Project Catalyse: A messaging toolkit for methanol as a hydrogen carrier

Wed, 10 Nov 2021
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I’ve recently wrapped up the presentation and publication of Project Catalyse, a messaging toolkit for methanol fuel cell and reformer companies within the Methanol Institute membership.

The project was conceived with the aim of creating a harmonised messaging strategy for participating companies, through fostering greater alignment in the key messages communicated to stakeholders.

In a three-phase exercise that spanned eight months, I worked together with the Institute to:

  • Read and listen to the stories that participating companies told, and the roles they play in providing a pathway to a #decarbonising world;
  • Distil elements of participating companies‘ narratives to craft themes that form the methanol metanarrative; and
  • Weave a framework, as part of the toolkit, to affirm and enhance the stories told by participating companies, thereby deepening connections with their target audiences and beyond.

It’s been a fantastic experience working with the Institute on this project.

I’m awed by and grateful for how storytelling, communication and change management skills can contribute towards the good work the methanol industry is doing in providing immediate solutions to the world today, as everyone works towards a sustainable tomorrow.

Cannibalism

Wed, 27 May 2015
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Apparently, cannibalism is now a thing.(For avoidance of doubt: It should be "Kids' halal menu".)

Posted by Laremy Lee on Sunday, 24 May 2015

Selling it for what people want it to be

Mon, 25 May 2015
2 min read
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I first fell in love with Cassandra back in 2006.

Then an intern with Pioneer magazine, I had been sent to report on the results of the previous year’s Chief of Defence Force Essay Competition.

It was pretty standard military fare, with ideas centred on whatever was the rage of that post-9/11 and Iraq II age. The first-placed essay, for example, was a paper on terrorism, while the bronze-medallist wrote about peacekeeping operations.

Cassandra by Evelyn De Morgan (1898)
Cassandra by Evelyn De Morgan (1898)

What caught my eye was the runner-up’s paper – “The Laments of Cassandra: Reflections on Warning Intelligence in the Information Eden”.

As an English Literature undergraduate with a keen interest in military affairs, I was impressed. Officers of that era were not particularly known for their knowledge of culture, especially when compared to their predecessors from colonial times.

The irony of the metatextual context amused me further; a paper on the pitfalls of ignoring prophecies coming in second, almost as though its prescience were itself being disregarded.

Mostly, I was intrigued by the Greek myth of Cassandra. How tragic, the Romantic in me thought. To be blessed with the gift of soothsaying, but to be cursed by never having anyone believe your predictions.

Nine years on, the story of Cassandra still fascinates me. I’ve started to wonder, though, if we should uncritically accept Cassandra’s fate for what it seems to be.

It began a couple of months back, when a contact expressed a view about the nature of communication and recipient receptivity.

In his words, if the recipient has already rejected what it is you have to offer, then:

If you keep selling it for what it is, of course people are going to say “No”.

So in the modern day, where we understand so much more about human psychology, design thinking and the nature of communication, can Cassandra complain if no one believes her, especially when she persists in peddling her prophecies in the same way?

It seems to me that Cassandra has two options:

  1. Carry on with tradition, and hope her recipients see the light one day; or
  2. Reframe what she is saying – instead of selling it for what it is, sell it for what people want it to be.

Perhaps more people will finally start listening to her then.