175 storyteLLIng desIgn 175 Making the Future Tangible Stories offer a wonderful technique for blurring the lines separating reality and fi ction. Thus stories provide a powerful tool for imparting tangibility to different versions of the future. This can help you challenge the status quo or justify adopting a new business model. what future business model? current business model planned future business model Provoke Ideas Sometimes a story’s sole purpose is to challenge the organizational status quo. Such a story must bring vividly to life a future competitive environment in which the current business model is severely challenged or even obsolete. Telling a story like this blurs the lines between reality and fi ction and catapults listeners into the future. This suspends disbelief, instills a sense of urgency, and opens the audience’s eyes to the need to generate new business models. Such a story can be told from either an organization or a customer perspective. Justify Change Sometimes an organization has strong ideas about how its competitive landscape will evolve. In this context, a story’s purpose is to show how a new business model is ideally suited to help an organization compete in the new landscape. Stories temporarily suspend disbelief and help people imagine how the current business model should evolve to remain effective in the future. The story’s protagonist could be a customer, an employee, or a top manager. bmgen_final.indd 175 6/15/10 5:43 PM