The Walker|Weltman CEO’s Writer’s Room Project ends with a Brand Story document that lays out, from beginning to end, exactly how to tell that brand story.

Writer’s Rooms are machines for making big, compelling stories. They began as places where serialized radio shows were made, and evolved into places where episodic television shows are created. Today’s most widely watched, premium stories — Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, Orange Is the New Black, House of Lies aren’t made by a single writer or even by a creative team. Today’s engaging entertainment successes result from a method of working that brings 8 to 12 people into one place for the sole purpose of crafting a great story.

All stories are different. And all Writer’s Rooms are different. But every season, Mad Men’s Executive Producer, Matt Weiner, opened the show’s writer’s room the same way. — With the beginning and the end. Matt would lay out for his team of writers where the show’s main characters would physically begin the season and where they would emotionally end the season. His team’s nine month job was getting the show from here to there. In the room they say, “Plot is what happens. Story is what happens emotionally.” And, “If you don’t know where you’re going, no path will lead you there.”

Today, to build a compelling brand story and successful business, CEO’s and their teams need to find where their company’s or organization’s customers are physically, and where they want to go emotionally.

The CEOs Writer’s Room Project was inspired by Josh Weltman’s seven seasons working in the Mad Men Writer’s Room and Jim Walker’s 30 years experience figuring out what motivates people’s emotional connections to global brands.

Using the same techniques and methods developed to create the great stories of our time, The CEOs Writer’s Room Project is a three day offsite designed to take a CEO’s vision and their leadership team’s experience and produce a document detailing exactly how a company’s or organization’s brand story should be told to the people who most want to discover it, learn it, live it and share it. — The people who, when moved by a great story, will make the company or organization a growing success.

Incidentally, CEOs are encouraged to spend an hour with Jim and Josh at the beginning of the CEOs Writer’s Room Project. And we’d love to have them at the presentation of the final report. But we know most CEOs are really, really busy. And the purpose of this workshop is to help the team get the company’s brand story from here to there.