Lodestone founder takes narrative-driven product management framework on Canadian speaking tour

Toronto, ON — Dennis Chow, founder and CEO of Lodestone, has embarked on a speaking tour across five of Canada's leading product management communities this spring, delivering a talk on the power of narrative-driven product management — and the practical framework behind it.

The tour spans Product Tank Montreal, the Ottawa Product Management and Product Marketing Association, Product Calgary, Product BC, and the Toronto Product Management Association, bringing Chow's message to product practitioners from coast to coast.

At the centre of the talk is a 2x2 storytelling framework Chow developed specifically for product managers — a structured approach to choosing the right narrative device for any given communication. The framework maps two dimensions: the intent of the communication (Instruct vs. Influence) against the nature of the content (Abstract vs. Concrete). Those two axes produce four distinct storytelling modes — Strategic Teaching, Vision Building, Practical Guidance, and Emotional Impact — each calling for a different class of narrative approach.

A PM building alignment around a complex strategy, for example, is operating in Strategic Teaching territory — calling for narrative devices like Hero & Guide or Man in a Hole, which frame challenges and solutions in terms audiences can internalize. A PM rallying leadership around a long-term roadmap is in Vision Building mode, where devices like The Grand Vision or The Tipping Point create the urgency and aspiration needed to get people moving. When the goal shifts to driving action through emotional resonance — persuading engineers to empathize with users, or executives to act before a market window closes — Emotional Impact devices like Movie Time or Raise the Stakes come to the fore.

"Product people love frameworks — so I gave them one for storytelling," said Chow. "The idea is simple: before you build a single slide, you should know what you're trying to accomplish and what kind of content you're working with. Those two things together tell you almost everything you need to know about how to structure your narrative. Once you see it, you can't unsee it."

The talk is rooted in a conviction that has defined Lodestone since its founding: that the most important skill a product manager can develop is the ability to align stakeholders through compelling narratives. It is the same philosophy that earned Lodestone a Judge's Choice win at CodeLaunch Canada in 2024, where the company's pitch — a visual narrative built around a sweeping landscape metaphor — stood apart from every other deck on the stage.

Chow has spent more than two decades in product management, including VP Product roles at TouchBistro and Nexonia, and brings that accumulated experience to each session — mixing practical framework instruction with real examples drawn from the challenges product managers face every day.

"These communities are doing important work," added Chow. "I'm not showing up to promote a product. I'm showing up because I genuinely believe that if more product managers thought of themselves as storytellers first, they would be dramatically more effective at everything else they do. Lodestone is built on that belief."