Technical jargon: What does "narration" actually mean?

Anyone who still says storytelling today is met with bored yawns. Narration is the new word for storytelling or the narrative form of conveying information - the best form of passing on knowledge since time immemorial. Narration means the same as storytelling, only here for once a word of Latin origin replaces an English one. A rather rare phenomenon, because it is usually the other way around. But at the moment, a move away from English "bullshit" terms seems to be in vogue. This is probably mainly due to a storyteller who calls himself the most important person in the world.

But the rule is: if you have nothing to say, you should keep quiet and listen. Unfortunately, the rest of the world doesn't follow this rule either: people chatter, chat, post, tweet, (snap)chat or talk for all they're worth, without conveying any content or truth. It would be so easy to tell good and, above all, true stories.

In the communications industry, the means of transport, or channels in technical jargon, have long since conquered sovereignty over the content. It doesn't matter what it says, as long as it is transported. This then feels like pointless and contentless jetting around with the argumentation that the planes would fly anyway. And anyone who has to read heaps of concepts or master's theses will notice that the content is completely lost in all the formalism and mechanisms.

Instead of telling stories or breathing life into companies, services or products in terms of content, channels are used without knowing exactly what one wants to say and how. At such moments, the desire for more storytelling is voiced at meetings, but this now sounds either too old, too long and slow, or simply too pretentious. Narration is perhaps a good way out or a valid means of cleaning the sewer.

*The Author: Benno Maggi is co-founder and CEO of Partner & Partner. He created the column "Vom Fach" in the NZZ Folio and was in charge of it for years. He presents and decodes words and terms that can be used either for small talk, being important, getting excited, playing Scrabble or simply for fun.