Tales from Adventures on Print Island. By a storyteller...

Richard Askam has become a bell weather speaker in the global print industry and a 'go-to' person for insight and independent expertise for print innovation. Richard has become known through his innovative work with Coke, but added to this he took a traditional family business in the wine trade and successfully evolved it to become an innovative leader in its field. At last year’s LiT he was voted joint top speaker with Simon Biltcliffe and in advance of his session this year in Cambridge we asked him a few questions about his presentation, his business experience, his love of performing, and storytelling.

So what is your background – how did you learn about business?

My father established a successful wine trade business and my education was that I was sent around the world to work in various parts of the wine business. I had a period of time working with other people businesses in all the departments which gave me a great grounding. His logic was that I would always know how to do it so would be well equipped to run the business in the future. It was a great way to learn and open my mind to business, and the world.

So let’s start with Print Island as this is in the title of your presentation at LiT18. Tell me more about this?

Well ‘Adventures on Print Island’ was built primarily on the premise that if the print industry is not careful, its insular nature and the fact that it rarely travels outside means the industry doesn’t notice what is happening in the wider world. Print needs to tell a better story generally and it needs to utilise the value of storytelling to inspire a response. And I agree that it is about an interpretation of a good story, and the bare facts alone are not really the meat of a good story. Facts don’t move people – your story will need to elicit some kind of reaction or response so it has to trigger an emotion, and you just can’t do this through logic alone.

So do you think print does not tell a good story?

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