I wrote a post about public speaking (amazingly, I'll refrain from self-promoting it here /s ) and part of that was reviewing other "advice" on speaking.

One of the things they almost always say is, "tell a story."

The problem is that everyone does it these days. You're listening and thinking, "oh, he's telling a story now."

Maybe the New Yorker's moved on, but for years, their standard template was,

1. Introduce a person A who does X

2. Expound on X, occasionally mentioning A

3. Finish the story about A.