Stories, they are about what it means to be human. Civilizations come and go, but their stories endure. The best stories are powerful metaphors, references to help us make sense of our world. We often think of stories as just something for fun, a little anecdote to lighten up the day. But to innovators and innovation advocates, the art of storytelling is a core competency for transmitting insight and making it and stick.

Take for example, the true story of the Pakistani man who inadvertently live-tweeted the Osama bin Laden raid. This is how much of the world is learning about the changing technological and socio-political landscape in the Middle East, and perhaps also, that people all around the world are not so different from each other as we might think. On the business end of it, stories like this are how people begin to understand the value of a company like Twitter.

Sheridan Tatsuno is a worldly man fluent in four languages. A longtime Silicon Valley market researcher, business strategist, and visionary thinker, he has touched the lives of many with his involvement with things like the “Intel Inside” campaign and AMD’s sub $1000 PC. He is also a screenwriter with several of his writings on Japan that have been subsequently produced into documentaries. Today, he champions the arts with two Silicon Valley initiatives via Facebook groups: