The concept of story v. narrative (discussed by John Hagel at the Business Innovation Factory summit #BIF7) can be applied to product innovation: some products are like stories and some are like narratives.
This article is great because it gets us thinking in new ways about our products/services and whether they are more like a close-ended story, or an open-ended story. Figuring this out really helps us craft and tell our business stories better.
There is an example or two to help us, along with terrific queries near the end of the article that help us answer the open/close-ended question.
The language by John Hagel that is used in the article -- story (close-ended) versus narrative (open-ended) -- I don't find useful and think it just muddies the water. But the rest of the content is so great, I ignore it.
Go figure out what kind of product/service you have so you can tell your stories better.
Many thanks to Anneliza Humlen @ADHumlen for originally sharing this post!