We’re talking to our clients a lot about storytelling at the moment.

People are defining it in a very broad way. At one end of the spectrum you have those who break down and examine the component parts of a classic story – protagonist, turning point, resolution etc – and apply it to organisational knowledge management.

At the other end you have those who seem to be using the term storytelling to mean nothing more than ‘talking to each other’. (No one wants to talk about Bruce Springsteen yet, but I’m working on it).

It’s astonishing really. But I think it’s no coincidence that storytelling and new technology are both hot topics for us at the moment.

I think the two complement each other. Larry Prusak says that depending on your computer – just reading emails and documents – is the triumph of content over context. I think he’s right. He says: “You never hear the stories; you never hear the subtext.”

He goes further about working from home. “You never talk to your co-workers. The organisation learns nothing. You learn nothing … It’s a stupid way to work.”

Employees are finding that technology is allowing them to do extraordinary things. But the misuse of technology is increasingly chaining workers to their computers. I think, or maybe I hope, there will be a backlash. Maybe the growth of storytelling is the backlash. Because if we’re not careful we’ll forget to actually talk to each other.