The King's Flower

My child had several Anno books, but this was a particular favourite. A simple parable in which a King learns that biggest is not always best.

Image: Comic impracticalities of “biggest is best”

It sprang to mind a few weeks ago when I was planning a conference presentation. I was thrilled to immerse myself in cuddled memories of our shared love of it, while also seeking illustrations and analogies to use in my presentation.

As a Children’s Book

"There was once a King who had to have everything bigger and better than everyone else."

Children’s stories are often educational in some broad sense, but they need some or all of the following (this has all):

• Fun (various unintended consequences)
• Distinctive visual style (the king’s show more crown is more like a giant cushion or gourd)
• Humour, exaggeration, surprise
• Elegant, memorable phrasing, including repetition
• Universal truth disguised in a simple message
• Work on different levels (something for parents/carers, and hence I can use it)

After various problems and unintended consequences of outsized things, the King wants the biggest flower, which will obviously be the best and most beautiful, and require the biggest flowerpot. The outcome is not quite what he expects.

"It was small - but it was very beautiful."

Image: A tiny, but beautiful, tulip. Biggest isn’t always best.

As a Metaphor for Something Else

My presentation is about applying what I learned from a decade of review-writing on GR to technical writing, especially on social media. The key points are about context (the right tools for the job), timing, and targeting one's audience, rather than aiming for maximum likes (because biggest isn’t always best). All are demonstrated in this delightful tale.

I’m sure it could be adapted just as well to a dozen other contexts.

If you want tips on creating and delivering presentations, try:
• Andi Lightheart's Presentation Now
• Tim Stockil's Start With An Earthquake show less

Nice illustrations. A king who thinks that the biggest is the best realizes that "perhaps" he was wrong. (A possibly political take on the story: Why did his servants humor him? Why couldn't they explain that the world's biggest pincers are not the best tool for pulling his bad tooth? Or that trying to eat with giant silverware means that you'll be hungry. On the other hand, nothing he did was hurt others; it just required extra work.)

But *how* does he make that discovery? Just by seeing a small but beautiful tulip growing in the humongous flower pot in which he had the bulb planted. Would that America's self-styled king, the Donald, could learn his lessons about proportion and modesty so easily....

This is the story of a king who believed that bigger is better and had everything in his kingdom made ridiculously large. He decided he wanted the biggest and best tulip in all the world. So he ordered a gigantic flower pot to be made, and climbed a ladder up to the top of the flowerpot nearly every day waiting for the tulip. When the tulip did finally grow, it was beautiful, but ordinary sized, and the king realized that even with all his power he couldn't change the size of a flower.

Fine condition