The Midsize Enterprise Summit has announced that acclaimed storyteller and new age media executive Jason Allen Ashlock will deliver the opening keynote at this fall’s Midsize Enterprise Summit. Ashlock’s keynote scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 18, will help CIOs become more effective communicators at this critical industry juncture.
The MES Board played an instrumental role in identifying Ashlock in its attempt to help senior IT leaders improve their messaging skills. Ashlock is known for helping executives and business leaders move organizations forward using powerful stories whether in meetings with senior leadership, team gatherings or presentations to large audiences.
Ashlock’s MES keynote is titled “The Storyteller's Secret: How Narrative Intelligence Can Transform Your Organization. During his keynote, Ashlock will help individuals develop their communications skills and help CIOs build a team of master storytellers. Ashlock will share tools used by the greatest storytellers of our time, and help attendees learn how to aggregate, curate, and amplify their message. Putting those story-making tools to use, attendees will elevate standard keynotes into contagious messages, transform conference room presentations into memorable experiences, and convert the most mundane email chains and team meetings into behavior-changing, performance-driving events.
“Blockbuster films, timeless literature, memorable journalism, and the funniest jokes— they're all powered by the same fuel: masterful stories. That same narrative power is central to the most dynamic teams and the most innovative companies, all of whom have uncovered a single secret: all effective communication is simply good storytelling,’’ states Ashlock’s session description.
The MES Board said today’s senior IT leaders inside midmarket organization are under enormous pressure to show how IT can create value across the organization and lead during a time of technology and business disruption. As one MES Board member said, communication is not always a core skill set of today’s IT leadership so tips and techniques to improve that skill are essential to success. This is especially true at a time when CIOs are emerging as not just technologists but business leaders.
During his keynote, Ashlock will reveal how everyone is a “storyteller at heart and will help attendees build the capacity to understand how stories work, how they're built, and why they stick. Transforming an organization's communications practices, graduating them from clumsy to focused, from random to intentional, from scattered to purposeful, he will explore the power of narrative design.”
Ashlock is founding partner of Frontier Press, the next-generation publishing unit of The Frontier Project. In the early months of the global recession, when the publishing industry was anxious and contracting, Ashlock launched a literary firm from a standing start. In a few years, it had become a known industry force. He packaged books for Hall of Fame athletes and Oscar-winning actors, for Pulitzer nominees and Grammy winners, for indie film stars and fledgling novelists. In the process, he honed his skills in narrative design and product development, and then pivoted to a new mission: break the book out of its ghetto. Frontier Press is how he’s chipping away at the wall.
An avid book historian, he tells audiences around the world that books remain the most efficient content delivery systems ever invented. An avid book futurist, he tells the same listeners that the best days of the book are just ahead: when the tools of its design, production and distribution are within the control of brands and individuals who can harness the book’s true potential to create connection.
If you are an IT leader inside a midmarket organization and would like to see Ashlock’s keynote at the Midsize Enterprise Summit in Austin Sept. 18-20 you can register using this link https://www.eiseverywhere.com/ereg/newreg.php?eventid=167193&reference=website
