How do we help employees explain complex work?

Find concrete examples in your existing material, using case studies, technical documents and internal communications to identify what the business makes possible. Treat the documents as material to draw from, rather than expecting employees to share them unchanged.

For IBM, valuable accounts of the company's impact were buried in dense case studies, technical documentation and press materials. Employees had access to substantial knowledge, but the formats were not designed for easy sharing or emotional engagement. The IBM storytelling platform drew on that archive to distil complex information into concise narratives. Apply the same approach by looking for examples that reveal a practical contribution to everyday life, then extracting the facts needed to explain that contribution clearly.

Connect complex work to familiar experiences by building each story around a recognisable object, place or human experience. Use simple, memorable language to explain how the business's work connects to something employees and their audiences already understand.

The IBM campaign framed technical achievements through their everyday relevance, rather than leaving employees to translate complex technologies themselves. Its concise "story nuggets" linked IBM innovations to familiar parts of life, making the company's impact more tangible and relatable. The approach gives employees both a concrete starting point and a clear connection to explain. Keep the technical contribution connected to the everyday example: the purpose is to help someone understand what the business makes possible, not simply to replace technical language with a more colourful description.

Give employees a library of shareable stories, packaged as concise, visually engaging material they can use in everyday conversations and communications. Make the stories accessible in formats suited to where employees will encounter and share them.

The "This is IBM" campaign gave employees tangible, real-world examples through a dedicated website, social channels, YouTube, internal communications, environmental branding, printed books and event cards. Across the formats, the stories reinforced a consistent narrative about IBM's technologies shaping the modern world. Running from 2019 to 2023, the campaign grew from a UK and Ireland website into printed promotional assets and event stands, with geography-specific web pages across Europe and Asia. Build a similarly usable collection around a shared business story, adapting the presentation for different locations where needed.