I had something else I was going to publish today, but this video came out and it was such a perfect remind of something I’ve been thinking about almost daily, well, I decided to put the thoughts down while they were fresh.

Now, I’ve talked a lot about story telling since I started SlopeFillers.

• I’ve tried to figure out what makes a great story
• I’ve practiced telling dozens of stories
• I’ve highlighted what I feel great examples are of storytelling

But most recently, I said this:

“Stories give moments meaning. So take the information you want to convey, find that one key moment, and design the rest of the message to support and enhance and give that moment as much context as possible.”

And that, I still feel, is right near the heart of what separates stories from information.

Give Moments Meaning
With that in mind, give Cody’s latest episode of The FIFTY a watch. The moment is when they’re skiing down, but notice how that falls around 75% of the way in and everything else is designed to give that moment as much rich, deep meaning as possible.

This is not just about videos, it’s about everything.

Tell Stories
A new lift is not about uphill capacity, it’s about the dreams of original founders and the folks who worked tirelessly for years or decades to get approval.

Moments are everywhere in our resort’s stats, our emails, our news, our social posts. Stories are about looking deeper than just that moment and asking what it took for it to happen. Asking why it matters. Asking why a bunch of people took time and money and sweat to make it happen.

That’s why working with your guests is so important. They are part of the story much more than you are. The are skiing (the moment) but they are skiing for a reason (the meaning, the context).

Talk to them, find out why, and then open up a blank blog post or turn on a camera or grab an audio recorder and tell those tales.

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.