How to turn your side hustle into part of your BIG STORY

How to turn your side hustle into part of your BIG STORY

How to turn your side hustle into part of your BIG STORY 369 217 Shlomi Ron

I have always been fascinated by movies as engaging visual stories.

For some reason, I started studying Italian as a side interest in NY’s Greenwich Village.

Wow! It was like wearing VR glasses with different cultural lenses to see the world.

Such that I used to joke that every Saturday I literally spent a few hours in Italy…

I started watching Italian films and bringing up ideas in my advanced language classes.

Somebody mentioned, hey why don’t you arrange a screening for the class?

I did. And for a full year in San Diego, I curated a monthly screening of classic films.

Right after I moved back to New York, I resumed my Italian cinema discussion classes.

I started cafePellicola.com a blog that is dedicated to celebrating fine Italian cinema.

The blog was great but I missed the direct interaction with the audience.

So, I produced film festivals that included movie introduction and post-screening Q&A.

Then Cafe Pellicola Live came along where I interviewed online Italian filmmakers and scholars.

During all that time, I was leading digital marketing programs in major corporations.

2 years ago, I relocated to Miami and explored ways to use my corporate experience.

Colliding two worlds, I co-founded the Visual Storytelling Institute (VSI).

4.6B daily content pieces and decreasing attention spans – was our call for adventure.

After researching the space, we developed a 9-step My Visual Story framework.

By which, we help businesses articulate, visualize, and spread their business stories.

Spreading the VSI gospel, we met great new people that saw what we saw.

One of them was Massimo Lico founder of ML Visual Storytelling agency in Rome, Italy.

As part of VSI’s global outreach, we found an exciting common ground.

We’re launching a new Webinar program that nicely ties together this one-line narrative.

On 1/31/17, we introduced an innovative model that truly leverages my 2 passions:

Visual strategies from classic Italian cinema to empower visual storytelling marketers.

And in Italian!

English version of this Webinar will be announced later.

If you have Italian-speaking friends or colleagues, or plain curious, please share this Webinar recording:

So what is the big lesson from this yarn, you ask?

Pay attention to your side hustles as that’s where your BIG STORY is waiting!

Shlomi Ron

Shlomi Ron is the founder and CEO of the Visual Storytelling Institute, a Miami-based think tank with a mission to bring the gospel of visual storytelling from the world of art to more human-centric and purpose-driven marketing. A digital marketing veteran with over 20 years of experience working both on the agency and brand sides for Fortune 100/500 brands such as Nokia, IBM, and American Express. He started VSI to combine his marketing expertise with his passion for visual stories stemming from his interests in classic Italian cinema and managing the estate of video art pioneer, Buky Schwartz. At VSI, he helps brands rise above the communication noise through visual storytelling consulting, training, and thought leadership. Select clients include Estée Lauder, Microsoft, and Cable & Wireless – to name a few. He currently teaches Brand Storytelling at the University of Miami’s Business School. Thought leader and speaker at key marketing conferences. He is also the host of the Visual Storytelling Today podcast, which ranks in the top 10 best business storytelling podcasts on the Web. His book: Total Acuity: Tales with Marketing Morals to Help You Create Richer Visual Brand Stories. Outside work, he is a nascent bread baker, The Moth fan, and longtime fedora wearer likely to jive with his classic Italian cinema interest.

All stories by: Shlomi Ron

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.