Every city has a story, and Sioux Falls is working to write its next chapter. On Tuesday, the Sioux Falls Chamber of Commerce held its annual meeting with keynote speaker and Pixar story developer Matthew Luhn.
Matthew Luhn started his career as an animator with The Simpsons and Pixar’s Toy Story. He soon realized his true passion was the process of crafting a story. Since then, Luhn has worked on some of Pixar’s best loved films like Finding Nemo and UP. But in the last few years he’s also recognized the important role of storytelling in business.
Luhn travels the country presenting on ways to adapt Pixar storytelling strategies to build a story around a business or a city.
“The talks I always do, they always revolve around that: how to come up with ideas, how to create a culture that inspires creativity. But all those things are serving the purpose to be able to tell the best story,” says Luhn.
That’s because stories can communicate value and meaning. Jason Ball is the President and CEO of the Sioux Falls Chamber of Commerce. He says Luhn is the perfect speaker for this year’s meeting, because the chamber is focusing on how to tell the story of Sioux Falls’ continuing growth to a far-reaching audience.
“Not just how can we advance business issues or the image of the chamber, but it’s how can we advance an image of Sioux Falls in people that may have never even been to America or know where South Dakota is," explains Ball. "We want to begin to have that type of brand presence with people, if you will, for our community. And that’s gonna be effective in drawing people here.”
Ball says the Chamber is looking forward to future opportunities for the city to present that story.