Reframing What It Means to “Pitch”
During the group project for the Pitching Your Stories course, I gained a whole new understanding of the concept of “pitching.” A truly compelling pitch isn’t about using complex business language, but about telling stories about people. In the course, our group task was to develop a creative and narrative-driven solution to enhance the “visibility” and “accessibility” of the National Library of Scotland. We focused on improving the Data Foundry, with content centered around how users interact with library resources through a series of short stories.
Bringing Jenny’s Coffee Shop Story to Life
My role was to create a story about Jenny, the owner of a coffee shop, who used the Data Foundry to discover the history of her shop and turned it into a cultural highlight for her business. To make this story more authentic and convincing, I decided not to just search for materials online, but to visit local cafés in Edinburgh to observe firsthand. What surprised me was that in a city as familiar as Edinburgh, there were so many spaces full of history that I had never noticed before.
At Deacon’s House Cafe, I noticed an old map of Edinburgh hanging on the wall, with wood carvings from an old building used as decorations. Another place had a menu that featured the shop’s history in the “About Us” section, detailing its transformation from a 19th-century pub to an independent coffee shop today, presented as part of its brand story.
The Power of Authenticity in Creative Work
These coffee shops are not just places to drink coffee; they are living stories, cultural nodes connecting the past and the present. These details were things I had never noticed in my daily life before, and their existence enriches the cultural layers of the city. Creative work is not about working in isolation; it requires stepping into the scene, seeing with your eyes, touching with your hands, and feeling with your heart. The emotional impact of creative work often stems from authentic details. A story that can convince and resonate with people requires authenticity as its foundation.
Leave a Reply