CLASS 21August 4 · Storytelling + Story Systems

Class 21: Storytelling and Story Systems. "A good story creates content. A great story creates change."

Taught bySharon PaneloFounder, Stories & Strategy
Ex-McCann, ex-Martin Agency, ex-Braze innovation lab

The class in brief

Guest storyteller Sharon Panelo taught how to turn an invented object into a behavior, a memory, and a story that spreads. The night followed one arc: Shakespeare's five acts mapped onto business storytelling, followed by three sprints for the capstone teams.

After this page you can build a story with a real enemy in it, write its December 2030 future headlines, and villain-mode your own idea before anyone else does.

The question of the night

Why this matters · 6:14 PM

When anyone can generate infinite content, who decides what has meaning?

Sharon opened on the capstone brief itself, then put up the night's real question : how do you turn an invented object into a behavior people choose, a memory people keep, and a story people spread.

Her answer to the AI era's flood of content is a division of labor : you tell the stories and make the meaning; AI builds the systems and scales the effects.

things a story can measurably change: what people THINK, FEEL, or DO. If it moves none of them, it is not a story yet.

acts, borrowed from Shakespeare, carrying every business story from "what is" to the call to action.

The framework · 6:22 PM

The five-act business story

What isexposition

The world today, stated plainly. The audience has to recognize it before anything can change.

The tension, the enemyrising action

The thing to push against. It can be consumerism, apathy, or "Christmas doesn't mean anything to me anymore." No enemy, no story.

The truth, the insightclimax

The critical insight that flips the script on the tension.

What could befalling action

The vision of the promised land the insight makes possible.

The call to actionresolution

Urgency: the cliffhanger or the ask that turns the audience into participants.

The proof case was Million Hoodies , from her McCann years: a behavior, a hashtag, and a petition that put a poster on the front page of The New York Times the next day. It is where the night's headline line comes from .

The exercise · 6:35 PM

Three story sprints for the capstone

The sprints

Every team picks a track and runs it on their holiday concept.

Future headlines: design the narrative, make it memorable.
Customer data stories: design from real signals, make it personal.
Villain mode: design for resistance, make it stronger .

Grounded first in the holiday tension map : what people say they want from the holidays versus what they actually experience

Future headlines, demonstrated on Wendy's

December 2030, your idea is culture: write the culture, business, and human headlines, then ask what would have to become true . She showed one idea wearing four publications' voices: The New York Times, NBC, NPR, and ESPN, each reading Wendy's March Madness "Start Beef, Squash Beef" differently .

Tony's addition was to mock the winning headline up as a magazine cover for the deck.

Logline ad libs

"It is ___ meets ___, creating a new holiday behavior in which people ___." Ask AI for 30, curate one . Her warning is the whole lesson: the final clause is the point. Without the behavior, it is only aesthetic remixing.

Ritual prototype, shared but cut for time

The questions that turn an object into a ritual: what triggers it, who initiates, what is the response, is there gamification. The ice bucket challenge is the mechanism to study.

Customer data stories

The craft · 6:48 PM

The best stories are already sitting in the brand's own data.

Track II is mining what the brand already knows: Spotify's Sound Town and Wrapped Personas turn listening data into rituals, and e.l.f.'s Beauty Squad Replay does it with live sales data, shown on the real site during class.

Her own proof was a concept prototype, not an analysis of real records: a JetBlue loyalty pitch she built with Claude in minutes, from a prompt describing 20 years of her own JetBlue emails without supplying the emails themselves , which Claude answered with invented data Sharon said pretty much matched her real life .

Her prompt asked for twenty years; the artifact Claude built covers seventeen, 2008 to 2024, a three-year gap between what she described and what it delivered.

The data pyramid: transactional → efficiency → belonging → self-actualization

rungs on the data pyramid. The holiday brief lives at belonging: "use my data to make more meaningful brand relationships."

The judgment · 6:58 PM

Attack your idea at the end, when the criticism can still make it stronger.

Villain mode is a cynical cultural critic pointed at your own concept : manipulative, forgettable, culturally tone-deaf, commercially forced, unlikely to become a real tradition. Or a colder version of the same prompt: write the headline published two years after this idea failed.

Her rule, answering a question from the room: use it at the END to anticipate objections, never at the start to kill ideas. The design move is the follow-up question: what would we change so the criticism is no longer true.

"You created something. Now how do you make people believe in it?"

Sharon's pivot slide into villain mode

logline combinations to ask AI for. Your job is curating the one, and defending why it creates behavior instead of novelty.

years after launch: the imaginary failure headline that tells you today what to fix.

Methods and prompts

Five methods to take with you

METHOD 01 · TAUGHT 6:39 part of: go wide then narrow

Future headlines

Jump to December 2030 and write the culture, business, and human headlines your idea would earn, then work backward to what has to become true. AI writes the publication voices; you curate the future worth building.

Where it came fromSharon Panelo taught this as the first of three story sprints on August 4, demonstrating it on Wendy's March Madness campaign by writing December 2030 headlines in the voice of different publications and then asking what would have to become true for them to exist.Use it whenUse it once an idea is set and needs to be tested for staying power, by imagining its future coverage and working backward to what makes that future real.

Same idea elsewhereThe lateral reframe (class 2) · Start a fresh chat instead of one long thread (class 3) · Force the creative partner deeper (class 4)

Working prompt

It is December 2030 and my idea [describe it] has become part of culture. Write its culture headline, business headline, and human headline. Then rewrite the best one as The New York Times, TikTok comments, a local paper, a trade publication, a skeptical critic, and a ten-year retrospective. End with: what would have to become true for these to exist?

You will know it worked whenthe headline gets rewritten in each named publication voice with a genuinely different tone, and it ends by naming what would have to become true first.

METHOD 02 · TAUGHT 6:47 part of: structure your ask

Logline ad libs

Force the idea into one sentence with a behavior clause it cannot dodge. Thirty from the machine, one from you, and the "why" has to defend behavior over novelty.

Where it came fromSharon introduced this on August 4 as a way to force an idea into one sentence built around a real behavior, warning that without a named behavior the exercise is only aesthetic remixing.Use it whenUse it once an idea has substance but hasn't been reduced to a single defensible sentence naming what people would actually do.

Same idea elsewhereGive it two keyframes instead of one description (class 2) · Speak the language of the internet (class 3) · Write it as a GOLD block (class 4)

Working prompt

Give me 30 versions of: "It is ___ meets ___, creating a new holiday behavior in which people ___" for my idea [describe it]. Pull the blanks from: existing rituals, other cultural moments, platform mechanics, physical objects, forms of exchange, public spectacles, private traditions. The final clause must name a real behavior.

You will know it worked wheneach of the thirty versions ends with a specific human behavior named in its final clause, not just a restated feature or benefit.

METHOD 03 · TAUGHT 6:53 part of: context beats prompts

Mine the data story

Sharon's JetBlue prompt is a concept-prototyping model, not a real-data analysis: describe the human context and years of real experience you have, let AI invent plausible data to mock up the story, then push past the infographic to lasting value. Before calling any result a story mined from real data, validate it row by row against the actual records.

Where it came fromSharon demonstrated this on August 4 with her own JetBlue loyalty pitch. She described twenty years of her personal JetBlue emails to Claude without supplying the emails, and Claude invented dates, cities, and sentiment values that she said pretty much matched her real life.Use it whenUse it when you want a fast, human-context-rich mock-up, and treat it as a prototype until you have a real data schema, a provenance check, and validation against actual rows.

Same idea elsewhereControl the input and build gradually (class 2) · Show it your voice and not just the output (class 3) · Evolve the reference instead of restarting (class 5)

Working prompt

I have [describe the data you actually hold] spanning [time]. What stories live in this data: where I was, what it meant, who I was with, what changed? Push past a fun infographic: how does this become a long-term, customer-centric experience? Constraint: I get one slide and three minutes.

You will know it worked whenthe idea it lands on fits inside one slide and three minutes, and goes past a one-off infographic to something that plays out over time.

METHOD 04 · TAUGHT 6:58 part of: reject the first draft part of: keep the judgment human

Villain mode

The cynical critic, deployed at the end. The output you keep is not the criticism; it is your answer to "what would we change so the criticism is no longer true."

Where it came fromSharon taught this on August 4 as the third story sprint, deploying a cynical cultural critic against an idea, with her rule that it belongs at the end of the process to anticipate objections rather than at the start to kill ideas.Use it whenUse it once an idea is mostly finished, to stress-test it against its harshest likely criticism and decide what would need to change.

Same idea elsewhereJudge AI output with your own trained eye (class 1) · The sea-of-sameness check (class 2) · Pick the relationship on purpose (class 2)

Working prompt

You are a cynical cultural critic. Explain why my idea [describe it] is manipulative, forgettable, culturally tone-deaf, commercially forced, or unlikely to become a real tradition. Then write the headline published two years after it failed. I will answer with what we would change so the criticism is no longer true.

You will know it worked whenthe failure headline names a specific reason the idea flopped, not a vague warning, giving you something concrete to answer with a real fix.

METHOD 05 · TAUGHT 6:26 part of: keep the judgment human

The story KPI test

Before shipping any story, name which of the three it measurably changes: what people think, what they feel, or what they do. Then check it carries all five acts, especially the enemy.

Where it came fromSharon closed her framework on August 4 by tying together the three-way test of whether a story changes what people think, feel, or do, with the five-act structure borrowed from Shakespeare that every business story needs, especially a clear enemy.Use it whenUse it once a story draft exists, to check it names a real enemy and can state which single outcome, think, feel, or do, it is built to move.

Same idea elsewhereJudge AI output with your own trained eye (class 1) · The sea-of-sameness check (class 2) · Pick the relationship on purpose (class 2)

Working prompt

Here is my story: [paste]. I will do the judging first, then you check me. My call on which it measurably changes (THINK, FEEL, or DO): [your answer]. My mapping to the five acts (what is, the tension/enemy, the insight, what could be, the call to action): [your mapping]. Now grade my two answers, tell me where I am wrong, and be honest if the story moves nothing.

You will know it worked whenit tells you honestly whether your story actually moves nothing, and grades your own THINK, FEEL, or DO call against your five-act mapping.

The close · 6:59 PM

From one story to a story system

Sharon's closing frame : the assignment is not one story but a system that shapes participation, behavior, and meaning over time. The rest of the night belonged to the capstone teams in breakout rooms.

Her prompt pack, the headlines, villain mode, tension map, ad libs, and ritual prototype, was promised to Tony for distribution and lands in the course pack when it arrives.

In the Q&A that followed, Tony raised a student's idea for a new holiday sound mnemonic. Sharon pointed the class to Suno for sonic branding experiments, calling audio branding a genuine hook worth pursuing.

Try this prompt

Quiz me on Sharon's five-act business story and the three story sprints. Then give me a small idea and make me run future headlines and villain mode on it.

You will know it worked whenit quizzes you on the five-act business story and the three story sprints first, then makes you run future headlines and villain mode on a small idea.

The shelf

Tools and references

Tools that night

Claude, used live for the JetBlue loyalty pitch and its interactive artifact
Sharon's prompt pack (headlines, villain mode, tension map, ad libs, ritual prototype), promised to Tony for the class
Suno, pointed at for sonic branding directions

Named in the room

Million Hoodies (McCann) · Wendy's Start Beef, Squash Beef
Spotify Wrapped, Song Psychic + Sound Town · e.l.f. Beauty Squad Replay
JetBlue TrueBlue · the ice bucket challenge, as ritual mechanics

Every frame from this class

43 captures, in order. Click any one to see it full size.

The question of the night

Sharon Panelo, the class's guest instructor on storytelling and founder of Stories & Strategy, opened by recapping the Coca-Cola brief. Invent a new holiday shorthand, a brand element, experience, and commerce system that responds to a real tension and can build meaning over time.

A black slide with italic white text posing the question about turning an invented object into a behavior, a memory, and a story. — Sharon framed the night's central question: how an invented object becomes a behavior people choose, a memory people keep, and a story people spread.

A march poster reading 1,000,000 Hoodie March for Trayvon Martin, with march details and a photo of Trayvon Martin. — Sharon used McCann's Million Hoodies case study, a 2012 march for Trayvon Martin paired with a hashtag and a Change.org petition, as an example of a story that created real change rather than just content.

A black slide contrasting A good story creates content with A great story creates change. — Sharon's core distinction for the night: a good story creates content, but a great story creates change, the standard she held up for evaluating the group's holiday concept.

The five-act story

A mountain-shaped line diagram labeled Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, and Resolution. — Sharon mapped the classic Shakespearean five-act arc, exposition through resolution, as the template she would translate into a business storytelling framework.

The same five-act arc diagram retitled Business Story, with a What Is label appearing under Exposition. — Sharon began relabeling the five-act arc for business storytelling, starting with Exposition as What Is, building toward the full framework.

A five-act arc diagram labeled What Is, Tension or Enemy, Truth or Insight, What Could Be, and Call to Action. — Sharon's completed business-story framework: Exposition is What Is, Rising Action is Tension or Enemy, and Climax is Truth or Insight. Falling Action is What Could Be, and Resolution is Call to Action, the structure the group used to evaluate their own concept.

A black slide asking, in bold white text, who decides what has meaning when anyone can generate infinite content. — Sharon posed the night's framing tension for AI-assisted storytelling: when anyone can generate infinite content, who decides what has meaning.

A black slide contrasting You tell the stories, humans make the meaning with AI builds the systems, AI scales the effects. — Sharon's division of labor for the exercises ahead: humans make the meaning and tell the stories, while AI builds and scales the systems around them.

A black slide reading The Real KPIs of Story, measurable changes in what people think, feel, do. — Sharon's test for any story concept: does it produce a measurable change in what people think, feel, or do.

A black slide titled Vibe Check with a raised-hand emoji, next to two confidence-check questions. — Sharon paused for a group vibe check, asking students where they felt least confident and where their story would fall apart if they presented it tomorrow.

A Google Slides editor showing a black slide titled Holiday Tension Map with the subtitle What problem is actually worth solving. — Sharon introduced the Holiday Tension Map exercise with the prompt: what problem is actually worth solving.

A Google Slides editor showing the Holiday Tension Map slide listing five paired holiday tensions. — Sharon's Holiday Tension Map named five contradictions the class could design against: togetherness versus loneliness, tradition versus exhaustion, generosity versus financial strain, nostalgia versus cultural exclusion, and celebration versus travel stress.

The three story sprints

A black slide titled Story Sprints listing three tracks, Future Headlines, Customer Data Stories, and Villain Mode, each with a design goal. — Sharon laid out the night's three story sprints: Future Headlines to make the narrative memorable, Customer Data Stories to make it personal, and Villain Mode to make it stronger.

A black slide titled Future Headlines with the subtitle What story do we want told. — Sharon opened the first exercise, Future Headlines, with the prompt: what story do we want told.

Sharon's Future Headlines case study was Wendy's Start Beef, Squash Beef, a March Madness app feature that let college basketball fans bank rewards by ribbing rival fans.