In a piece on the George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling site entitled "'Habits of the Heart' Storytelling and Everyday Life," Professor Hamish Fyfe asserts:

... what shockingly bad job the human race is doing of providing a space for all of us to express our cultures, sense of identity and vision for the future.

Fyfe contends that society's various ills – war, slavery, sexual abuse, and more – are shrinking our space in which to tell our stories.

I wonder, though, if the situation is not just the opposite – that the horrors of society have opened up the space. I keep coming back to 9-11 and how that terrible day multiplied our need to share our stories a millionfold.

We also have unprecedented means in which to tell our stories through all sorts of digital media and collaborative technology, as Fyfe demonstrates by including numerous links to digital stories in his piece.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Way back in the early days of this blog, I wrote about the new (to me) concept of the business novel and one I discovered while at a conference.

Barbara Fillip of Knowledge for Development, LLC, has recently written about business novels and provided a helpful list of examples. She had had the idea of using a business novel in a training/consulting situation: "We were looking for something innovative, not just another toolkit or cookbook and so I suggested that we develop a fictional country with fictional characters and a plot." The idea didn't fly with the powers that be, but she still feels it's a good idea. I do, too, and would love to use a business novel with college students someday.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

A couple of posted items talk about the value of telling your own story.

a goodman's wonderful newsletter, Free Range Thinking, tells of Dr. David Olds, founder of the Nurse-Family Partnership, which sends nurses into the home of low-income first-time mothers. As ambassador of the program, Dr. Olds was often called on to speak about it but reluctant to tell his own story of why he founded the organization (he had seen the effects in a daycare center on children for whom many problems could have been averted with early intervention).

Once Dr. Olds learned to tell his own story, he said, "Telling my story allowed my own sense of purpose and emotion to get communicated in the context of the presentation. As a result, I was a much more persuasive speaker."

Similarly, Karen Hegmann, as quoted by Neil Davey, talks about George Cohon of McDonald's and how he "used his history of how he got to where he was to help his employees connect with the company, to give them that sense of history." Bringing the personal into a company history resonates because of employees' ability to identify with the class archetypes of "the hero/leader, the obstacle that the hero has to face, and the antagonist that is trying to take over the organisation."

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

I frequently come across uses of storytelling that are tangential to my direct interests but are interesting nonetheless – uses I probably would not have thought of, though they certainly don't surprise me. Here are a few:

• Software development has the "user story," defined as "a very high-level definition of a requirement, containing just enough information so that the developers can produce a reasonable estimate of the effort to implement it." See Agile Modeling User Stories
• Similarly, software testing: Karen Johnson posts fascinating reflection on how storytelling might be applied to software testing, excerpted here:

  I felt surrounded by facts, stacks and stacks of facts. How many builds did we have before we shipped? How many defects have been found? On and on with the facts and metrics. I think the American culture is a bit obsessed with facts too – the daily paper is loaded with useful facts and stats like the stock market and sports page. The paper is also loaded with bizarre facts that I don’t know what to do with (like the first octopus with 6 legs was just found) fabulous but what am I supposed to do with this information? Facts roll out of my mind quickly, I don’t retain them. It’s like reading about the national deficit – interesting isn’t it that the larger the number the less meaning it seems to have and that without meaning the information doesn’t stick? I’ve grown restless with facts. My analytical brain has been saturated... I think part of me wanted to hear the stories I was missing, I missed the connection to the gory tales and details of the bugs.

• There's a huge amount of discussion about storytelling in games, especially videogames, which I find a little amusing because I love storytelling but loathe and detest games. An interesting discussion on the subject appears here. In the blog Man Bytes Blog, "Corvus" notes that "modern card games have very deep storytelling roots." He or she goes on to discuss the custom deck for Renown, a game that is played within Corvus's storyworld: "I wanted to design a deck that had deep cultural significance (within the storyworld) and that could be used for multiple purposes within the context of my games." I don't pretend to understand Corvus, but despite my loathing of games, I am intrigued. In the blog, Digital Worlds - Interactive Media and Game Design, Tony Hirst (I think) discusses the "argument between narratologists and ludologists on the role of story in games," addressing the question: "Do Game Players Tell, or Create, Stories?"


• In a similar vein, Archetype Storytelling Cards are available for "develop[ing] fascinating situations, random traits or even entire characters for your games and stories. Inspired by the Tarot, these lavishly illustrated cards embody universal concepts found in every person, object or situation you might encounter."
  

• Artist Joe Costello creates "Sandstory," which he describes this way: "Sand scattered on a light box is formed and reformed into ever changing shapes and images that tell visually powerful stories." More here.

• Hip-hop music. I don't follow hip-hop at all, but at the blog Stuntin' on Prose, "Hugh" says: "My favorite element of hip-hop is storytelling. Over the years I’ve heard countless tracks where the emcee paints a vivid picture giving us characters, a plot and even sometimes a twist ending." He goes on to list his 10 favorite storytelling hip-hop tracks.


• Proposal writing. Mike Brotherton's blog entry about using story in astronomy proposals reminds me of Robert S. Frey, who was a wonderful resource for my dissertation. A highly successful proposal writer, Frey has an article about using story in writing proposals (the PDF version no longer seems to be available, but the HTML version is here.)
  

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Each chapter of Alexandra Levit's new book, How'd You Score That Gig?, opens with a snippet of a story from someone in an interesting career. Levit then weaves the stories of several people who share each career (60 in total are profiled) throughout the chapter. Sidebar quotes from some of these folks in cool careers add to the narrative. The Web page for the book states:

On the college recruiting scene, the story is always the same. Despite a major that you thought was going to prepare you for a career in the real world, by the time you’re a senior you still have no idea what you want to do with your life. You visit the campus career center and are introduced to a bevy of consulting and banking firms, Fortune 500 staples, and advertising and public relations agencies that employ the “creative” types. You don’t want to go to graduate school right away and might not know what to go to graduate school for, so you interview for these jobs and inevitably accept one.

But what if there was another way? HOW'D YOU SCORE THAT GIG? features 60 cool jobs, divided into seven categories based on the broad personality types that are generally best-suited to those jobs. Author Alexandra Levit selected the cool jobs via an online survey in which she asked nearly 500 twenty and thirty-somethings to tell her about their dream careers. Based on the responses, she generated a list of the top 60 careers and constructed a comprehensive profile of each using the information she gathered from written sources and in-depth interviews with more than 100 real-world individuals currently holding the jobs.

Then, Levit researched various personality type measures to develop her seven “passion profiles” – adventurer, creator, data-head, entrepreneur, investigator, networker, and nurturer. Which one are you? Take the quiz at the beginning of the book to find out!

Mini-stories from the book also appear on the Web site. Levit has started a Facebook page for the book.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

True Mom Confessions is:

... a place where women [can] confess their fears, frailties and fantasies ... without any risk of judgment or consequence. ... We provided a simple platform, and now mothers from around the globe add their voices to the ever-evolving conversation about what motherhood really is .... not what it should be.

The site has also teamed up with Smith Magazine for a contest of 6-word Momoirs.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

One of my most significant storytelling interests is the idea of using stories to spark change. That's the concept behind the site Stories for Change, described this way:

Stories for Change aims to connect and extend the network of workshop facilitators and organizations that have come together in community-based digital storytelling workshops. The site provides a space for members and visitors to share their favorite curriculum ideas, post the stories they create, and engage in meaningful conversations around the stories they watch. The power of community digital storytelling workshops rests in their ability to inspire, connect, and incite action within and between local groups; the goal of Stories for Change is to further nurture that spirit online.

The site provides the opportunity to upload digital stories (216 populate the site at this writing) and has a nice Resources section, featuring Articles, Case Studies, Curricula, Links, Methodology, Presentations, and Tutorials. Forums on the site enable visitors to discuss the site and various aspects of digital storytelling for change. Digital storytelling events also are listed.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Came across a fantastic article by Ray George on brandchannel.com about how and why stories work in branding.

George kicks off the article by declaring: "If brands are an experience, then stories are an effective way to describe this experience to others." He adds:

Brands are also a balance between left brain and right brain thinking—they combine functional, rational aspects of the category (left brain) with a more emotional connection (right brain).

He compares two example organizational stories – one a vague a platitude-filled bit typical of what most organizations tell, the second a specific story that shows (instead of telling), the brand story the organization wants to convey.

Moving on to what makes a good story, George cites the common formula, Situation –≥ Action –> Results, which interestingly, is also a frequently recommended formula for job-interview and other job-search stories.

Thus, it becomes interested to apply George's concepts to personal branding. For each of the Situation –≥ Action –> Results (SAR) components, he offers these criteria:

Situation should be significant and specific.
Action should be brand-relevant and authentic.
Results should be both rational and emotional.

Let's analyze a job-interview response story from my book, Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling that Propels Careers, to see how these criteria apply:

Situation: Recently my firm was facing a huge turnover problem, especially in our technical staff because of lack of growth within the organization. No defined path was shared with the employees. To address the situation, I not only had a huge task of defining grades and identifying and compartmentalizing our employees’ growth needs but also a race against time.

George notes that the protagonist of the story, in this case the job-seeker, should hold some significance to the audience, in this case the interviewer. In this case, the candidate is interviewing for a position in human resources and has described s situation significant for an employer hiring an HR pro. George also asserts that the story must be specific, and here the job-seeker has detailed a very specific situation.

Action: I knew the tasks would be time consuming, but I set a deadline for each piece. I aggressively collected information on the employee growth needs by sending questionnaires via emails and reaching out to the workforce. I compiled the data and determined short-term and long-term achievable goals. I developed a small-projects subset of the bigger project. I designed a system so that we could track each other’s project and meet every day. The most prominent finding was lack of challenge at work. I decided to implement a leadership program, effectively identifying the top 10 to 25 percent of workers suitable for the program based on the performance reviews, peer-reviews, and qualifications. I set an aggressive target of 15 days each for each zone to complete this part of the survey.

George says that the action must be brand-relevant, summarizing key tenets of the brand. In the job-search situation, brand-relevant means summarizing key skills that comprise the personal brand. In the action segment above, the candidate has described his brand-relevant skills of goal-setting, organization, and innovation, among others.

George also notes that the action taken must be authentic – something that the audience can relate to. The candidate's description rings true to what a good HR manager can do in this situation.

Result: I met the deadlines, and by the end of a second month, we were ready with the budget for the training program, targeted pilot training group, location, and a trainer selected. We rolled out our first training on effective leadership, and by the end of the quarter, data showed that employees were now engaged and challenged. As a result, turnover was cut in half.

George offers the interesting dichotomy that the result should be both rational and emotional. Rational results are often quantified; in this case, the candidate reduced turnover by half. The emotional element is that employees were now engaged and challenged.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Gospel Light Worldwide wanted to tell the story of what it does "in a very real, engaging way." The organization enlisted Nims Media for its concept of creating a film around the children in the field who are using the GLW Bible-study curriculum. They made a film about "children who have found hope in Christ, adults who have devoted their lives to sharing the love of Jesus with children in their community."

I am neutral about the the group's mission but enthralled with the storytelling images on its Web site. You can go to this part of the site and click on beautifully produced clips of children worldwide. There is also a lovely photo gallery.

An interesting tie-in with storytelling is the children's understanding of Bible stories.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

I love the way blogger Michelle Panik O'Neill presented the story prompt she learned about at a workshop. If you go to this blog entry, you'll the see the above image, which you can click on to get an image big enough to read – a photo of a blog entry as a piece of paper in a typewriter. I found the prompt – about a button – charming as well.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Just about a year ago, Michael Margolis, Madelyn Blair, and Karen Dietz of the WorkingStories group surveyed member story practitioners to compile a collective picture of organizational and applied storytelling worldwide.

Although the results have yet to be formally analyzed, Michael has given me permission to share a preliminary snapshot here.

The survey's purpose was to ask...

• What is the evolving state of the field (of applied/organizational storytelling)?
• Where do we each come from, and what do we share in common?
• What issues/challenges might we want to organize around?

One-hundred-fifteen respondents from 10 countries around the world (Australia, Canada, Denmark, India, Israel, Netherlands, New Zealand, Switzerland, United States, and United Kingdom) completed the survey.

Most (57 percent) respondents are independent solo practitioners, with 24 percent claiming 2-10 employees, 6 percent with 11-50 employees, and 12.5 percent with larger enterprises of 100+ staff.

Key highlights from the quantitative portion of the survey:

Story practitioners prefer to describe themselves in their own words. When asked what best described your professional affiliation, the "other" category was filled to overflowing. Throughout the survey, a consistent ~ 20 percent expressed their ideas by using the "other" category.

Story is most often at the core of respondents' work. 45 percent use story as a core tool or technique. 30% use story as a support tool or technique, and 21 percent use story as an organizing principle.

While still an emerging field, a body of core practitioners is established. Of survey respondents, 56 percent of story practitioners have been in business for 10 or more years, and 48 percent have used story in their practice for more than 10 years.

Services are delivered and packaged in a range of formats. 74 percent provide workshops/training, 68 percent are professional speakers, 66 percent deliver consulting, 59 percent facilitate, 57 percent write, and 53 percent serve as coaches.

Culture is the most frequently mentioned application of story work. 68 percent apply story in culture work. This was followed by 55 percent applying story to training and 53 percent to change management. Conflict resolution, education, leadership development, and organizational development each came in respectively at 48 percent.

Story practitioners see results from their use of story. 74 percent reported that the results of their story work were "clarity and focus" and "strengthened relationships." 63 percent reported that a sense of unity was another derivative effect.

Knowledge sharing and collaboration head the activities that would motivate respondents to join and actively participate in an association focused on organizational storytelling showed (reported are the responses for "really motivates me" and "somewhat motivates me"):

Collaborating and sharing knowledge: 91 percent
Being part of a community: 84 percent
Gaining credibility/legitimacy for the field: 73 percent
Accessing forums/conferences/convenings: 72 percent
Finding new business: 71 percent
Sponsoring group research: 42 percent

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

I have for the past several years sought out the elusive "storytelling resume." Is it a version of the traditional resume, as I write about in my book? Is it a blog, as I've written about before, most recently here? Is it a social-media resume, as I've written about here? Several career professionals have told me they create story resumes, but their examples never seem to quite what I envision a storytelling resume to be (even though I'm still not quite sure what that vision is).

Perhaps the storytelling resume is like the snazzy, multimedia creations being touted by the site VisualCV, now in beta testing. These "documents" (and I hate to use that term because it suggests something static) can contain photographs, charts and graphs, video, audio clips, and additional documents (such as letters of recommendation or examples of your work).

The VisualCV of Kristen Wright, part of which is pictured above, includes a video clip of Kristen that helps you get to know her better, little mouseover popups about her employers and schools she attended, a bar graph showing her performance (that enlarges when you mouse over it), and downloadable PDFs that include samples of her work and letters of recommendation, all presented in an eye-catching and appealing design.

I'm still not sure if VisualCV is THE storytelling resume, but it tells more of the job-seeker's story than most I've seen.

When you go to the site, wait a few moments for the little Flash "commercial" to run, and then you can see a bunch of VisualCV samples that you can browse through.

Neat concept. I'll probably try it and report on my experience.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Apparently no one told her the story of what to expect.

Within the academic (and applied) literature is a concept called "Realistic Job Previews (RJPs)," which Wikipedia describes as

devices used in early stages of personnel selection to provide potential applicants with information on both positive and negative aspects of the job. The employee exchange or psychological contract between employer and employee is at the heart of the RJP concept. With an RJP, the employee enters into the contract with their eyes open, aware of what the organization will provide to them (pay, hours, schedule flexibility, culture, etc.) and also with their eyes open to what will be expected from them (late hours, stress, customer interaction, high urgency, degree of physical risk, etc.).

The idea is to reduce turnover by being totally upfront with candidates so they know what they're getting into. I've written before here about employers who make videos available to show what it's like to work for their organizations, but I suspect those are presented with a rather positive spin.

But in his blog, Build a Better Box, Steve Lovelace writes about a video version of the Realistic Job Preview:

One of our large corporate clients ... work[ed] with us to create a recent groundbreaking communications piece. Part "Scared Straight", part "What to Expect When You're Expecting", and part positive-spin marketing, the video demonstrated some typical on-the-job scenarios, depicted through a combination of realistic re-enactments and actual employee dialog through engaging interviews. The logic behind this bold tactic was that potential new employees would get a sneak preview of things to come before they accepted the position. The employer would realize tremendous savings in quarterly training and development, and potential employees would avoid being engaged in a job with which they'd not be comfortable. It's a win-win, and good karma would abound.

I agree. While any kind of video storytelling from employers that gives a flavor of organizational life is positive, those that tell the real story are the most valuable.

Interestingly, Eric Kramer has just reported in Kennedy Information's Recruiting Trends that a survey by the Novations Group finds 33 percent of surveyed companies lost 25 percent of their new employees in 12 months, and 11 percent of those surveyed lost 50 percent of their new employees in the first 12 months. The number one reason, say 48 percent of respondents is unrealistic expectations of the job.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Some encouraging news in the world of using story in teaching and learning...

The Washington Post recently featured The Story of Science series of textbooks for middle-schoolers by Joy Hakim.

The Post's Valerie Struass reports that the series:

tells the history of science with wit, narrative depth and research, all vetted by specialists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The first book is Aristotle Leads the Way," the second is Newton at the Center and the third is Einstein Adds a New Dimension. The series, which has drawn acclaim, chronicles not only great discoveries but also the scientists who made them. ... Constance Skelton, science coordinator for Arlington County schools, said teaching science through stories rather than unconnected snippets of formulas and information is gaining popularity. "If you talk to any first-rate scientist about a particular development, you will very quickly hear a narrative, because the way good scientists think about developments in their field is in terms of stories," science writer Timothy Ferris said. "Telling a story reminds you of how you got to your present state of knowledge," he said, and scientists constantly test whether those steps were reliable.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Claudia L'Amoureaux, education community developer for Linden Lab, the company behind Second Life, is one of the presenters at Storytelling, a Path to Innovation, an event in the Washington, DC, storytelling weekend planned for May 8-10.

In an interview with Steve Denning, L'Amoureaux discusses innovation and learning in the "metaverse," particularly the story space of Second Life (which I'll be writing more about in the future).

A snippet from the interview:

People are inventing new narratives that take on a life of their own, because people that they don't know yet can come there and inhabit the space, and leave their contributions. The story evolves.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Stephanie West Allen turned me onto a cool site called Bitstrips where you can create your own comics. Great for telling stories!

I created a sort of alter ego I call Kat Story, above.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

How can storytelling help you interpret your dreams? A new piece of research by Teresa DeCicco reveals a technique.

In her article, "What is the Story Telling? Examining Discovery with the Storytelling Method (TSM) and Testing with a Control Group," in the academic journal Dreaming, DeCicco notes that her research showed a "significant relationship" between word association and "dreamer discovery" when dreamers created a story after completing word association about their dreams. "Discovery, insight, and bridging to waking-day circumstances was more likely with [the storytelling method]," DeCicco writes. She found a "significant difference between a group that interpreted a dream with [the storytelling method] and those who used the method with word association alone."

DeCicco explains that:

Most dream interpretations are based on two guiding principles: (a) a description of the dream and (b) associations made by the dreamer on the basis of dream content... [The storytelling method] begins with these two fundamental steps and then expands on the basic principles by adding a third step to the process. The third step involves taking the associations and making a meaningful story from them. People make meaning from events based on their own lives in terms of their experiences, personality, and perceptions.

Here's a paraphrased, brief outline of the storytelling method of dream interpretation:

1. Write down the dream in as much detail as possible upon waking.

2. Underline the most important/salient phrases in the dream.

3. Make a list of underlined words.

4. Make an association with each word or phrase on the list.

5. Take the new list of associations and make a meaningful story from these words -- in the exact order they appear on the list.

6. Try to bridge this story to any situation in your waking life and journal about it based on insight from the dream. As questions such as:

• Does this story have meaning for you? Explain.


• Does this story relate to your waking life in some way? Explain.


• Does this story relate to any specific events in your waking life?


• Did this analysis give you any clear insights?


• If yes, write about that insight and how it relates to your life?







---


Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

 

Like many people, I had one of my first introductions into the world of job-hunting through Richard Bolles' perennial bestseller, What Color is Your Parachute? My earliest memory of this influential book is when I was participating in a job club in Knoxville, TN, in the 1970s.

Something I read recently on the Web reminded me that Bolles advocates storytelling in the job search. In the 2008 edition of the annually updated book, he even relates storytelling to blogging.

The exercise he recommends is called Seven Stories. He acknowledges resistance on the part of job-seekers to writing stories, and says he believed job-hunters didn't like to write until blogging came along. The ubiquitousness of blogging convinced Bolles that we are a writing people, so he now advises folks to think of the Seven Stories as offline blog entries.

Bolles says each story should include:

• Your goal: what you wanted to accomplish.


• Some kind of hurdle, obstacle, or constraint that you faced.


• A description of what you did, step by step.


• A description of the outcome or result.


• Any measurable or quantifiable statement of that outcome that you can think of.

Bolles then asks job-seekers to analyze their stories for the transferable skills used in the story. At the end of the Seven Stories exercise, Bolles recommends deciding which skills are your favorites and prioritize them.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Boomoirs is a site to collect and share the stories of baby boomers. Discovering the site -- through Stephanie West Allen -- was timely because my husband and I were just having a discussion about the new social-networking site for "boomers," BoomJ, which has publicized a demographic group we've never heard of -- Generation Jones. Here's what BoomJ has to say about the categories of Boomers:

Baby Boomers were born 1942 to 1953; we associate their youth with Howdy Doody, Davy Crocket hats, and later, Woodstock and Vietnam War demonstrations.

Generation Jones, born 1954 to 1965, is a newer concept and name that represents the actual children of the sixties (more wide-eyed than tie-dyed); Jonesers were weaned on The Brady Bunch and Easy Bake Ovens and later were the teens of 70’s heavy metal, disco, punk and soul.

... Jonesers were originally mistakenly lumped in with Boomers simply because of shared high birth rates, but generational personalities stem from shared formative experiences, not head counts. The dramatically different formative experiences of Boomers and Jonesers created two very different generational personalities. We at Boomj.com “get” Boomers and Jonesers, the differences as well as the similarities.

I think this Generation Jones thing may be a ploy by BoomJ to get slightly younger members. I prefer to stick with the classic Boomer bracket of 1946 to 1964. The Brady Bunch was clearly after my time (insert haughty sniff here].

Anyway, here's what Boomoirs has to say about sharing stories on its site:

You know all those stories you tell your kids about when you were growing up? Tell us, too.

When you get together with old friends, do you reminisce about the good old days? Do you out-brag each other over who attended the coolest concert, drove the hottest car, had the best haircut, or highest-stacked heels?

What was the highlight of your Baby Boomer life? Your defining moment? Your 15 minutes of fame?

Send us your stories and photos and we’ll publish them on the soon-to-be-launched Boomoirs.com. Anything from 100 words and up – a quick anecdote to a boomer memoir with a photo or two are welcome.

You can also subscribe to a weekly Boomoirs newsletter.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

I'm looking for 10 people to profile on 10CareerStories.com and have a bunch of questions.

Looking for folks in these categories:

• Teenager/high-school student planning a career


• College student seeking career


• New college grad


• Twentysomething worker seeking more meaning in your career


• MBA/grad student seeking job


• Mid-career changer seeking a new career


• Homemaker returning to the workforce


• Fired/downsized worker seeking new job


• Entrepreneur returning to the workforce


• Baby Boomer/mature worker seeking job/career

If you fit and would like to answer the questions, please go to the questionnaire.

(http://www.quintcareers.com/career-stories-profile.html)

Thank you!

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Just a quick note to say that I have added a few entries to my section Story Log, my running list of storytelling in marketing and pop culture.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

StoryMaker describes itself as

a simple tool for creating digital stories. Using audio, pictures and text you can create storyboards, slideshows and much much more. To create your own StoryMaker file, just click on the ‘Create a new StoryMaker file’ button below and follow the instructions that follow. You will be asked to input some data and upload your audio file. You audio file can be anything from music to conversation and your images can be absolutely anything you want. Once you do this you are free to proceed to StoryMaker and let your imagination run wild! Your StoryMaker files can be created in one visit to StoryBox or can be saved and worked over several visits. Once you are happy with your work you can add your story to StoryBox to share with others.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Through May 1, the Art League of Daytona Beach has an exhibit called Storytellers featuring the work of five women artists whose works share strong narrative qualities, according to curator Robin Moore, as quoted by Laura Stewart in the Daytona Beach News Journal.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Decided to add to my original entry below about obituaries when I read Joanna Moorehead's story in The Guardian about German photographer Walter Schels who

thinks it not only odd, but wrong that death is so hidden from view. Aged 72, he's also keenly aware that his own death is getting closer. Which is why, a few years ago, he embarked on a bizarre project. He decided to shoot a series of portraits of people both before and after they had died. The result is a collection of photographs of 24 people - ranging from a baby of 17 months to a man of 83 - that goes on show in London next week. Alongside the portraits are the stories of the individuals concerned, penned by Beate Lakotta, Schels' partner, who spent time with the subjects in their final days and who listened as they told her how it felt to be nearing the end of their lives.

You can see these eerie photos and read the stories here.

William Hageman of the Chicago Tribune says we are increasingly fascinated by obituaries. One piece of evidence was 2006's The Dead Beat in which author Marilyn Johnson wrote about obits and obituary writers. Newer evidence (long after Hageman pronounced us fascinated by obits) was the news that media outlets are writing advance obits for younger and younger celebrities (e.g., the Associated Press's Britney Spears obit), ironically released the same day actor Heath Ledger died at 28.

Hageman says we are increasingly inspired to write our own obits – to tell of our experiences, pass on our wisdom, tell our stories. I have definitely spotted the personal style in the obits of a couple people I've known who died too young.

I know I plan to write mine. My main motivation is avoid the standard cliches, such as "after a long struggle/battle with cancer." While I may have no awareness of it, it would pain me greatly in the afterlife to know that my obit was trite and hackneyed.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

I've added these guys to my Storytellers section, but their stuff is too gorgeous not to do a whole entry on.

They are Oscar and Kartika of S1 Weddings, who describe themselves as "in love with each other, and passionate in capturing weddings and lifestyle portraits." They reside in a northwest suburb of Chicago.

Their Web site and their wedding photography itself are simply stunning and beautiful. They tell breathtaking visual love stories.

They also have a blog, about which they say: "We will share our personal and professional life through this blog. we believe all weddings and couples are unique, and there are stories to tell through our images."

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Harry Bingham, who blogs at Toasting Napoleon, has announced that he has a publishing deal to write a book with the provisional title of The Storytelling Ape. Here's how he describes it:

The book will deal with why humans tell stories; what role narrative plays for us; and how these things ought to affect the way we go about reading fiction.

Bingham notes that he was excited when he first pitched the book, but is now "very, very excited." He goes on:

There's just so much to write about. Fields like evolutionary linguistics, evolutionary psychology, [and] neuroscience are just fizzing with ideas on these topics, in a way they just weren't 15 years or so ago. What's more, although there are popular books written for the lay reader on individual topics in these areas, no one has ever joined the dots the way I'm hoping to.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

One of my favorite pieces of information that I get via e-mail is the monthly trend briefings from Trendwatching.com. This month's is on Status Stories. Here's how Trendwatching defines them:

STATUS STORIES: As more brands (have to) go niche and therefore tell stories that aren't known to the masses, and as experiences and non-consumption-related expenditures take over from physical (and more visible) status symbols, consumers will increasingly have to tell each other stories to achieve a status dividend from their purchases. Expect a shift from brands telling a story, to brands helping consumers tell status-yielding stories to other consumers.

The report notes that "It is ... up to the customer to tell a story, any kind of story, with the brand providing the ingredients." Certainly that's the branding idea behind marketers' use of social media – to get buzz and encourage consumers to tell the branding story.

These Trendwatching reports are always comprehensive and loaded with examples and images.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

The wonderful Moth is offering subscriptions to receive one free story per week to listen to at your leisure on your iPod/MP3 player or your computer.

From The Moth:

We have collected a number of our favorite stories from the last 10 years, some of which you may never have heard.

Available for download are a story by Dan Kennedy from the Bumbershoot festival in Seattle last fall. It has never been featured in New York, as well as a short backlog of Moth favorites, including stories by Malcolm Gladwell, Alan Rabinowitz, and Elna Baker.

The Moth asks subscribers who like what they hear to tell their friends, alert the world outside New York, rate The Moth or write a short review on iTunes. "This is a big moment for us, and as you may know, a strong launch is key to a successful podcast. Help us get the word out. We will love you forever!" The Moth says.

• Dan Kennedy is the author, most recently, of Rock On: An Office Ballad.
• Malcolm Gladwell is the author, most recently, of Blink.
• Alan Rabinowitz is the Director for Science and Exploration for the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society.
• Elna Baker's book The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance is coming out in 2009.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Steve Denning interviewed Procter & Gamble's (former? Denning uses past tense) senior manager, learning technologies, Linda Coffman, who is speaking on Friday, May 9, at the Smithsonian Associates Organizational Storytelling Weekend. Here are 5 things I learned from the interview about organizational storytelling at P&G:

1. Global Learning and Development, the branch in which Coffman is involved, is investigating new Web 2.0 technologies to tell stories.
2. Coffman started a virtual book club that includes a blog by a senior company leader who is also a subject-matter expert for the book.
3. P&G has a corporate storyteller, Jim Bangle, who has collected or authored more than 100 stories. Bangle tells some of these stories as podcasts.
4. Coffman has developed four pilot projects to assess ways of enhancing the use of storytelling for knowledge transfer, drawing from 100 stories that fit many business areas and situations.
5. An example story that Coffman tells Denning is intended to illustrate to P&G workers that "what [they] do in P&G matters, that it changes people's lives." The story, about a woman in a low-income area in India buying P&G sanitary napkins for her daughter, "uses a combination of video, and still images, a voice of narration and background music to support the emotion."

Parts 1 and 2 of Linda Coffman interview

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

The Wall Street Journal's Sarah Needleman recently reported on how blogs are changing the recruiting landscape (this article may not be available free to nonsubscribers for long).

Recruiters are surfing blogs not only for expertise in bloggers' career fields but for writing skills and well-roundedness, Needleman reports. The article discusses whether a blogger should be open in his or her blog about seeking a job. Some say yes, some say no, but I've certainly seen a number of examples of folks getting jobs through directly asking for them in their blogs.

The article's sidebar below is instructive for blogger who are open to being headhunted:

7 Tips for Making Your Blog Recruiter-Friendly

1. Clearly identify your specialty. Include a tagline in your blog's banner so its theme can be quickly recognized. Also, write a concise "about me" blurb that readers can easily find.


2. Show you're current on hot topics. For example, relate a recent news item about your area of expertise to a project you completed and link to tangible evidence of your work, such as a press clipping or PowerPoint presentation.


3. Provide more information. Include a downloadable resume and if you have a profile on a networking site such as LinkedIn.com, link to it.


4. Exercise common sense. Never write about anything negative or proprietary concerning current or former employers.


5. Omit personal information. Unless it's relevant to the job you want, avoid writing about how much you love Fido or the cute things your kids do.


6. Keep it polished and current. Post new entries at least three times a month to show that you're committed.


7. Contribute to other blogs. Insert an inbound link to your blog to draw more traffic and boost its search-engine rankings.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Some fairly recent blog entries talk about the emotional impact of storytelling and persuasion. Kenrick E. Cleveland offers several postings, highlights of which include:

Stories have been used to elicit emotional responses, whether by design or by accident, since the beginning of man and some of the best stories are extraordinarily moving. ... When we tell stories in business and when selling, we need to keep in mind the emotional state the story is going to put our prospect in. When we're persuading, we're really using stories to control emotional states.

Cleveland also talks about having "an arsenal of emotionally persuasive and powerful stories at our ready at all times."

In another entry, he talks about personal stories, saying, "I contend that personal is exactly what people crave."

Kevin Dugan echoes Cleveland in a posting about stories, emotion, and public relations. "Telling your own story is great practice for doing it on the job," Dugan says, hitting home with my ideas on storytelling and career.

I have my students develop "Who Am I?" stories. While these stories in themselves may not be directly useful in the job search, they are, as Dugan asserts, excellent practice for the self-awareness and authenticity needed to propel one's career. A superb example that combines emotion with revelation about personal qualities comes from a former student of mine named Kellie. You can read her wonderful story beginning here.

Dugan notes, however, that in PR, "the use of fact and emotion in a story is critical... A message focusing just on emotion can be easily dismissed. At the same time, isolated facts are not remembered easily by an audience. In a world cluttered with messages competing for audience time and attention, stories and our messages require both elements to be effective."

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

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Kevin Dugan posted on the blog Strategic Public Relations some pretty compelling evidence for the growth of storytelling in business: The fact that in a search on the site SlideShare, more than 500 results come up in a search for "storytelling." (Well, actually, he said more than 400, but that was 6 weeks ago).

There's some good stuff there, too. Lots of slideshows about storytelling especially digital storytelling, as well as presentations that ARE stories, like the one posted here, rather than about storytelling. I chose the one featured here because it's very well done and kind of career-related.

Of course, there are at this writing some 6,550 videos on YouTube that come up in a search for "storytelling," but that'll be the subject of another entry.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

I don't claim to totally understand Tom Atlee's concept of Story Felds, but here's his definition:

a particularly powerful field of influence generated by a story or, more often, by a coherent battery of mutually reinforcing stories – myths, news, soap operas, lives, memories, games – and story elements – roles, plots, themes, metaphors, goals, images, events, archetypes – that co-habit and resonate within our individual and/or collective psyches.

A story field ubiquitously frames what is real, acceptable, and possible, and directly shapes our lives and our world, often without our even being aware of its influence.

Atlee likens Story Fields to culture, and as such, they can be changed. As he writes, here, Atlee notes: "When social change movements arise from a truly positive vision, they stand in contrast to but not primarily in opposition to the status quo. Thus they do little to empower that status quo, while at the same time inviting those who are ready for change, into the new story field."

He suggests a number of strategies for how to translate a social-change movement's "positive visions into positive story fields capable of shaping a new culture."

Perhaps the shorthand for this concept would be: Change the story, change the culture.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.

Storytelling continues to emerge in academic research about organizational life.

A recent issue of Group & Organization Management (Vol. 33, No. 2; find it through an academic library database) features John F. McCarthy's "Short Stories at Work: Storytelling as an Indicator of Organizational Commitment," in which he notes that:

Findings here illustrated that storytelling was strongly associated with organizational commitment and indicated that stories continue to play an important role in conveying values and complex messages across organizational boundaries.

Entry by Kathy Hansen. Learn more.