entire organization to understand visions and bring visions into effect. In his work as director of Knowledge Management in The World Bank, Stephen Denning had for several years needed a better tool in promoting new initiatives than numbers, reports, graphs etc. At a meeting with the management he had the job to promote a new information system. For the first time he used storytelling. Here is the story Stephen Denning:   "There was a health care worker in Kamana, Zambia, who in 1995 was searching for a method to treat malaria. The worker logged on to the Web site of the Centers for Disease Control and within minutes found his answer. This story happened, not in June 2015, but in June 1995. This is not a rich country, it is Zambia, one of the least developed countries in the world. It is not even the capital of the country; it is six hundred kilometers away. But the most striking aspect of the picture is this: Our organization isn't in it. Our organization doesn't have its know-how and expertise organized in such a way that someone like the health worker in Zambia can have access to it. But just imagine if it had! We could get ourselves organized so that professionals have access to the resources needed. Just in time and just enough."   According to Stephen Denning this very simple story had an astonishing response from the management. The importance of having all information in one place only, accessible to everybody even in the remotest corners was suddenly very clear to the management. The following year a 'organization wide knowledge sharing program' was implemented. The experience was the point of departure of an intensive interest in storytelling, and in 2000 Stephen Denning published the book The Springboard on this subject. Stephen Denning writes:   "The attractions of narrative are obvious. Storytelling is natural and easy and entertaining and energizing. Stories help us understand complexity. Stories can enhance or change perceptions. Stories are easy to remember. Stories are inherently non adversarial and non-hierarchical. They bypass normal defense mechanisms and engage our feelings."   Stephen Denning writes first and foremost about "springboard stories", which have the purpose to engage people in organizational changes. But storytelling can have numerous effects inside the company - not least in relation to strengthening employees engagement in the company. At the same time Stephen Denning points out the  importance of that management listens to the employees' stories. These stories are very sensitive tools for measuring good and bad vibrations and the degree of enthusiasm - or lack of enthusiasm - concerning visions and the management's decisions.  

A user portal is a portal for one specific user,
a country, a city, a municipality, a museum, a company etc.
It shows and it has links to those art works that might be relevant to that specific user.
The User Portal logo is the arch of Septimus Severus in Forum Romanum, Rome.

Why User Portals?
The short and simple answer is to serve my customers better and to seve customers that are not familiar with computers, with internet etc.

I'll show you a User Portal.
I am building the Aarhus City Portal right now.
Aarhus City is the second largest city in Denmark.
Aarhus City has 225.000 inhabitants.
So, this user portal intends to serve 225.000 users.

The first thing to do is to create motifs that describe Aarhus City.
I went to Aarhus and found buildings and landmarks of Aarhus, that I could use.
The new museum, the city hall tower, the queen's summer residence, the Theater, a house in the Old Town, the cathedral and finally the old cathedral office in St. Clemen's Courtyard.

Today I finished these motifs:




I load large files of all the images to print on demand contracting parties in Salt Lake City, Seattle, and San Francisco Bay Area. The images are approved at once in Salt Lake City and Seattle. In San Francisco the images might wait for approval.

First of all I use a User Portal logo.

The logo is of course a portal. In a matter of fact it is a very specific portal. It is the Arch of Septimus Severus, which was erected in the Roman Forum in A.D. 203 by the Roman Emperor Septimus Severus.
You can't study Roman history without visiting the Roman Forum once.
You can't visit the Roman Forum without passing through the Arch of Septimus Severus.
In this logo a BETA will shown in the big arch. That is because the 40 different User Portals, that have been launched so far are being tested.
The Aarhus City Portal is marked with a BETA, too.

See the Aarhus City Portal.
The motifs are presented. Here 7 motifs. You might see an enlargement by clicking on an image.
Then there are 3 sections. 1, 2 and 3.

1. The user must have some free titbit. So I give him the possibility to download three Word documents of each motif. Word documents that can be printed on the user's own printer.
I have to be aware of different formats in European and American standards. The European standard is A format and the American standard it is Letter format. The Aarhus City Portal probably will only be used by Europeans - therefore the A format is offered.

2. Here I guide the user to order print at print on demand contracting parties. One in Salt Lake City, one in Seattle and one in San Francisco Bay area.
By guiding to 3 print on demand contracting parties the users are offered a variety of sizes, prices, qualities and surfaces.
At the same time I keep track of what happens in this market.

The prices are kept low - the user only pays the base print price and internet costs. The user can order prints in sizes from 3.5 x 5” to 40 x 60” on paper and canvas – and some other funny surfaces like T-shirts, mugs, tote bags etc. etc. The print contracting party handles ordering and payment. The printing of course and the prints are sent directly to the user.

If the user wants to see some of the my other 750 images for print there is a link to the main pages in Salt Lake City, Seattle, and San Francisco Bay Area.

3. If the user wants something special. A painting. Limited edition prints. Signed prints. A huge print on canvas larger than 40 x 60" - no problem, he just has to contact me.

A brochure is available to each User Portal.
The brochure is of course used for initial presentation of the portal.
You can download the brochure Aarhus City Portal from the portal.


Thoughts.
Now what is the most important to succeed with these User Portals.
Is it to do excellent motifs? No!
Is it to simplify the User Portal? No!
Is it to make an extremely eye catching brochure? No!

It is to communicate the User Portal Concept to people that are not familiar with computers, with internet etc.
I can not do it myself.
I know too much.
Or!!!!
You might as well say I know much too little.

But.
Journalists know how to present this kind of stuff to their readers.
This week Ny Hedensted Portal and Ny Vejle Portal will have press coverage.
Tomorrow I'll translate the Aarhus City Portal into Danish and find a jounalist at the Aarhus newspaper Aarhus Stiftstidende.

Vejle is a City in Denmark.
Vejle has a soccer team.
This soccer team is called Vejle Boldklub.
Vejle Boldklub has had many famous soccer players over the years.
In order to pass on the great history of Vejle Boldklub to sponsors, the fan club, the crowd, the public a new initiative has been started.
This new initiative is called Vejle Boldklub Storytelling.
Each and every time the Vejle soccer team plays at home there are 2 exhibitions of 15 plates each in the 2 VIP lounges. The exihibition shows newspaper pages and pages from the club annual telling a story on a particular tema.
A brand new wonderful stadion was opened on 20. March 2008 by famous soccer player Allan Simonsen. Originally he was from Vejle, but now he lives in Barcelona, Spain, where he celebrated huge achievements with his team Barcelona FC on the renowned and huge stadium in Barcelona - Nuo Camp.
If you are a tourist in Barcelona, and you tell people in Barcelona, you are from Denmark, they spontanously say SIMONSEN.
On the opening day the tema of Vejle Boldklub Storytelling was of course Allan Simonsen.
He looked at the exhibition and he obviously enjoyed it.
You can see these exhibitions on the internet as well.
The web address is www.vejle-boldklub-storytelling.dk.
The web site uses Zmags simplified e-publishing software to present the newspaper pages and the club annual pages.

In the hall of this brand new stadium in Vejle, there is a sculpture by Asbjorn Lonvig. The sculpture is in red - it is the club color - and it symbolizes the two main sources of the storytelling. There is a newspaper bike with samples of the newpaper Vejle Amts Folkeblad and there is a sach truck with samples of the club annual.
The slogan of the storytelling is written on the sculpture:...with NO PAST - you have no future (in Danish: ...uden FORTID - ingen fremtid).
Click on the sculpture image to see a larger image.

In the hall there is a portrait of the tema soccer player as well. It is placed at the entrance on an aisle. This portrait is 91,5 x 91,5 cm, print on canvas, one of a kind and it is done by Asbjorn Lonvig. The portrait is for announcing the tema and after the Storytelling Art Event the portrait is placed in a "Wall of Fame". You can download the portrait at no charge at www.vejle-boldklub-storytelling.dk).
Click on the portrait image to see a larger image.
After the Art Event the plates are stored in the archives of the Vejle Boldklub Museum.


Vejle Boldklub Storytelling is a non-profit initiative made by the newspaper Vejle Amts Folkeblad, Vejle Boldklub, Vejle Boldklub Museum and the Vejlelibraries.