I attended the Smithsonian Storytelling Weekend in 2005. I learned a lot, met some of the giant of organizational storytelling and decided I wanted to return after I finished my dissertation to perhaps present my research.

I have submitted a proposal (on storytelling in the job search) to the Golden Fleece Day portion of the weekend and will update my vast audience of readers if it gets accepted.

Steve Dennning says that Smithsonian 2007 will about organizational conversations and will take place on May 4, 2007, in Washington, DC. Speakers will include Larry Prusak, Nancy Dixon, Peter and Mary Gergen, Madelyn Blair, and Denning. The aim is to turn the event itself into a conversation.

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First, I must give much credit to Stephanie West Allen who frequently posts to the Working Stories group with her monitorings of storytelling in the blogosphere.

And I must also acknowledge that my blog is not exactly timely when it comes to referencing Stephanie's sightings -- or anyone else's. I tend to blog in spurts, so my outcome is comprehensiveness and intertextuality rather than timeliness.

Having offered those disclaimers, I reference one of Stephanie's postings about a conference from fall 2006:

The conferees, Bioneers (who apparently seek “to bring biological pioneers together to restore the Earth”), offered workshops focusing on stories, such as “When Stories Change, the World Changes,” “Women Telling Our Stories and Promoting Justice,” and “Change the Story: New Strategies for Shifting Culture.”

From Energy Bulletin:

We are made of stories. Stories contain power. People don’t just tell stories. Stories tell us who we are and how to live. ~ James Ball, formerly of Fox TV and ABC, now with smartMemes

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Now I turn to Scobleizer, the blog referenced in the two entries below and some of the thoughts and ideas raised therein.

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Continuing my discussion about the article referenced in my previous entry, another commenter agreed that blogs are important component of recruiting, in some cases replacing the resume:

We've hired two people fresh out of college in the past 4 months that we found through their blogs - one didn't even have a formal resume. Frankly, he didn't need one. A blog trumps a resume every single time.

Think about it - a resume is 1 or 2 pages, of flat, static information. A blog is an interactive space where you can really see inside of a prospect's head - their ability to innovate, think, & communicate. You not only find out what they've done for work, but what their passions are, and frankly if they're the type of person you think would fit into your organization.

Our stance is that blogging is important - at least in our medium - and we are developing a strategy around it. We are conducting a search for a Marketing Director right now - if an applicant doesn't blog, or at least contribute heavily, it's fair to say that we are going to pass them by.

Yep, a resume is 1-2 pages of flat, static information. With a blog, you can really tell your story; yet, I still believe there may be a way to do the same with a resume -- or some hybrid -- a ResuBlog, if you will.

The discussion calls to mind one of my students, Tyler, who submitted a blog, Tyler's World, as his final project for my business-communication class. And heck, yeah, I'd hire Tyler based on this blog. I gave him a perfect score on it.

As an aside, I'm proud of this little bit of buy-in on blogging that I got from Tyler. The blog was pre-existing, but dormant, and he revived it for the class project. It might just take him places. Note to Tyler: The semester may be over, but feel free to keep up with your blog!

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In a comment posted to the article referenced in my previous entry, a poster wrote:

Resumes fail to show passion or adaptability in two pages. They also fail to show how a candidate may perceive dozens of different complex topics. To say I have ten years in project management would be fairly simple, but to point a potential employer to some of my writing over the past few years would be ten times more enlightening for both of us. Hopefully if they are truly interested - they will strike up a commentary with me and discuss my thoughts and talent regarding subjects that I find interesting.

Yes! Resumes DO fail to show passion and adaptability. That's why they need to include story.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Back in October, Dave Lefkow wrote an entry on ERE.net, an executive recruiters' site, that screamed out to me with its alignment with my research.

My Blog is My Resume (registration may be required to see the full article) talks about "the changing dynamics of the Web's second generation" and the implications of those dynamics for recruiters. But his article also has implications for job-seekers. Here are a few excerpts:

Privacy is no longer an issue. This generation seems quite comfortable publishing all of the gory details of their lives online. Some of these details will shock you. Get used to workers who are perfectly functioning members of the work world, but who perhaps make decisions in their personal lives that you find appalling.

Many job seekers, growing up in the level playing field that is the innovation economy, will often expect to be judged by their ideas, not their experience. Resumes will become irrelevant (or at best, a meaningless formality that describes your work history, not who you are). View this discussion on Robert Scoble's blog to see what I mean; it's the inspiration for the title of this article. If this attitude exists, outside of the system or not, think about whether you could even interview someone like Robert with your current process.

My quest is to discover or create the resume -- or whatever morphed form of the resume may evolve in the future -- that does tell who you are -- through storytelling. That's a big part of what my dissertation research has been about -- but I'm not there yet. I've learned that the resume is the hardest piece of career-marketing communication to turn into a storytelling vehicle.

Responding to other points in Lefkow's article, a respondent noted that the new generation still craves personal contact. Again, I think this is where storytelling comes into play. If we can learn each others' stories, we can increase the sense of personal contact.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

I'm not sure if gifts that prompt storytelling have always been available, or if I have just noticed them more since I've been interested in storytelling.

This year, for example, I've seen an "ingenious journal" that "jumpstarts the storyteller in everyone, sold by Norm Thompson and probably many others. "More than 100 'story starters' ask compelling questions and provide inspiration," the catalog description touts. At Solutions.com, we find Your Story: A Guided Interview Through Your Personal and Family History, which has 179 questions "that help to put together important details. And Femail Creations offers a game, Life Stories. "A fun game of telling tales and sharing smiles with family and friends will open a pathway to each other's hearts and souls," says the catalog copy.

I didn't purchase any of these for Christmas this year, but I did order other similar items.

Sometimes we need help telling our personal stories. I can see stories coming out of these products that would even be useful for the purpose I tout -- career advancement. It would be interesting to possess a passel of these products and compare their usefulness.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.